Pressie recommendations? What's invaluable?

[Davi]

what would you say your most usefull, couldn't do without gadgets in your photobag are?

Brother has just bought himself a new Digi Nikon to add to his collection (I think he said D90?) so would like to get him something useful he's unlikely to have. Budget is a bit tight this year so looking at around £60-£100.

Thanks!

[speedychrissie]

Davi said:

what would you say your most usefull, couldn't do without gadgets in your photobag are?
I think he said D90
Thanks!

could it be the D80? that has just come out recently.

is this his first SLR? if not, do you know what he has had before so we can guess what kit he might have.

if it is his first SLR and he is unlikely to have much, there are a couple of things that are very useful for me:
-portable hard drive with card readers. very useful for me when i went on holiday and only had 1.5Gb of CF cards but wanted to take loads of photos without having to take a laptop. £100 would easily get you a 40gb xs2 drive (the one i have)
- a good cleaning kit. lens cloths, a blower (or maybe one of the electric brush things people rave about)
- how about a prime lens? my 50mm f1.8 lens was £100 and was a very good buy. takes nice photos and will allow him to take photos that the kit lens wont

[TonyHetherington]

remote release is very inexpensive; 10-20 quid mark I think. Does he have a nice bag for it?

[Davi]

It's his first digi SLR but not his first SLR, he's had a few Minolta and lastly a couple of Nikon. He's got stuff like the cleaning kit for certain, plus a couple of lenses (just emailed his wife to find out which) The portable hard drive with card reader sounds like a cunning plan though for starters!

[TonyHetherington]

If I may be honest though, a hard drive wouldn't benefit me (where it's very useful for Chris) so it's worth remembering it's not essential. An easy fix to that would be a 2 or 4gb CF card for 30 or £40 (and would be my preference).

Does he have a tripod? If he has previous slr's I would assume so

[Davi]

Tripod definitely - I bought it for him, and a decent bag as well (guess where that came from...)

hmmmm think I'll have to get a definitive list from his missus of what he does have.

[speedychrissie]

TonyHetherington said:

If I may be honest though, a hard drive wouldn't benefit me (where it's very useful for Chris) so it's worth remembering it's not essential. An easy fix to that would be a 2 or 4gb CF card for 30 or £40 (and would be my preference).

Does he have a tripod? If he has previous slr's I would assume so

thats true, cf cards have come down so much in price, even in the last 3 months that you could easily get enough memory on cards for most trips. it is down to personal requirements that one.

[TonyHetherington]

Do you wanna be my mate?

Get a list from his good lady then post that here, then we'll be able to suggest more appropriatelt

[EmmaP]

I'd buy him a lovely book, something to inspire him. I love receiving books and prefer to source my own gadgets.

Most invaluable kit for me is a blower brush (Giotto Hurricane blower) and lens cleaning cloths (got those from a holographer friend though). Can't say that they are terribly interesting though