- The holiday season is rapidly approaching,
it's barreling down on us like a runaway train,
and finding the right gift can be tough,
especially if you wanna find something
that's genuinely useful,
but also stay within a budget.
So I wanted to help you out by giving my top five
photo video gift ideas that are all under %50.
So if you've got someone in your life
who's into photo and video gear,
these are all awesome gift ideas.
And this is totally not a sponsored video,
I purchased all these products myself,
and most importantly, I actually use them regularly.
Most of them I use every single week, multiple times.
A lot of them I use in every single video I make,
and some of them I use every single day.
The first item on my list is probably the most underrated
piece of equipment I own,
which is the Manfrotto Pixi Mini Tripod.
This thing is absolutely amazing,
it's super strong, super simple to use.
It works great for cameras, lights, microphones,
really anything that takes a quarter 20 mount.
It is a ball mount, but there are no plates,
there are no knobs, there are no dials,
there's just one button.
You push this button, position it how you want,
let go, and then it stays there.
It's so simple and so efficient, and it's really sturdy,
all metal construction.
It can hold a surprising amount of weight,
it can definitely support a DSLR Camera to some degree,
but it's definitely made for you know,
a little bit lighter items than that.
And even though this can't hold a surprising amount
of weight, my favorite pairing is to put the Sony RX100
on top of it, and this is a great little simple rig
that goes pretty much anywhere,
takes up no space, doesn't weigh anything.
The best part about this little tripod
is that it usually comes in under $20.
So it's not even a bad idea to have maybe a couple
of these around because you can use them
for so many different things.
The next holiday recommendation under $50
are these red cable whips.
You might have seen these before,
but these little tiny red cable whips serve like
a thousand purposes,
I pretty much keep a stockpile of them on hand at all times.
They come in a 12-pack, usually for about $10.
They're great for all kinds of cable management,
whether it's keeping things neat in a bag,
or a drawer, or keeping things organized under a desk,
or if you got a light or a microphone setup
that has the cable,
you can use these whips to just sort of keep the cable tied
to the boom arm that it's on, and then it won't
fall down into your shot,
or get in the way.
You can really never go wrong with having a few
of these in your camera bag.
They don't break easily like rubber bands
and they're a lot faster to use
compared to traditional Velcro clips.
So these little cable whips are incredibly useful
and they last a really long time.
The next item on my list is this filter case by Mindshift.
So filters for your lenses can be shockingly expensive,
so you definitely do wanna take of them,
but unfortunately if you pack them all in their own
individual containers and cases,
they kind of become annoying to travel
with because they take up so much space
in your bag.
So this small little organizer keeps everything
organized by color.
It's semi-rigid, so it's not easy to crush or bend,
but it also doesn't take up a lot of space.
I keep all of my 77 millimeter ND Filters in here,
my Polar Pro Non-Variable Lens,
and then my Variable ND,
and I just put this in my bag anytime I travel.
It fits great in a camera bag,
it's got a super small footprint, it even has a little,
oops, see it protected them when they fell.
It even has a little, oh my God,
and it usually retails for around $30 or $40
and it's made out of super strong material
that's not gonna rip a break anytime soon.
Mine's a couple years old and still looks
the same as it did the day I took it out of the box.
The next item on my holiday list is gaff tape,
and even if you're not using it for photo
and video purposes,
you can really never go wrong with having
a roll of gaff tape around the house.
It's got the strength of like duct tape,
or almost gorilla tape,
but it doesn't leave any residue.
So when you take a piece of it and put it onto
any surface, or even onto clothing, or skin,
or carpet, it doesn't leave residue when you take it off
and it's easy to remove in one piece,
so it's not damaging at all.
It's great for using on equipment,
it's great for keeping cables out of the way,
it's great for taping microphones under clothing,
I've used it on costumes even.
One of the best benefits of gaff tape
if you didn't notice is it super easy to tear
with just your hands,
and it tears in a straight line.
Once you've got a strip it's even easier to tear
it into smaller pieces,
like my super sad little tree here,
I can see, holiday gaff tape.
Up next is a delightful gift idea
which is this little Aputure M9 Mini Light.
This little light of mine Aputure
does make a lot of much, much, more expensive
lighting equipment, but this thing is what sold me
on them being a good company because this is under $50,
but it packs such a punch.
It is incredibly bright,
so if I turn it on, that's just sort of how
bright it is, and I can change the brightness on the side.
So much so that I can't even look
into it 'cause it's so bright.
And of course you can dim it down.
So this is incredibly useful is super small,
so it fits in your bag, it's super lightweight,
it charges with USB, the battery lasts a long time.
A lot of times I end up putting it in this little cabinet
back here when I'm filming my videos,
so that the cabinet has some light shining behind it.
And that's what's really great with these lights
is they can add little accents all over the place,
and so for the price you not only get the light,
but you get a little case
that it comes in, you get the USB charging cord.
It has a mount that lets you clip it onto a hot shoe
or a light stand, or pretty much anything.
So you can mount this light anywhere,
it doesn't weigh anything,
and it also does come with a couple of gels,
which are really cool 'cause the front diffuser
is just held on with magnets,
and so you just put the gel on the light,
put the diffuser back on, and then when you
turn it on you've got color temperature blue,
and color temperature orange.
And of course you can put any color gel
that you want, but this, I love magnets,
I love anything that deals with magnets.
So I've used this in like every video
for a long time,
I would love to have several more of these.
This is one of the best gift ideas you can have.
One of my favorite things to do with this
is to set it sort of just off-camera
and add in little lighting effects.
I love to hide it around products when I'm doing
B-Roll shots or thumbnail photos.
So that way instead just having a product by itself
you can put the light behind it, and then in your shot
or in your thumbnail you've sorta got this,
sort of interesting bit of lighting design taking place.
For $50, under $50, I really don't think
that you could find a better light.
And so those are five holiday gift recommendations,
but what would a top five video be
without a few bonus items?
Plus it was super hard for me to make a list
of only five things,
and bonus items let me sneak in a couple other things.
So bonus item number one, a Swiss Army knife.
So this isn't directly camera related,
but you really can't go wrong with having a good
Swiss Army knife around, and if you've ever shopped
for one or looked at them,
they make so many different models it's really overwhelming
'cause they come with different tools.
This one is the one I prefer, it's the Tinker,
and it has all of the standard Swiss Army knife essentials,
but it has a few key things, including multiple flatheads,
which are helpful for putting on tripod and camera gear.
It's got a pair of scissors that seem a little bit larger
than most pocket knives,
so that's really helpful.
And the piece that's most helpful to me is it comes
with a pair of pliers.
These have saved me so many times when I'm not here
and I'm out somewhere on a trip and something gets stuck
or jammed or needs to be tightened,
these little pliers really do a lot.
So a nice Swiss Army knife like this can really help solve
a lot of those unexpected problems that pop up,
like during production, or on a trip,
or just when you find yourself away from normal tools.
And the final bonus gift recommendation is a little bit
silly, but it's these little tiny levels
that go in your camera's hot shoe or your accessories shoe.
They seem sort of goofy at first, they're super cheap,
they usually come in like a four-pack or an eight-pack,
they're only a few dollars,
but they're so handy.
Every time someone uses my camera and they see this
on top of it, they comment on it and they end up
really liking it and wanting them for themselves.
So it's nice they come in a multi-pack
because you'll end up giving a bunch of them away.
But as silly as they seem,
these can be surprisingly useful.
I got mine originally because I just wanted to keep dust
from getting into my camera's accessory shoe.
I live in the desert and it's super dusty,
and dust in cameras just isn't really a good thing.
But even if you're using a tripod that has a level,
sometimes we have your camera mounted
on top of it, it blocks your view of the level,
so having this on top of your camera
really makes a pretty big difference.
Plus if you use a ball head a lot,
like I do on my travel tripod,
this makes it very easy to help ensure that your camera
is level no matter what kind of weird angle
the ball head is at, and every time I use it I'm kind
of shocked at how useful this is.
It's a great little stocking stuffer gift.
So matter who the photo and video enthusiast
is in your life, there's gotta be something
on this list that they're gonna like
and they're gonna enjoy,
and my favorite part about giving gifts
like these is that they're genuinely useful
to whoever you give them to, but if none of these gift ideas
are really lighting up your Christmas lights,
I do have a couple other ideas,
things like subscriptions to Artlist and Epidemic,
can be incredibly useful to people who produce video.
I do have a video that explains the differences
between those two services,
and also highlights a few other
super-affordable subscription services
that might also be the perfect holiday gift,
so good luck in your quest to survive
the holiday season.
(upbeat music)