Gift ideas for a 12 year old (getting desperate!)

[Thealarmhasgoneoffagain]

About £50ish budget. She's 12 but young iyswim.

• She's just had her room done so nothing for that.
• not into clothes / make up / smellies
• not getting an alexa or anything like that
• we already have a couple of days out / experiences planned
• her hobbies don't need any equipment
• already have plenty of craft stuff.
• She's not having money or gift cards
• no garden and no where to ride a bike or the like.
• she is a viroucious (sp?) reader and loves writing her own stories

I can only really think of an ooodie or switch game but I don't think she particularly wants them. She would lose a really fancy pen.

If you want to waste money on a bridge... it's not a proper camera worth having, if you have a samsung, iPhone or equivalent it's equally as good.

Real cameras have interchangeable lenses as it's the lenses that effect the outcome most, if you don't require that level of control the an phone is equal to a bridge/compact.

Thanks @PhotoDad and @mam0918 . Not a camera then.

I guess it's a good thing she doesn't have a long list of "I wants".

@mam0918 Fair enough for most uses. Not for wildlife photography, though! The teeny tiny aperture on a phone is never going to give you decent range, and phone sensors are noisy at high ISO or for cropping (the pixels are too small). DD won national kids' photo comps with her cheap Fuji and then with a better bridge (the Lumix FZ330, which by some magic is a bridge with a constant f/2.8 for DoF control). She eventually used accumulated prize money to upgrade. Currently shoots with a Lumix G9 and a Leica 100-400mm lens.

Sorry, derailing the thread, but with cameras and phones it's horses for courses.

Re cameras at about that age I got a kit to build a pinhole camera. You would need to buy photographic paper and some chemicals though.

Although this one uses film shop.vangoghhouse.co.uk/products/matchbox-pinhole-camera?variant=39729598693430&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic

It also had a back that you could replace with glass to make a camera obscurer.

I have a fuji instant camera which kids have been fascinated at when I've taken it to family gatherings.

They have brought out a hybrid now so you can see your picture and decide whether to print it.