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December 10, 2006
[Modest CHRISTMAS PRESENTS for DIGISNAPPERS]
DEAR SANTA, we might as well be realistic here. You probably don’t think we’ve been good enough this year to merit a Canon EOS5D with image stabilised zoom lens at $6000 or thereabouts, so we had better pitch our list closer to our 2006 virtue quotient. Say $50, give or take a buck.
The digital snapper in your life can never get too much portable memory, so a memory card is always acceptable. The price per megabyte has come 
tumbling down in the past 12 months and with a little bit of luck the loved one won’t know this and will think you have spent $140 on your gift instead of this year’s price of $40. If the loved one uses SD cards then you’re in luck -- a 1 gigabyte card costs $39. 1gb CF cards cost $45 and the bad news is that your Sony, Olympus or Fuji-using pal will break the $50 limit. XD cards and Memory Sticks cost about $70 for 1gb. (These prices are all taken from various Green Guide advertisements.)
Speaking of memory cards, if the significant other in your life is still transferring photos direct from camera to PC then that person stands in need of a memory card reader. Prices vary greatly but a reader for a single card type should cost no more than $15. The card reader plugs into a USB port and the computer sees it as another external drive.
USB dongles -- those handy little memory sticks that plug into a USB port -- have also dropped 
dramatically in price, driving the final nail into the coffin of the floppy disc. How did we ever run our sneaker-nets on 1.4mb portable memory media? These days a 1mg USB dongle will set Santa back a mere $40.
Digital photographers never have enough storage capacity, so for someone who has been really good this year Father Christmas might be prepared to leap the $50 barrier and come across with a $110 LaCie Brick Mobile hard drive that plugs into a USB port and will boost the PC storage by a useful 40gb.
Photo Review Australia continues to be our favourite photography magazine because of Margaret Brown’s excellent, objective, technically detailed camera reviews. It is a quarterly publication and a year’s subscription is $33, which includes a chance to win a camera. Look for the current edition -- Summer 2006 -- in the newsagents or check www.photoreview.com.au The current issue has reviews of new cameras from Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Panasonic, Kodak and others. Terrific value for money with good how-to articles and photo essays on the work of outstanding photographers.
Our Small Photo Application of the Year is the New Zealand software, DVDPixplay. It is downloadable from XEQUTE and costs U$29.50. This software 
turns digital image files into slideshows for replay on a DVD player, either in a computer or via television. It has all the desirable effects for slide transitions and the so-called “Ken Burns” pan and zoom animations. Adding images and sounds is a simple drag and drop operation. DVDPixplay has all the features of more expensive American alternatives.
And it goes without saying that DVD blanks are always acceptable. Buy the brand names.
For anyone with a Canon Pixma printer there could hardly be a better present than one of the Canon Photo Album Kits. The kit consists of a stylish binder and 10 sheets of double sided paper. The paper has a beautiful, rich satin finish and photos printed 
on it look sensational. The A4 kit costs $40 and the 13 by 18cm kit is $30 rrp. The binder can take up to 20 double sided sheets and the additional paper is sold as Canon Photo Paper Plus double sided satin.
Printer consumables always make acceptable gifts. High quality third party inkjet papers, such as Ilford’s excellent range, produce good results on all printers.
The little gadget that we acquired this year that has proven to be the most useful and money saving device is our Sanyo Eneloop battery charger and rechargeable AA and AAA batteries. Before we got the Eneloops we were sceptical of rechargeables, finding that they would go flat over night in storage or after very little use. We put four Eneloops into the Pentax K100D DSLR that we were reviewing in September and took 603 photos, at which point we sent the camera back but the batteries still had kick in them. Using rechargeables is good for the environment, cutting down on the billions of batteries that get dumped in landfill every year. To find out more about Eneloops and information about retailers go to the Master Instruments web site. A set of four Eneloop batteries, either AA or AAA, costs $25. The charger has a rrp of $40.
Our prize for Ripper Digiphoto Present of the Year goes to the Puzzle-It jigsaw puzzle making service. To turn one of your prize photos into a jigsaw puzzle you simply upload the file using the company’s web site and specify the size a
nd complexity of the puzzle. There are two sizes, A4 and A3. The A3 puzzle has 300 pieces and costs $26. The A4 size can be cut to 20, 50 or 150 pieces costing $17, $18 and $20. The puzzle comes in a box with a reproduction of the picture stuck to the lid. Service is quick and the quality is excellent. The only problem we found with PuzzleMe is that we were forced to use Microsoft Internet Explorer to make credit card payments. As a dedicated Firefox user we were not amused.
Finally, some advice for Christmas Day. Put your camera on “burst” mode, hold you finger down on the shutter release and take hundreds of pictures. They cost nothing, which is one of the reasons for going digital in the first place. If you take enough photos there is a chance that Aunty Edna will look as though she is enjoying herself in at least one of them.
Posted by terry at December 10, 2006 11:43 PM
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