Scott Kelby’s Gonzo Holiday Gear Guide
Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Canon 50D
These are the hottest digital SLRs from Canon right now. At the high end, the long-awaited full-frame EOS 5D Mark II has super low noise, a 21.1-megapixel sensor, and actually shoots high-definition video as well—all for around $2,699 (body only).
The affordable Canon 50D (at $1,399) is a robust update built on the success of the 40D, a workhorse camera used by a lot of pros. The Canon 50D has plenty of bells and whistles, and I just got one myself as a gift.
www.usa.canon.com
NewerTech Guardian MAXimus
If the safety of your photo collection is a concern (and it should be), check out this NewerTech RAID-1 (Mirrored) drive that writes your data to two separate 1-TB internal drives so you have an instant backup. This drive is amazingly small, very rugged, and I use it to back up my main photo workstation at home. It’s $479.99, which is cheap for the peace of mind it brings.
www.newertech.com
Mpix Framed Prints
Want to give a framed and matted print to someone this season as a holiday gift? Mpix.com will output your image (up to 20×30″), frame it, mat it, and ship it the same day (if you get it in by 12:00 p.m. EST) directly to the person on your gift list. Plus, after the holidays, you’ll want to use Mpix as your photo lab (they’re the lab I use all year). They’ll even drop-ship directly to your client in plain unmarked packaging. Use ’em once, and you’ll use ’em again and again, because their quality, ease-of-use, and service is unmatched.
www.mpix.com
OWC Mercury On-the-Go Pro Portable Drives
Rather than storing images on my laptop (which has limited hard-drive space), I now save my photos to two OWC Mercury On-The-Go high-speed portable hard drives, which I stack and rubber band together. They are small, lightweight, very rugged, and priced right. You can get them in different configurations, but the 320-GB, 7,200-rpm version with FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 retails for $195.95. You don’t necessarily need two, but it doesn’t hurt.
www.otherworldcomputing.com
Nikon D700 and D90
If you’ve got a Nikon shooter on your list (or someone that wants to be), you’ve got two amazing choices: the D700 and the D90. The D700 is, basically, the groundbreaking, industry-changing D3 packaged in a smaller D300 body. It has the same insanely low noise as the D3, and not only most of the bells and whistles, but it actually has some features the D3 doesn’t have—all for about $2,000 less ($2,995.95 body only).
The D90 is an affordable, feature-packed digital SLR that has the ability to shoot video built right in. I have a number of friends who absolutely love theirs and swear it’s the best sub-$1,000 camera Nikon’s ever made (it goes for around $995.95).
www.nikonusa.com
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Featured Partner 
- Dragging an Object Between Documents
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