Photography is a big part of our daily activities. We used and reviewed quite a few pieces of photograph- related accessories in 2009. Many of them are useful, well made, and made great additions to our collection. For the Holiday Catalog, we wanted to highlight the ones which we found either particularly interesting and/or especially useful.

At the beginning of the year, we upgraded our Nikon from the D40 to the D90. The D90 has been a true workhorse. To increase its productivity, we recommend the following accessories: a Phottox vertical battery grip, a Nikon GPS-1 module,and a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens. Readers interested in exploring their creative side should check out the Lensbaby Composer. We got this unit late in the season and have not logged a lot of time with it yet, but with what we have been able to do so far, we will be usingit A LOT in 2010.

For readers interested in astrophotography, we recommend checking out HoTech's self-centering T-adapter (SCA). This piece of equipment will make an immediate difference in their efforts. HoTech also has the AstroAimer laser pointer specifically designed for astronomers. The use of laser pointers to coarse align telescopes has been gaining wide acceptance. The AstroAimer has a few additional features (LED flashlight, red lighting mode, etc...) which are useful for when out in the field.

The last piece of gear on this year's collection is the Stellascope. The Stellarscope has been around for a while, but we have found it to be such a handy aid for learning the night sky that we thought we would give it a plug this year. It would make for a great stocking stuffer :-)  Happy Holidays!!!  [Permalink] -Holiday Catalog: Photography