Christmas Gift Guide 2022: 15 gadget gift ideas for photographers

Our pick of the best Christmas gifts for photographers

LowePro Trekker Lite BP 250 AW

• Buy the LowePro Trekker Lite BP 250 AW here (£160)

Unwrapped some shiny kit? Tempting as it is to cuddle your equipment, juggling lenses won’t end well. Stash it in this travel pack for safer hauling. Lightweight at 1kg, its padded insert fits a full-frame mirrorless camera, plus a pair of barrels. Straps let you attach a tripod to the front, while a waterproof cover shields your gear. It also incorporates recycled ripstop, to help preserve landscapes for future shooting.

• Our pick of the best Christmas gadget gifts for nomads and explorers

NanLite Pavotube T8-7X

Elderly relatives might approve of portraits as presents, but a stuffy selfie is no way to flex your creative muscles. Mix up your mugshots with this metre-long pixel tube. Powered by built-in batteries, it can shine in a range of rainbow shades. Set saturation to solid for custom ambience, or use the app to tweak hues and effects for dynamic long exposures. Because nothing impresses grandparents like a light painting.

Pivo Pod Lite

It takes more than an impressive portfolio to make it as a photographer nowadays. Without self-promotion, your snaps will languish in wilderness of unseen stills. Need an assistant to improve your Insta game? Stick your smartphone in this motion-tracking mount and you’ve got an instant camera crew. Paired with the partner app, it uses AI smarts to keep you centre frame as you shimmy through 360 degrees. Pose mode helps with self-portraits, while creative settings can take your TikToks and timelapses to the next level. Need swifter swivelling? The Pivo Pod turns twice as fast and ships with a remote.

Benro Tablepod Flex Kit

• Buy the Benro Tablepod Flex Kit here (£140)

Wobbly legs are usually the last thing you want from a tripod. But bendable limbs let this compact stand hook into all sorts of sports. Hidden inside its carbon-fibre stems, the alternative feet can switch in for instant flexibility. Swap the lot for a wraparound setup, or combine with the rigid stands for stability to suit any shoot. A bundled lock ring also limits the strain on the supple supports.

DJI Osmo Mobile 6

Modern smartphones make cinematic video accessible. But your festive film project won’t get far if shivering mitts create a shake-fest. Bung your blower in this gimbal for footage that’s smooth as ice. Foldable for portability, its three-axis stabilisation works in sync with DJI’s Memo app to track subjects and steady shots. And if your fingers aren’t frozen, you can use its scroll wheel to manually tweak focus and focal length.

TourBox Elite

Editing a sleigh-load of Christmas snaps is tough enough, without straining your hand to reach keyboard shortcuts. Make lighter work of your latest batch with this compact desktop console. Palm-sized and wireless, it features an array of knobs, controls and scroll wheels within easy reach, for granular adjustment, one-touch shortcuts and swift tool switching. Compatible with a range of creative apps, each input can be mapped to suit your workflow.

GoPro Hero 11 Black

Hitting the slopes this season? GoPro’s pared-back action cam will record your runs without distracting from the downhill fun. Tiny but tough, it swaps touchscreens for a simple two-button setup. Two pairs of fold-out fingers make it easier to mount to your lid, where it sits light while shooting 5.3K footage at 60fps. AutoBoost smarts detect how much stabilisation to apply, with Hypersmooth 5.0 glossing over moguls. Horizon Lock also keeps scenery level through slalom turns. Highlights are sent straight to your smartphone, so you can share on the chairlift, then watch the likes roll in at the après bar.

Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 2

Instant photos aren’t complete without a marker pen caption. But what if you don’t have a doodler to hand? Besides spitting out physical snaps the size of a credit card, this wireless printer works like a magic wand. Fire up the AiR mode in the Mini Link smartphone app, choose a brush and wave it to make shapes. Your aerial artwork will appear as an overlay on the resulting print.

• The best retro gadget gift ideas for nostalgic nerds

ShiftCam SnapGrip

Slender dimensions might be positive for your pocket, but all-day framing demands a good handle. Get a better grip on mobile photography with this ergonomic MagSafe attachment. Besides a sculpted hilt for your fingers, it equips your iPhone with a shutter button and backup battery. Rotatable for portrait or landscape content, the handle itself doubles up as an angled stand. It also works with ShiftCam’s tripod mount and light ring.

Magnum Dogs

You know the tiny barrel borne by St Bernards? Some say it was built to carry rolls of film. True or not, what’s clear from this coffee table tome is that dogs are a photographer’s best friend. Fresh from the archives of the fabled agency, Magnum’s tribute to furry friends features 180 pages of photogenic hounds – all captured by its accomplished snappers. From pooch portraits to canine candids, the compendium’s sure to set your tail wagging.

Nikon Z30

From turkey tutorials to decorating demos, Christmas is a busy time for content creators. Need help wrapping your Yule vlogs? Small enough to fit in a stocking, Nikon’s Z30 captures 4K footage using the full width of its 20.9MP sensor. Its vari-angle touchscreen is a gift for shooting solo, while stereo mics ensure audio is crisp and even. Plus a red indicator light shines bright like Rudolph when you’re recording.

Cooph Rope Hand Strap

• Buy the Cooph Rope Hand Strap here (€53)

Using tinsel as a camera strap might add festive cheer to seasonal shoots, but one snapped strand and your sensor will be glitter. For sturdier support to see you through the year, try this leather-tipped leash. Crafted from rugged climbing rope, its adjustable loop wraps securely around one wrist. Attached by a steel ring and designed to fit all sorts of snapper, it should save Santa from replacement cam requests.

• The best gadget gifts and stocking fillers for £20 or less

SanDisk Pro Reader Multi Card

Your snaps might be cool, but glacial transfer rates will soon have you hot and bothered. For rapid offloads with zero sweat, stick your memory cards in this premium reader. Connected to your laptop or tablet via USB-C, it can copy photo files from CF, SD and microSD cards at up to 5Gbps. A write lock switch stops you torching important files, while an aluminium casing deals with the heat.

Lomography Fisheye No. 2 Acapulco La Quebrada

• Buy the Lomography Fisheye No. 2 Acapulco La Quebrada here (£69)

Fish aren’t famous for their photography skills, but you can still shoot like a salmon. Clad in natty striped fabric, this analogue snapper comes fronted by a 10mm lens. Covering the equivalent of a 170° field of view, the fish-eye frame lets you pap super-wide scenes on 35mm film. And while it’s not suitable for the sea, built-in flash means you can keep reeling though the murky depths of night.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography

Run out of wrapping paper? For a gift that needs no ribbon, add a Creative Cloud package to their editing workflow. At a tenner a month, Adobe’s Photography subscription is a stocking filler on repeat. The affordable bundle bags your darling snapper access to Lightroom and Photoshop for tweaking their pics like a pro, plus 20GB of cloud storage to stash their finished snaps online.

• The best instant gifts, digital vouchers and subscriptions for last-minute gifting