Free $10 for Amazon

10 minutes of time for $10 to use on Amazon. Sign up to Amazon Music's free 30 day trial for a free $10 promotional code (expires 10/31, can cancel right after). Easy peasy. As for some ideas you can get a Sandisk SD card, Reflector, or Eneloop batteries (for flash).

1. Go to http://amzn.to/2xFWoK0
2. Enter Code MUSIC1
3. Click the link to sign up to Amazon Music
4. You can cancel the trial at https://www.amazon.com/music/settings (so you don't get charged)

Once you sign up with the code you'll get a free 30 day trial of Amazon Music and the $10 promo code will be good in your account until 10/31. The $10 is good for anything sold by Amazon.com but it won't work on 3rd party sellers.

Backup your photos!

I hope you have a backup plan in place for ALL your important photos and documents, but if you don't! Take a few minutes to look at some options.Readers and viewers share their sad stories of losing ALL of their photos! Please back up your photos, Don't think it won't ever happen to you!  I recommend the 3-2-1 backup strategy.  A 3-2-1 strategy means having at least 3 total copies of your data, 2 of which are local but on different devices, and at least 1 copy offsite or in the cloud.Example: You have captured a nice family photo and downloaded it to your computer. That copy on your computer is ONE copy.  Now you need to back up to a second device in the home- an external HD is an easy solution and Amazon has excellent deals on BIG hard drives.I currently recommend - WD 4TB RED for just $102!You now have TWO copies, but both are local and if anything happens to your house ... to be safe you should have an offsite copy. Google Photos, Dropbox and Amazon Prime Photos are all systems that can help.Amazon Prime - $10.99 a month - Free 2-day shipping, Movies & TV Shows and Unlimited Photo storage to backup on ALL your devices.

Your Prime membership comes with free unlimited photo storage through Prime Photos, which lets you securely save as many photos as you like and see them on your phone, computer, or tablet. You can share this Prime benefit and give free photo storage to up to five family members or friends. Collect photos together with your invited family and friends in the Family Vault and store memories from everyone in one safe place. New photo search technology makes it easy to find specific photos by searching for things like “sunset” or “Seattle,” and your photos are organized automatically so it’s easy to find and enjoy them.

Amazon Launches Prime Photos Family Vault

Last month Amazon started Amazon Prints with an affordable way to get photo printing done at far less than the competition. Coming today with more updates to their photo service now Prime members can invite up to five people to join their Family Vault and access unlimited photo storage, at no additional cost. So why should you care? It's a free unlimited offsite storage for all your photos, your families photos, friends, and even other photographers. Not to forget that you can print from it to get your photos at your door in just a click.Say your house burns down, you get robbed, or there's a hurricane on the horizon having an offsite backup will keep those photos safe no matter what happens. Part of the 3-2-1 backup strategy is having three total copies of your data with one on your computer, one saved on say an external drive, and one offsite with Amazon Photos in case the other two get destroyed. Now not only do you get this benefit, but you can share it with up to five people as well whether it be family or a few photographer friends you shoot with often.Family Vault is a streamlined update to get all your photos in one place. Sharing access allows a person to access prime photos for unlimited photo storage and an additional 5GB for videos or other files from Amazon Drive. Coming with Prime Photos there is an updated Prime Photos app for mobile access, uploads, browsing, and search. Overall search got an improvement similar to the AI smart search in Google Photos as well. Allowing you to find people, places, or things such as a wedding, a dog, or your Uncle Eddy.Family Vault with Unlimited storage, Prime Photos, and Amazon Prints make Amazon an attractive option for a Photographer. For $10.99 a month you have full backup and printing that work seamlessly right at your finger tips. Especially considering with Amazon prints you can make photo books and source the photos quickly by searching your online storage. Remember with Prime you also get free two day shipping, video streaming, music streaming, early access lightning deals, eBooks, and more.Get your 30 day free trial of Prime today to try out the updated Prime Photos with Family Vault and Amazon Prints! Try Prime Today!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEwXYDXZPsI

Amazon Prints, Amazon's Now in the Photo Printing Business

Amazon Prints, www.amazonprinting.com, your new source for the cheapest prints available. After the announcement Shutterfly stock fell 14%, Ouch… So far there’s not too much in terms of product offerings but it’s just starting in a limited capacity at this point. Available currently you can order photos in 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints with matte, glossy, pearl, or signature matte finish. Larger one's will be coming soon. Books come in 8x11 glossy hardcover binded either standard or layflat.

For a short time only, 50 free 4x6 prints with code BABY50FREEPRINTS for Amazon Cloud Drive or Prime members.

Price Comparison(Not counting shipping, Bayphoto with/without color correction)

	Amazon Prints	Shutterfly	Snapfish	Walgreens	Mpix	Adoramapix	Bayphoto
4x6	$.09	$.15	$.09	$.29	$.29	$.27	$.49/.29
5x7	$.58	$.99	$.69	$2.49	$1.09	$.69	$1.99/1.15
8x10	$1.79	$3.99	$2.99	$3.99	$1.99	$1.59	$3.50/1.79
8x11 Book	$19.99	$39.99	$34.99	$29.99	$34.99	N/A	$49.50
8x11 Book(layflat)	$44.99	$79.99	$69.99	$69.99	$54.99	$45.99	$59.50

 The Service will be Prime and Amazon Cloud Drive only. With the change to photo printing Amazon is also killing off the $12 per year Amazon Unlimited Photos plan. Users are getting a three or 12 month trial of unlimited storage after their paid plans expire as recompense from Amazon. This was a nice backup solution for photographers but with the move to printing it makes sense to bundle the service driving more users to upgrade plans. As for cost that means just to access this service it is $60 for the cloud service, $100 for Amazon prime, or $49 for Amazon Prime for students. You’ll have to wait for a proper review by Toby but odds are the quality will be lower end equal to Shutterfly at this price comparatively to other brands. Typically Photorec.tv’s current recommendation for good quality prints has been Adoramapix for their superior prints and sales. Alternatively for small orders Bayphoto is a nice option as through their professional order system small orders of prints 11x14 or smaller ship free through the mail. Bayphoto just isn’t cost effective for large orders due to the price difference between their service and Adoramapix. Just like Shutterfly it's not that it's necessarily bad, but for top quality it's recommended to go to a lab for photos. For family shots and prints to pass out to friends, family, and the sort it's a cheap option that might serve that purpose well. For a limited time, free standard shipping. Free expedited shipping on orders over $15. It’ll take 167 4x6 prints to get free shipping if you're curious. Compared to Adoramapix or Shutterfly it’s actually a pretty decent rate.

Shipping Method	Creation to Doorstep	Per Shipment
Standard	3-7 business days	Free on all orders.
Expedited	3-5 business days	Orders over $15 Free / Under $15 is $7.00 per shipment.
Overnight	2-3 business days	$13.00 per shipment.

 As for saving money I’ve got a few tricks to get your print price under Amazon’s:

• Six cent 4x6 prints from Shutterfly are possible during 101 print sales by ordering 99. This lowers the shipping and makes 99 prints cost 6 cents each versus 101 for 8 cents a piece.  
• My Coke Rewards through collecting cap and box codes allows promotional coupons making prints, books, and other items free but you have to pay shipping. Similar to the method above in that you still pay shipping but you don’t have to wait for a sale or can combine these with one.
• Swagbucks is an ad and survey site that gives out Shutterfly gift cards for doing tasks. They also do Paypal and other stores so technically you can use this one on any site's I've listed above in this post.

Free $5 for Amazon - You Know You Want More Gear!

For those that don't mind a few steps you can get a free $5 promotional credit from Amazon for Mother's Day, or just more camera gear. Offer's good through 5/8. It's first-time users only so if you've done this type of promo before it won't work.As for how to get the $5 it's just a matter of installing a game on a android device. If you don't want to use your phone or its not a android device you can use andyroid and fake it, you'll still get the $5 (also how to use instagram on a pc/mac).

1. Get Amazon Underground App Installer
2. Turn off the security setting to allow apps from unknown sources. Typically for android go to settings and this is found under security.  Then remember to turn it back on when your done. 
3. Get your email/text for the program, download the amazon app, then open to install. If it doesn't give you the option to open the file would be found in downloads or my files typically.
4. Open the app and install one of the promotional games:
   1. Simple Sudoku
   2. Simple Solitaire 
   3. Flow Free
   4. Fruit Ninja Academy: Math Master
   5. Elmo Loves 123's
   6. My Boo
5. You won't immediately get a notification that it worked. But you will get an email the next day saying you've received the credit. It's good for 10 days from that point.

Amazon Early Black Friday Deals

Black Friday 2017 Deal List Live - Photorec.tv/BF2017

Well, Halloween is over so now it's time for Christmas deals already. As many of you hate the fact of upcoming Christmas and Winter, trust me I live in Michigan, it's still a good time to pick up a few good deals. Starting out the deals have been a bit modest but you should be able to find something across the board throughout the week by going to the deals link below. As always Amazon Prime members have early access to deals before the general public.

Go Here for Amazon Black Friday Deals

As a reminder you can also use these links to shop B&H Photo and Video| Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA. Buy anything at all through the links and we earn a small percentage.Merry Christmas!

Amazon Offering Unlimited Storage for $59/year!

 Amazon has made news with their Unlimited Photos option for Prime subscribers and they have now upped their offering and $59.99 a year (after free three month trial) gets you unlimited storage of ALL FILES.  This is extremely competitive offering that moves Amazon ahead of Mozy, Backblaze, CrashPlan and other popular backup/online storage services.The downside - Amazon's desktop app used for file transfer is extremely limited- with drag and drop of folder(s) and a single option- Cancel- once upload has begun.  Mozy, Backblaze, CrashPlan provide controls for limiting the amount of bandwidth used,  pause/resume capabilities and automatic syncing of designated folders or drives.Professional Photographers, proceed with caution,  Amazon's TOS states the following: You may use the Service only to store, retrieve, manage, and access Your Files for personal, non-commercial purposes using the features and functionality we make available. You may not use the Service to store, transfer or distribute content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate your own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service I'd still like to use this as a backup solution for my personal files but with the current simplistic upload system it isn't feasible. Will it work for you? Who/where do you backup your files?  Let me know in the comments. 

Best Canon 70D Deal (Savings on Amazon & B&H vs Costco)

UPDATE 11-23-15 - Amazon and B&H have the BEST deal this week - Ends 11/30.

• Canon EOS 70D DSLR Camera (Body Only) - Just $899  Shop B&H | Shop Amazon
• Canon EOS 70D DSLR Camera with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 STM Lens - Just $999.00  Shop B&H | Shop Amazon
• Canon EOS 70D DSLR Camera with 18-135mm Lens Video Creator Kit - Just $1249.00  Shop B&H | Shop Amazon

Add spare 55-250 STM lens for just $149!! This is an excellent deal for a versatile zoom lens. Costco deal is the same but comes with a crummy bag and SD card - The Amazon and B&H accessories are better and if you live outside of NY you don't have to pay sales tax with B&H PhotoNot sure if the 70D is right for you? My Full Review of the Canon 70DI am getting lots of questions about the best deal on the 70D - This camera is selling very well and it should. In my review I have found it to be an awesome device for photos and video, perfect blend of features and pro level performance in a reasonably sized and priced package. Watch my Canon 70D Review.Costco is offering a bundled deal with the Canon 70D - Looks good at first glance but it has a couple of issues:

1. You can put this exact same bundle together on Amazon for almost $100 savings!! (scroll down for details)
2. The card they are bundling STRUGGLES TO SUPPORT the higher bit rate video files the 70D is capable of producing and slows down quickly when shoot RAW. See my full test chart of SD cards in 70D. Or just skip to bottom and buy the SanDisk Extreme 80 or 45s for better results.
3. The 55-250 Bundled is the older II version.  The new STM version would be worth your money if you plan to do video with the lens. In fairness Amazon is still bundling this lens too.  At this time the 55-250 STM (my review coming soon) needs to be bought separately.

On Amazon you can get the Canon 70D with 18-55 IS STM and the 55-250 for a savings of $105.  Add in the 2% rewards and in 35 days you will get $27.88 to spend on a spare 70D Battery or put toward a good tripod.  But more importantly those immediate savings need to be put toward an SD Card that WILL work well in your 70D.

• I recommend SanDisk Extreme 32 GB SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 Flash Memory Card 80MB/s (Buy from Amazon)
• For a good camera bag for the 70D I recommend Lowepro SlingShot 102 AW or Case Logic SLRC-202 Medium SLR Camera Bag - I have more camera bag recommendations depending on your needs - just leave a comment below with the style you are looking for and I can provide some recommendations.
• As mentioned above the 55-250 bundled in BOTH the Amazon and Costco deals is the old non STM lens. The new STM lens will be MUCH better for your video work and better for photos too - image quality is improved.  (Buy the Canon EF-S 55-250mm F4-5.6 IS STM Lens for Canon from Amazon)

 Support my work. Click this link to get the best deal on the Canon 70D on Amazon. B&H is also offering a better deal vs Costco on the 70D - Get the 70D with EXTRA battery, 16GB SD Card and Backpack for $1349.00. OR 18-135 STM for $1549.Not sure if the 70D is the best camera for you? Leave a comment below -tell me how much photo vs video you plan to shoot and your subjects.  I'd be happy to give you my thoughts.  I would also like to ask you to take a second and like my Facebook Page Facebook.com/Digital.Photo.Recommendations. Thanks! 

Costco Bundle T4i vs Amazon Bundle Canon T4i

Multiple folks have asked me about the Costco Canon t4i Bundle. For $899 they are offering. . well just check out the spreadsheet below and see that buying from Amazon saves you $130. It is important to note that this savings is mostly from the 55-250 discount that ends on 2/16Deal is still live as of 2/18. As always let me know if you have questions.    UPDATE: Added a video that shows exactly how to get the 55-250 bundle.

Amazon Prime Now Available on Monthly Basis

Sign up for Amazon Prime now!UPDATE: Amazon has ended this experiment - they are offering a free month Trial which right about now would be pretty smart to sign up for :)  Loads of holiday shipping FREE!It is no secret that I love Amazon, I only have good things to say and their Prime service is one of my favorite features. Amazon Prime is the Free 2-day shipping on 100,000 of items, a huge streaming video collection and free access to top notch kindle  books.Oh and $3.99 overnight shipping, I have even received items the next day when selecting the free shipping - their order and shipment operations are top notch.  Up till now this was a $79 a year fee, Amazon is now offering this for $8 a year - yes you pay more over the course of a year but I strongly suggest you do this for November and December - The free shipping is offered to where ever you need to ship, not just your house, which makes it wonderful for flinging holiday gifts all over the US.So - Go Sign up for Amazon Prime now - you will thank me later.  And I mean that in the literal sense - you will honestly want to thank me later for saving you time, money and hassle.