COMPLETED: Black Friday Ads 2019 Digest

A couple of days late but better late than never as they say! We have now completed our brand new Black Friday Ads Digest: Camera and Photo edition for 2019. There’s still a few stores that will be added as their BF Ads become available and get “digested”. This edition includes Best Buy, Target, Costco, Staples, Office Depot-MAX and more…

As usual, the headliners are the entry-point DSLR two lens kits for Canon (D-Rebel T6) and Nikon (D3500 with its insane battery life ~ not to jinx future models), along with some APS-C and full frame options in both DSLR and mirrorless. Needless to say, instant cameras and action cams and drones continue their ascend…

November 17, 2019 Filed Under: deal summaries Tagged With:

Sunday: 32GB Sandisk microSD for $5.50, Dracast, DofTec, Westcott, Etc

Sunday brings more new B&H daily deals running until 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out):

+ 16GB Sandisk microSD with full size adapter for $4, or 32GB for $5.49 (Ultra, Class 10)

+ DraCast S-Series LED500 Plus Bi-Color LED 2-Light Kit with NP-F Battery Plates for $279

+ DofTec Z-96K Professional Photo & Video LED Light Kit for $75

+ JarvMobile 20W Dual Wireless Charging Pad for Qi-Enabled Devices for $15

+ ThuLe Vectros Bumper Case for Apple 15.4″ MacBook Pro for $20

+ WestCott 2-in-1 Boom Arm Kit with Boom Arm/Pole, Clamp, and Grip Head for $130

UPDATE: meanwhile at the Woot website, “Electronics” offers 20pks of Energizer Advanced single-use lithium AA batteries for $23, and “Computers” offers a sale Centon storage products (SSD, microSD) ranging from $17 to $185…

And at Best Buy, they have another iteration of the Adobe Photoshop Elements sale, now with the 2020 version, with individual titles going for $60 each, while the Elements (Photoshop & Premiere) go for $90…

And of wedding interest, one of the Kindle e-book deals of the day is the “Modern Wedding: Creating a Celebration That Looks and Feels Like You” by Kelsey McKinnon going for $2 (385 pages, one customer review)…

November 17, 2019 Filed Under: memory cards and storage

12% off many things with KEH Camera coupon (ends Sat PM)

Good until Saturday 11/16/19 at 11:59pm ET, KEH Camera is offering 12% off many things at their website using coupon code SALE11A entered at checkout. Excluded are Leica-branded products and products in NEW condition and products in “Used – Like New” condition. Thus the “many things” and not a site-wide sale. You can test the coupon in their shopping cart without the need to login/signup…

November 15, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals Tagged With: , ,

Adorama Black Friday Preview Sale (1200+ options)

It’s Friday, YAY and it also means we are just two weeks away from the actual Black Friday. And Adorama is running their Black Friday Preview sale featuring nearly 1300 items (1294 as of the time of writing ~ may fluctuate if items sell-out, etc, etc). There are too many to list here individually, but you can filter them based on your areas of interest (brands, product types, price ranges, etc) using the various filters on the aforelinked page…

PS: speaking of Black Friday, I have “digested” the various Black Friday ads (a tradition unlike any other ~ even though the Black Friday Ads are decidedly off their glory days), and will be organizing them into a humanly-readable post later today. It will be posted at the main blog (mainly because all previous versions got posted there). I will post a separate alert blog-post here when it goes up. SPOILER ALERT: the best offers are NOT at consumer electronics stores 🙂

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals

$50 off each one of select Masters of Photography Bundles with CL coupon

Creative LIVE is back with a limited time COUPON promotion. Using coupon code MOP50 until 11/16/19 at 11:59pm, you can get $50 off each one of the three Masters of Photography Bundles. If you buy one, you get $50 off, if you buy two, you get $100 off, if you get all three, you get $150 off. In other words, $50 off each.

The bundles are of the following photographers: Steve McCurry, Albert Watson and Joel Meyerowitz. Clicking on each over there shows more details about the classes…

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: classes and tutorials Tagged With: ,

512GB Sandisk Ultra microSDXC for $80

The lower capacities (from the highest available) often offer a better bang for the buck in memory cards, but if you must have a 512GB microSDXC memory card, Amazon itself is offering the new condition 512GB Sandisk Ultra (C10, A1, U1, UHS-I) for $80 with up to four per customer at the sale price from Amazon itself… But if you want better stats, the 512GB Extreme (V30, A2, U3, UHS-I) goes for $110…

These came up while price-checking the Friday Best Buy dailies which has the 512GB Sandisk Ultra Plus going for $120…

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: memory cards and storage Tagged With: ,

Sachtler Dr Bag #3, Cactus Wireless Kits, Etc (ends Sat PM)

FriYay is here with four B&H daily deals that as usual run until Saturday at 11:59pm ET (but B&H does not accept orders between Friday PM and Saturday PM):

+ SACHTLER Dr. Bag 3 for $100
+ no, this Dr.cannot write prescriptions but this Dr. can bag all your money 😉

+ Cactus Wireless Transceiver kits, three options, $75 to $100

+ RotaTrim Monorail Cutter (18″) for $127

+ various Swann security DVR cam systems

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

Humble Bundle has GIMP ebooks at $1+ and $8+ tiers

We haven’t visited Humble Bundle in a while but since one of the offers is of photography interest, the time is right to write about them right now! All the offers mentioned below are “Pay What You Want” and start at $1. If you pay that, you get the first collection of ebooks. Paying more at the designated tiers on each offer gets you additional ebooks. But for the first tier, $1 is enough! All these are DRM-free ebooks and they are typically offered in multiple formats (eg ePUB, PDF, etc).

The Linux and BSD bookshelf at the $1 tier includes, among others, the ebook “The Artist’s Guide to GIMP: Creative Techniques for Photographers, Artists and Designers”. Six more ebooks are there including Audacity, Firewalls, Debugging, etc… GIMP has another ebook in the $8+ tier, the “The Book of GIMP”, along with “The Book of Inkscape” (graphics editor), Blender, OpenBSD [the BSD vs Linux war is as ancient as time itself?] and more… The $15+ tier goes more hardcore Linux, no GIMP at that tier.

If you like food and wine and/or food-n-wine photography, there’s a Food and Wine bundle. No how-to-photograph-food ebooks however 🙂

Then there’s a confusing Music and Design bundle that has ebooks on how to learn music instruments and ebooks on design in general (not of music instruments)…

But if you want more design, they got you covered too with the Designers bundle that also has some money/marketing ebooks for the creatives. The $15+ tier has a “color combinations” ebook along with a scary sounding title “Self-Portrait As Your Traitor” by Debbie Millman… IF you want spoilers on what this ebook is about you can find them in the Amazon description [it’s probably not what you guessed?]

Each one of the bundles has its own expiration date. Sometimes they get extended, sometimes they don’t, so don’t delay if you see something you like. They take PayPal, you don’t have to give them a credit card. They also take AliPay.

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: books and magazines Tagged With: ,

Thursday: Nikon 18-140mm f3.5-5.6G ED DX VR for $200

The main Woot deal of the day is a “Woot Plus” Give the Gift of Technologie sale featuring 25 in-stock items (and one sold-out). One of the in-stock items is the new condition Nikon 18-140mm f3.5-5.6G ED DX VR lens going for $200 with free shipping for Prime members and a 90-day Woot warranty (not a 1-year Nikon warranty). Limit up to ten lenses per customer at the sale price. Sale ends at 11:59pm central time on Thursday 11/14/19 (or earlier if sold out)…

November 14, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals, dslr deals, nikon Tagged With: , ,

Flashpoint XPLOR 400PRO TTL Battery-Powered Monolight for $419 [limited time offer]

Now that we are in the holiday shopping season, Adorama has relaunched their daily deals promotion. The current deal of the day is the new condition Flashpoint XPLOR 400PRO TTL Battery-Powered Monolight with Built-in R2 2.4GHz Radio Remote System (With Bowens Mount Adapter) – Godox AD400 Pro, going for $419 with free US shipping.

You can optionally purchase additional Flashpoint items with it (flashes, etc) for a combined purchase discount. Expand the “Special Offer: Create Your Bundle and Save Up to $300!” area to see all those options.

November 13, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals, lighting deals Tagged With:

Thursday: Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 DX II (N) for $289, GlideCam, Nuance, DraCast, Vizio, Etc

Rejoice it’s not a bird, it’s a Lens among the Thursday B&H daily deals running until 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out):

+ Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 DX II for $289 but only in the Nikon F mount
+ the Canon EF and Sony A (or Sonya) go for more and they are not participating in this sale

+ GlideCam Devin Graham Signature Series Handheld Stabilizer for $549

+ Devin Graham himself is NOT included 😉

+ DraCast LED500 Pro Daylight LED Light with V-Mount Battery Plate for $180

+ BrownIng BTC-4P Command Ops Pro Trail Camera for $60

+ NuAnce Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Premium for $50

+ ViZio E Series 65″ Class HDR UHD Smart LED TV for $550 with FREE HDMI cable (included by B&H)

UPDATE: for European shoppers, one of the Amazon Germany deals of the day is a sale on AmazonBasics tech items including various backpacks (not dedicated camera bags though) and various cables (different kinds of USB, Lightning, etc)

November 13, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals, dslr deals, tokina Tagged With: ,

Wednesday: Impact Softbox, IDX Battery Kit, ASUS 17.3″ SSD RoG Laptop, Etc

Hump Day is upon us as the work-week starts barreling downhill. Good until 11:59pm ET tonite, the following quartet of B&H daily deals is on offer:

+ Impact Luxbanx Duo Small Strip Softbox (12 x 36″) for $60 with FREE Fabric Grid (see item for details)

+ IDX 2 x 96Wh 14.4V Li-Ion Battery Kit with D-Tap Advanced Battery Charger for $349

+ ASUS 17.3″ Republic of Gamers Strix SCAR II Gaming Laptop for $1399
+ 2.2 GHz i7-8750H Six-Core, 16GB DDR4, 512GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD [hooray no HDD], 17.3″ 1920 x 1080 144 Hz IPS, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB GDDR6) [Eight is Enough as they used to say] etc

+ and Lorex security DVR systems for $350 to $520

UPDATE: there is some modest action in the Best Buy daily deals, the 8TB WD EasyStoR external USB 3.0 hard drive is going for $120…

November 13, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

12 classes for $12 each [C-LIVE]

For a limited time only, Creative LIVE is offering 12 classes for $12 each. Topics include nature photography (with Art Wolfe), boudoir, wedding, compositions, your first flash, voluminous sporty-spice photography, retouching/CC, etc.

No coupon code is needed ~ the price you see is the price you pay while this limited-time promotion is running over there…

November 13, 2019 Filed Under: classes and tutorials Tagged With:

Panasonic G9 with Extras for $1200

If of all the Micro Four Thirds cameras out there it is the Panasonic G9 body-only the one you want, it is now down to $1200 with extra freebies offered at B&H Photo (32GB Sandisk Extreme, RJ shoulder bag, Corel Paintshop PRO 2020) and Adorama (32GB Sandisk Extreme PRO, Lowepro 160 II, extra battery, various other trinkets) and by various at Amazon (Amazon itself does not offer freebies, but some of the various 3rd-party sellers over there offer freebies for the same price)…

And if purchased from an authorized Panasonic dealer, you can file the paperwork to extend the stingy 1-year manufacturer warranty to a more workable 3-year warranty. This does not happen automatically, there’s PDFs and more…

November 12, 2019 Filed Under: mirrorless deals, panasonic Tagged With: , ,

Adorama Singles Day offers (240+ options)

Once upon a time Black Friday was the actual day. Now it’s almost the whole month. Similarly, the 11.11 Singles Day has expanded and now it’s pretty much up until Black Friday 🙂 And Adorama is sale-a-brating this with a Singles Day sale featuring nearly 250 items which you can drill down by product category and manufacturer and price range and discount percentage and such. They are obviously too many to post here individually, so it’s a YMMV adventure if curious…

November 12, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals

All Lindsay Adler classes from $12 to $29 each [C-LIVE]

Lindsay Adler fans, unite and take over! For a limited time, Creative LIVE is having a sale on All Lindsay Adler classes ranging from $12 to $29 each. A total of 37 classes are available with a variety of topics including light and lighting, portraiture, retouching, posing, fashion, skin tones and lots more! The price you see is the price you pay. When the sale ends, the prices will automatically adjust on their website…

November 12, 2019 Filed Under: classes and tutorials Tagged With:

YMMV: 10% eBay Bucks (ends Thur PM)

IF you are participating in the eBay rewards program {it’s free to join anytime}, AND you have been invited by eBay via email or their eBay messages to participate, and you have clicked to activate the promotion for your account {you must click to activate before you earn the bonus}, you have until Thursday 11/14/19 at 11:59pm ET to earn 10% on eligible purchases.

Maximum rewards you can earn are $100 per transaction and $500 for the duration of this promotion. Terms, conditions and restrictions apply as always…

For ideas on what to buy, check the latest eBay Deals and the latest Trending Deals…

November 12, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals Tagged With: ,

10% off Bargain (BGN) condition used gear with KEH coupon [ends Wedn PM]

KEH Camera fans of the world, unite and take over! Good until Wednesday 11/13/19 at 11:59pm eastern time, coupon code BGN11A gets 10% off Bargain condition items at the KEH Camera website. Leica-branded products are excluded. Only products in the BGN (= Bargain condition) are eligible for this particular coupon promotion… As usual, you can test the coupon in their shopping cart without the need to login or signup…

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals Tagged With: , ,

Tuesday: Lens Calibration, Winterize Your Photographer, Etc

And just like that, Tuesday is here and with it we have another quartet of B&H daily deals as follows, running until 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out):

+ ReiKan FoCal Pro Lens Calibration for $90

+ RucPac Photographer’s Winter Apparel Kit (touchscreen gloves, neckwarmer, 2-layer beanie hat) for $40 in two size options

+ CoreSWX TorchLED Bolt 250W On-Camera Light for $149

+ MyGekoGear E100 1080p Dash Camera for $30
+ because dashography is the next big thing in photography? 🙂

UPDATE: and among the Best Buy daily deals you can get 64GB Sandisk Ultra Plus memory cards for $15 each, SDXC and/or microSDXC…

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

Singles Day sales in progress

It’s Singles Day in Asia, but the world has many time zones, so the offers typically last closer to two days than 24 hours. If you are interested in participating in the festivities, check the websites of Ali Express and the GearBest store. Keep in mind that most of the items purchased ship from Asia, so depending on your location and shipping method selected the items may take up to two months to arrive. There’s usually an estimate range given, so pay attention to that…

Of photography interest, you may find good deals on some of the more budget-friendly Asian brands, for example Yongnuo and 7 Artisans and such. Their search box is your friend!

There’s more, for example one seller at Ali Express is offering Sandisk microSD cards on sale, from 16GB to 400GB (under $3 to $53)…

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: storewide deals

Olympus E-PL8 with 14-42mm II R for $290 [limited time]

For a limited time only, the current Adorama daily deal is the new condition Olympus E-PL8 with 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 R II going for $290 with free US shipping. This is available in either the black or silver color schemes…

OPTIONALLY, under “Special Offer: Create Your Bundle” you get combined purchase discounts by adding
M43rds lenses to your order from various other 3rd-party lens makers. For example, you can add the Mitakon 25mm f0.95 for +$240. Other brands participating are 7artisans, KamLan, and Venus Laowa…

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: mirrorless deals, olympus Tagged With: , ,

Monday: various Thule bags on sale (49 options)

Into the Amazon Gold Box we go for Monday 11/11/19 where find, among others, a sale on various Thule bags of different kinds, backpacks, briefcases, messengers, rollers, duffels, etc. A total of 49 options (if my count is accurate) are participating in the sale. Limit up to five per bag per customer. Sale ends at 11:59pm pacific (or earlier for any of them that manage to sell out ahead of their designated expiration time)…

NOTE that these are general-use bags, it is not a camera-bag sale. Still a “bag the bags” sale 🙂

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals Tagged With: ,

Woot Mobile site makes it easier to scan daily deals

What you see may depend on your viewport (phone resolution, screen size, etc) and whatever browser and OS experiments they may be doing, so with this caveat out of the way, if you visit the Woot home page with a mobile device (eg smartphone) you may see a different, more user-friendly look. All the daily deals appear in a block together under the “Daily Deals” header ~ you no longer have to go from one sub-Woot to another to check them all out. One touch/click gets them all in front of you…

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: shopping news Tagged With:

Monday: Dracast LED500 w/extras, Thule, Sony camera-mount Wireless Mic, Etc

Monday is here with four more new B&H daily deals running until 11:59pm ET (or earlier for any that may manage to sell-out ahead of its designated expiration time):

+ DraCast LED500 Plus Series Daylight LED Light for $270
+ with TWO FREE items: honeycomb grid and cushioned light stand

+ ThuLe Gauntlet 13″ MacBook Pro, Plus iPad Attache (Black) for $20

+ Sony UWP-D16 Camera-Mount Wireless Combo Microphone System (UC14: 470 to 542 MHz) for $500

+ MacKie ProFX12v2 12-Channel Sound Reinforcement Mixer with Built-In FX for $180

November 11, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

Sunday: Wooden Camera Hot Shoe Camera Handle, Aputure BiC LED Flood, Etc

Sunday is here with new 4-pack of B&H daily deals running until 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out):

+ Wooden Camera Hot Shoe Camera Handle for $80

+ Aputure Amaran AL-528C Bi-Color LED Flood Light for $99

+ refurb Sylvania DVD player for $50, Swann security DVR system for $270

November 9, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

Weekend (B&H): 17″ SmallHD, Selfie Trigger, Flex Macro Twin Flash

Halloween is gone, so I can’t use the “I got Fright Day on my mind” but Friday is indeed here and with it we have four new B&H daily deals, which, as usual, last for 48 hours, until Saturday at 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out):

+ VeLLo Universal IR Selfie Trigger Plus for $8
+ because selfies are now mainstream and non-selfies are the new trending style in photography 😉

+ Venus OpTics KX-800 Flexible Macro Twin Flash for $179

+ PeliCan 2640CB Heads-Up Headlamp for $18
+ or buy two or more for $14 each
+ not the idea macro light but an order of magnitude cheaper 🙂

+ SmallHD 1703 P3X 17″ Studio Monitor for $2299

November 7, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

Thursday: Slik Tripod, RotoLight AEOS, InCase, Etc

No lenses on Thursday but B&H Photo has six (instead of the usual four) offerings for their daily deals, good until 11:59pm ET (or earlier if sold out) on Thursday:

+ Slik Lite AL-420 Tripod with LED Center Column Flashlight for $50

+ RotoLight AEOS LED Light with Battery Bundle for $649

+ PinNacle Studio 22 Ultimate (Box) for $50

+ Vello 5″ Snoot/Reflector for Portable Flash for $22~

+ InCase bag sale (six options, $15 to $80)

+ MaraNtz 6-channel headphone amplifier for $70

November 7, 2019 Filed Under: daily deals

In-Stock alert: Photoshop for iPad (with 30-day free trial)

UPDATE: thanks to one of our readers for the alert ~ there’s a limited time Creative Cloud promotion that includes the Photoshop for iPad. Link coming later as I don’t have the email account on this device.

We have an in-stock alert of the iTunes App store kind! Apple has officially released Photoshop for iPad on iTunes with a 30-day free trial. After that they offer a $10/month subscription. This only includes the iPad iOS app, not the desktop versions of Photoshop. Otherwise it would have been major cannibilization of Adobe’s $$$profits$$$. A lot of the iTunes reviewers don’t appear to be very happy with the current version.

Note that only select iPads are supported, namely various PRO models, the Air 2, 5th generation iPad and the Mini 4. Also supported are the first two versions of the Apple Pencil. Looking at the compatibility list, the iPad line-up has become spaghetti without sauce 😉

November 6, 2019 Filed Under: apps and software Tagged With: ,

Nikon D3500 with 18-55 DX VR and 70-300 DX non-VR and Various Extras for $447

If you don’t want to deal with the madness of the holiday shopping season and chasing black friday deals and such, and you want a Nikon APS-C DSLR starter kit with extras, then for $447 you can get the Nikon D3500 2-lens kit with freebies at B&H Photo and Adorama and Amazon itself. The two lenses are the 18-55mm DX VR AF-P and the 70-300mm f4.5-6.3G DX AF-P non-VR. Also included is a Nikon camera bag with a free online course.

From there on, Adorama and B&H include additional freebies. At B&H you get a 32GB Sandisk Extreme SDXC and the Paintshop PRO 2020 Ultimate software (on DVD with a download card)… At Adorama a 16GB Lexar II SDHC card, a USB card reader and a cleaning kit… Optionally at Adorama when you click on the “Create Your Bundle and save up to $200” you can add the Nikon 18-140mm f3.5-5.6G DX VR lens with extras for +$297…

November 6, 2019 Filed Under: dslr deals, nikon Tagged With: ,

KEH offer: 12% off DSLRs, 10-15% off Lenses (ends Thur PM)

KEH Camera is back with another limited time coupon promotion. This offer runs for two days, until Thursday 11/17/19 at 11:59pm eastern time. This is a multi-option offer. Using coupon code SLR11A at checkout you get a discount depending on the product type:

+ 12% off DSLR bodies
+ 10% to 15% off Lenses
+ more details at the offer page

Exclusions apply as usual. No “NEW” condition products, no “Used – Like New”, no Leica-branded products and no Medium format lenses. As usual, their shopping cart is the ultimate decider on what’s eligible for what…

November 6, 2019 Filed Under: dslr deals Tagged With: , , ,