5 minute read
As Black Friday merges into Cyber Monday, all the best deals we've unearthed on cameras, lights, lenses, batteries, software, monitors, VFX and more.
Black Friday is growing. From a single day in the US, it has spread in both time and space; its influence is now felt worldwide and takes up most of November. For now, we have Black Friday, and - typically - the same deals are rebadged once more as Cyber Monday a few days afterward (as, indeed, this post has been). We strongly suspect that it will all just become Black November soon, and that will be it.
All that means that there are significant deals to be had right here and right now, so we’re publishing this list well ahead of time and will keep updating it as more deals come in. And this year, there are a lot of them… [updates in italics]
Resellers and retailers
We could dedicate entire pages to some of the individual resellers alone, as there is a serious amount of discounting around. Some of these deals are moving fast, and there’s plenty of stock rotating into the offers and rotating out again just as quickly, so it’s always going to be best to head off to the likes of B&H in the US or CVP in the UK and see what they have going on.
As an indication, though, here are some of our favorites.
B&H has the RED Digital Cinema DSMC2 DRAGON-X Camera Kit on sale for $9950, which is a phenomenal discount of $10,000. Yes, we had to read that twice as well. And it is shipping outside the US, too.
Elsewhere, it’s got the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 on sale for $1595, a discount of $400 (that one is US only by the looks of it), and the Canon EOS R5 C on offer for $3799, saving $500. It’s also selling the SmallHD 1303 HDR 13" Production Monitor for a mere $2999 ($1000 off) and has taken a similar amount off the price of the Atomos NEON 17" 4K HDR Monitor/Recorder, which you can now pick up for $1499. It's also got some impressive savings on Sony and Nikon gear, including $400 off Sony’s a7R V.
CVP in the UK has a massive 208 pages of Black Friday deals covering over 4000 items. Sony is doing particularly well here, with the Sony FX30 reduced by £200 to £1740, the Sony A7S III coming with £300 cashback to drop its price to £2707, and the Sony Alpha 7 IV dropping to £1649. It also has up to 15% off RED and accessories, up to 50% off Angenieux Optimo Zooms, 20% off Bright Tangerine rigging and accessories, and more.
Also in the UK, Wex Photo Video has some good deals going, including the Canon EOS R50 for £100 off at £799. More offers here.
Pergear has 20% off sitewide over the long weekend with discount code BFCM2023PERGEAR. It's also carrying some deeper offers worth investigating too, such as 40% off Godox lights via its Amazon store.
Moving on, here are the various deals that vendors have been telling us about themselves. We'll update this as the month goes on...
Manufacturers
Adobe has 50% off its Creative Cloud All Apps plan, bringing it down to a monthly cost of $29.98 when you sign up for the first year. Deal ends at the end of Friday.
Lightworks's pay yearly options are 50% off until November 30. This brings the yearly cost of Lightworks Create down to £39.99 (or equivalent) and Lightworks Pro down to £79.99. Anyone interested in the Pay Once pricing also benefits from the same deal: Create moves to £59.99 and Pro to £124.99. And the highly regarded free version is, of course, just as free as always.
LumaTouch is having what it says is its best Black Friday Sale ever. That brings LumaFusion down to $9.99, LumaFusion Multicam Studio down to $9.99 and the FCPXML export feature reduces to $4.99. Find it on the appropriate App Store.
There are some hefty discounts in the combined Teradek, and Wooden Camera Black Friday Sale. SmallHD has up to 50% off some of its best-selling monitors, potentially saving up to $1000; Teradek is offering up to 35% off products such as the Bolt 6 LT MAX; and Wooden Camera is hosting up to 30% savings on camera accessories.
There's even a specific Cyber Monday offer too coming up on the following: Teradek | Bolt 6 750 XT - Save $800; SmallHD | Ultra 5 - 10% off or $200; Wooden Camera | All Micro Battery Plate Accessories on sale.
Atomos has read the memo about Black November and is running three deals across the month. Buy a new AtomOS 11 Ninja or Ninja Ultra and receive a free Accessory Kit worth $/€199; Connect your Ninja to the cloud with Atomos Connect for just $/€199, saving $/€200 on the ultimate Ninja accessory; or you can have $200 off a Zato Connect, yours for just $299.
Native Instruments has some extremely deep discounts on offer in its Black Friday sale, including 50% off all Komplete 14 bundles. Indeed, it's offering 50% off its entire online store as a minimum, with some bundle pricing hitting 90%. That means you can pick up its Creative Mix bundle for £44 instead of the usual £522. And we're writing that in bold because we think it's the biggest percentage discount we've seen this year.
INOVATIV has a short but undeniably sweet sale stretching across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Deals on offer include: Camera Operator Bundle with Apollo 40 Workstation on sale for $4,499, valued at $5,325; Steadicam Operator Bundle with Voyager EVO X 36 on sale for $4,299, valued at $4,946; Photographer Bundle with DigiSystem Pro Ultra Kit on sale for $1,489, valued at $1,680; and a Director Bundle with AXIS Base Station on sale for $4,299, valued at $4,946.
Nikon has deals up to the end of Cyber Monday. We've got the UK ones here, but likely they will be replicated elsewhere too. Prices include £180 off the D850, bringing it down to £2159 inc VAT, and £280 off the D780, bringing it down to £1759 inc VAT. Plenty more available.
FilmConvet has FilmConvert Nitrate helps your ideas come to life with our custom-designed film stocks, halation and grain structures.
Aputure is being restrained and not starting its own Black Friday sale until November 20. However, when it does, you can get over $650 off an LS 600x Pro and Fresnel bundle, down to $1691, and $473 off an LS 600d Pro, so it might be worth the wait. Plenty more deals available too.
Sony itself is taking the Black November concept to the extreme and instigating an even more extended Winter Cashback scheme that will give you £300 on a range of cameras, £200 on lenses, and money off some of its more interesting consumer gadgets such as the WF-1000XM5 noise canceling earbuds which are reduced from £259 to £219. That’s a UK scheme; we’ll let you know if it appears anywhere else (and would imagine it will).
Imagine Products is running what it terms its Give Thanks sale, and has taken 15% off everything including its well-regarded ShotPut Pro with the code THANKS-15.
SmallRig has what it says are hot picks at deep discounts up to Nov 27 and is running various deals and offers over different dates, including lucky draws and up to 50% off its bestselling kit.
Want $150 off the PolarPro BaseCamp ultra-light matte box system? Amongst other offers, get it for only $499 here.
VEGAS has deals on everything in its range, with up to 80% off its high-end pro bundles. At the lower end of the scale, there are still decent savings to be had on VEGAS Pro Edit ($50 off at $149) and VEGAS Pro Suite (down to $199 from $299).
Rokinon has anything up to 60% off its lenses, with an additional 10% off everything using code BF10. Head to its sale page to find out more. There are 176 products there, so you will forgive us for not listing them.
Polyverse Music is offering up to 50% off its range, including Comet, allowing you to add a layer of lush, versatile reverb for $89 rather than $149, and Supermodal ($49 instead of the usual $99).
Also, on the audio side of things, Sound Particles has 50% off all its software, including SkyDust 3D, AudioMatrix, and Density, for the duration.
Some good discounts at Draco Broadcast include up to 30% off Dracast branded lighting, some deep discounts on stands and grip, and an impressive range of camera sliders, all discounted to $49.
Core SWX has some big discounts floating around, such as the Fleet and NEO 9 Mini Kit, a Fleet quad charger with 4x NEO 9 Mini battery packs in G-mount, available for $1299 instead of the usual $2147.
Take 50% off Digital Anarchy's Data Storyteller and 50% off Digital Anarchy Complete (the entire bundle of all Digital Anarchy products) with coupon code 'BlackAnarchy' at checkout and save yourself up to $350 in the process.
ZHIYUN has discounts for what it says are virtually every product, allowing you to save up to $150, or up to 30%, on camera and smartphone gimbals, lights, and video accessories. That 30% category includes FIVERAY F100 lighting equipment and the WEEBILL S camera gimbal Combo. Head to its store for details.
Tags: Production
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