Do you have a photographer in your life that you struggle to find Christmas gifts for? Never fear, check out my top twelve Christmas gift ideas for film photographers! I have included all sorts of analogue photography gifts including film and instant camera related presents, I hope you enjoy! Subscribe to the Matt Loves Cameras podcast on iTunes or listen here:
1) Retro camera socks from Many Mornings
How amazing are these mismatched but matching retro camera socks by Many Mornings?
One pair of socks costs $11.99 USD, if you buy a few pairs you get free shipping! Also check out the amazing Nordic Lighthouse socks which I had to buy, and check out my images of the Faroes Islands on my @mattloves travel Instagram account
2) Business cards for photographers from Moo.com
Moo.com have been around for years and make beautifully designed business cards. They are very flexible with their print runs – you can order as little as 50 business cards from them, and you can even make every business card unique by uploading a different image for every single business card! (That actually sounds like a lot of hassle, so you may wish to stick to four or five designs for your pack!).
You can either upload your own images (scans of your film photography would be awesome) or you can use Moo’s designs, such as the wonderful Vintage Focus business cards featuring images of some classic cameras.
3)Analogbooks
Check out these fantastic notebooks made for photographers! Analogbooks helps you accurately record relevant photographic data, learn from and refine your process, and achieve the best results with every shot! I love the 135 version of the notebook, but four other types of notebook are available (medium format, large format, darkroom processing, darkroom printing).
4) SX-70 pin
I love this SX-70 pin from Official Exclusive. There are a few companies out there that are making wonderful camera and film photography pins and they all look fab. The one that made my list this year is the Polaroid SX-70 – one of the most iconic cameras of all time. I recently had my SX-70 refurbished here in Australia, so I would love to wear this pin when I go out taking photos with some fresh film this summer!
5) Agfa Vista 200 film
Love Agfa Vista? I give you not one, but two ways to grab this much-loved film before it’s gone forever!
Expired Agfa Vista 200
You can picked up expired (best before 2017) twin packs of Agfa Vista Plus 200 (24 exposures) for the low price of just 4 euros from Kamerastore in Helsinki. Be quick! at the time of writing there was only 337 left.
In-date Agfa Vista 200
The amazing Film Photography Project Store have just started selling in-date (09/2019) single rolls of Agfa Vista Plus 200 for $4.99
6) Analogue Adventurer Kit
I love these amazing Analogue Adventurer Kits from Little Vintage Photo Co. You may recognise the name – it is of course Rachel from the Sunny 16 Podcast who makes these kits with everything you need to make sun prints / cyanotypes as well as a pinhole viewer. So much fun for the whole family! My kids and I tried doing sun prints for the first time recently, we loved it! Rachel’s kit costs 15 GBP.
7) Retro Cameras
I love this beautifully designed book by John Wade featuring wonderful photos of retro cameras. The book is broken down into chapters for each type of camera, with many well-known cameras and some lesser known gems. Each chapter also has a shooting guide for each style of camera.
8) Kodak hoodie / Kodak t-shirt
I love this Kodak hoodie (and the elusive Kodak t-shirt!) from H&M. I couldn’t track down the t-shirt in stores. The hoodie felt very warm and luxurious… if only it wasn’t summer here in Australia!
9) Polaroid Originals OneStep+
I’ve just had the new Polaroid Originals OneStep+ arrive from the US, I’m so excited! I’ve been hoarding film for this bad boy since October when I got a cheap deal on i-Type film (listen to the podcast for the full story). I can’t wait to try out some of the cool features available when you pair it with your smartphone, like manual control and the noise trigger!
10) No 2 storage box from Daiso Australia $2.80
As an instant photography fan, I have tons of Polaroids and Instax pictures littered all over my home office. I was tempted to buy some fancy Polaroid storage boxes, but quite honestly they were a little expensive for what they were.
One day while my kids were looking around Daiso (a cool Japanese discount store where everything is $2.80!), I stumbled across the Number 2 storage box. This is a perfect storage container for not only SX-70 / 600 Polaroid photos, it is also perfect for Instax Wide photos! You can also fit in the box two side-by-side columns of your Instax Mini photos and of course Instax Square photos fit in too, but they kinda move around a bit.
11) FilmLab app
Check out the amazing – I can’t wait to buy this and have a play with what it can do! This new mobile app allows you to view, digitise, and share film negatives and slides. Quite often I mix up my negatives, so using this app to preview which frame I’m after would be a huge help.
12) Ultra Compact Lomo 4-lens Film Camera
I found this while trawling eBay one day, it looks like a lot of fun!
The design and colours are very remiciecent of a three lens toy camera called the Disderi Robot 3, which I picked up from Facebook Marketplace for $2 but haven’t run a roll through it yet. This camera looks like a butterfly to me – they other difference is the additional lens which will make for some fun pictures!
It costs just $13.15 Australian dollars including postage from China, bargain! Build quality will no doubt be suspect, but if you get a handful of Kodak Gold through this bad boy I think you will have got your money’s worth!
What presents are on your wishlist this Christmas? Don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast Matt Loves Cameras in iTunes or on Podbean!