Gifts for the somewhat serious photographer

Everyone has a budding photographer on their shopping list. Here are a couple ideas for them. These pocket-sized white balance cards help fix yellow or blue color problems in photos, especially with cheaper lights. Great for photographing people, but they're also useful for still shots.





If they photograph models at all, or even just the family or kids, a good portable reflector can really help bounce light onto faces so they're not just buried in shadows. This one has several surfaces to bounce white light or gold/yellow which warms up skin tones.

Pulse Livescribe Note Taking System

The Pulse Livescribe Pen is the hot gift for students right now. It's a combination voice recorder and digital ink system. It lets students record a lecture while taking written notes, then later on their laptop the notes are linked to the lecture audio. They can also share the electronic notes and audio with classmates. It's also great for reporters or anyone else that takes a lot of notes and needs accuracy.

Talus Carganizer Car Organizer

This Talus Carganizer Car Organizer is the car accessory equivalent of switching to sweat pants as your usual outfit. It's the ultimate way to tell everyone that sees your car interior that yes, you've given up and are fully committing to being single for life.

Lego and Playmobil Advent Calendars

Every year now we get our kids Lego Advent Calendar. Getting to open a door each night really builds their anticipation of Christmas, while adding some interesting pieces and mini models to their Lego collection. We've gotten away with just sharing one between them, but this year I think we're going to have to spring for one for each kid.

Playmobil also has some similar advent calendars with different themes: Christmas in the Forest, Unicorn Paradise, Pirates, and Knights Duel.

Bakugan is Hot for Christmas 2008

Bakugan is one of the hottest toys for the 2008 Christmas Season. It is a trading card game, miniatures game, and marbles game based on the television series Bakugan Battle Brawlers.

'Bakugan is huge in the US and set to be the hottest must-have Christmas toy in the UK this year,' said Stuart Grant of toy retailer The Entertainer. 'We will be selling out fast.'

A spokesman for Bakugan maker, Spin Master, said: 'We are working with retailers to make sure they have enough to deal with demand. Our factories are working flat out.'

Elmo Live and Five Other Top Toys for Christmas 2008

Elmo Live is predicted to be one of the hottest new toys for Christmas 2008. Even though it isn't released until November 1st, you can preorder it now on Amazon at the regular price of $59.99. There are already other sellers lined up to sell it at twice that price. I'm sure if you wait until December to try to find one, you'll be paying $100 or more if you can even find one.

Of course the Nintendo Wii and even the Wii Fit game are still massively hot sellers and are almost never in stock. The best bet to catch either one of those is to talk to the guys at your local Gamestop or other smaller video game store and find out when they get stock in and keep calling them. Sometimes they'll even call you when they get stuff in. Or Amazon can send you a text message when they get them in stock.

The Nintendo DS is easier to find on store shelves right now, but at only $129.99, it has sold out both of the last two years and probably will again this year. With more games like Brain Age 2, My French Coach, and Guitar Hero on Tour, it's been a great gift for grownups too.

The rest of the must-have list is full of life-like animated toys. Amazing Amanda, a very realistic talking baby, doesn't get very good reviews from parents but is on a lot of little girls' Christmas lists. It laughs, cries, plays games, talks, goes potty, gets sick, eats, etc. All the pretend baby goodness that you can stand.

KOTA the Triceratops Dinosaur from Playskool comes out October 13th and is supposed to be THE hot toy for preschoolers this Christmas. Part toy, part ride, it's over three feet tall. It has very realistic sounds and motions. It responds to voice and touch.

The Biscuit My Lovin Pup from Fur Real Friends is the ultimate fake pet. He knows how to sit, speak, shake, lie down and other commands.

Cheat Sheet Shirts for Engineering, Math, and Science

Perfect for my friend's kid that's struggling with his Mechanical Engineering classes. Amazon has these cheat sheet tshirts for engineering, math, and science students. They're covered with formulas and diagrams. I might not actually wear them to a test, but they're the ultimate geek flag. Imagine your nerdy nephew wearing one to a kegger...


Or for the aspiring music major or anyone struggling to remember how to do 420 things, there's this shirt from shirt.woot!. You put the lime in the coconut...