If you’re in the market for a new camera, this holiday season is the time to buy. There are some great Black Friday camera deals available right now, including one on our favorite GoPro, the GoPro Hero 13 Black. There are plenty of other GoPro camera deals, along with some good buys on cameras from Insta360, DJI, Fujifilm, and more.
For more info about action cams, check out our complete guide. Also, be sure to read our guide to the Best GoPros, Best 360 Cameras, Best Instax Cameras, Best Travel Cameras, and Best Mirrorless Cameras. Head to our full roundup for more Black Friday deals.
Updated November 28: We’ve added a new section of mirrorless camera deals, along with a deal on Polaroid’s latest Now camera.
Do You Need a New Camera?
Probably not. Probably what you need to do is spend a lot more time with the one you have, but if buying a new camera makes you feel like maybe you’re getting better at photography, far be it for me to stop you. Hitting too close to home? I feel you. I mean I want a new camera. I want the Sony A7C R, which is an amazing camera. The autofocus is light year’s ahead of my A7R II, the sensor is bigger, the dynamic range is better, and it’s smaller and lighter. What’s not to love? But it isn’t going to instantly make me take better pictures.
To make better images you have to spend time at it. It takes practice, shooting everyday, even if you only have 10 minutes. Walk around the neighborhood and play with different compositions, try shooting in ways you normally don’t. Experiment with different light at different times of the day. Just get out an shoot more. Most of it will be garbage, but you’ll be learning.
If you need a new camera to get you to do that, then carry on, there are some truly great deals to be had right now.
The Best Action Camera Deal
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
GoPro did not release a new model of its Hero action camera this year. Last year’s Hero 13 is still the latest, but it’s on sale for Black Friday anyway. Last year’s GoPro Hero 13 was the first significant change for GoPro’s flagship action camera in many years. The company added an interchangeable lens system, along with Macro, Ultra Wide, and Anamorphic lenses, plus a set of four neutral density filters. The new interchangeable lens system opens up shooting possibilities that simply don’t exist with other action cameras. For some reason, this camera often gets overlooked. It’s just fun to shoot with.
I think the slickest part of the Hero 13’s new lens and filter system is that the Hero 13 Black autodetects which lens is attached and changes the Hero 13’s settings accordingly. This is especially nice for those who don’t want to fiddle with fine-tuning their camera settings every time they change lenses or pop on a neutral density filter. I’ve been using all three lenses for over a year now, and they’re all nice, but the Ultra Wide is my favorite. I mainly use my GoPro to shoot from the handlebars of my bike, so the wider the shot, the better and more immersive the footage becomes, hence my love of the Ultra Wide. The Hero Black ultrawide edition is also on sale.
Everything that made GoPro a household name is here as well, with industry-leading hypersmooth stabilization, all kinds of helpful shooting modes, and support for GoPro’s Quik app. Also note that if you buy through gopro.com, the company includes a year’s worth of GoPro Premium, the company’s subscription cloud storage service. If the GoPro has a shortcoming, it’s the battery life. It’s OK, but not great. I suggest grabbing an extra battery.
So, given that there was no Hero 14 this year, how future-proof is the Hero 13? I would say very future-proof. I will admit, the newly announced DJI Action 6, which has a variable aperture lens, is very interesting, but it’s still an automated aperture rather than giving you a full aperture priority mode. I’m also a little leery of DJI products, given the ban on imports that starts December 23, 2025. The Insta360 Ace Pro 2 below is also on sale, and I do love that camera as well, especially with the new accessories that turn it into something more like a point-and-shoot. But in the end, when I head out the door for a ride, or a paddle, or, right now, some snowshoeing, the action camera I reach for remains the GoPro Hero 13 Black.
Other Great Action Camera Deals
Deals on Action Camera Accessories
The Best 360 Camera Deal
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
The GoPro Max 2 is the best 360 camera you can buy, and it’s currently $100 off. The dual 14 mm (35 mm equivalent) lenses of the Max 2 each record to a 1/2.3-inch chip, the largest available in a 360 camera. This gives what GoPro calls “True 8K” video, by which the company means that the actual recorded area of the sensor is 8K, whereas other 360 cameras have an 8K sensor, but only record about 6K or 7K worth of that sensor as the actual image. The short story is that the Max 2’s video is sharper and clearer. Couple this with support for 10-bit color in Log files, and you have footage that the competition just can’t match.
Other 360 Camera Deals
A Fun, Screen-Free Digital Camera
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Photograph: Nena Farrell
What if there were a film camera that captured digital images? That’s what the Camp Snap camera is, the screen-free aspect means that, like film, you don’t know how your images look until later— you can keep photographing without getting pulled out of the moment as much. The Camp Snap can hold up to 2,000 photos on the preinstalled memory card, and it comes with a USB-C cable to download the photos onto your computer. This one is a fun gift to give too.
The Best Deals on Instant Cameras
Photograph: B&H Photo
Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 99 is the best Instax camera for those who love manual controls and creative effects. The Mini 99 offers some manual focus and exposure controls, as well as some fun color effects, like the ability to simulate light leaks just like those thrift store cameras collecting dust on your shelf. There are two dials on top of the Mini 99. One acts like an exposure compensation dial, allowing you to adjust exposure value (EV) two stops brighter and two stops darker. I found the L (Lighten) and L+ useful when shooting against snow, which has a tendency to overwhelm small sensors like this one. It’s also good for strongly backlit scenes, though those are still not Instax’s strong suit. The Mini 99 has a 60-mm lens made of plastic. It works out to roughly the same field of view as a 35-mm lens in 35-mm format (or if you prefer, somewhere between 1x and 2x on your iPhone). The shutter is fixed at f/12.7, which means you’ll be relying on the flash in all but bright, sunny, outdoor shots. That said, unlike quite a few other Instax models, with the Mini 99 you can turn off the flash for those well-lit shots, and that means far fewer washed-out images.
Courtesy of Polaroid
Polaroid’s standard Now camera is close enough to the classic Polaroid that you probably won’t notice the difference. The Gen 3 version is an incremental update of the Gen 2, bringing better auto focus and improved flash. Otherwise, it’s the same basic design we love, with a nice chunky body and easy-to-find buttons.
Other Instant Camera Deals
Deals on Mirrorless Cameras
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
Nikon
Zf Mirrorless Camera
The Nikon Zf is the camera I would buy if I were in the market for a new camera. It’s all about the knobs and dials. Every setting you need to make an image is accessible on a dial or knob: ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and exposure compensation. There’s also a switch to change shooting modes and another to change to black-and-white mode or video mode. Pair that with a great 24-MP sensor and reasonably fast autofocus speeds, and you have a fantastic, reasonably priced camera. The best deal of the bunch here is Adorama’s lens bundle, which comes with a charger, memory card, lens filters, and cleaning kit.
Other Mirrorless Camera Deals
The Best Deals on Our Favorite Photo Printing Services
A photograph isn’t a photograph until you print it. Strong words, but I’ll stand by them. Luckily, there are some great deals right now that will let you print your images without spending a fortune.
Photograph: Mpix
Our favorite place to print photos is holding a 30 percent off sale on its print services. Mpix makes high-quality prints at a reasonable price, even when it’s full price, which makes this a great deal. Mpix prints on Kodak Endura paper and offers a variety of paper options. I tested the E-surface, which renders rich, deep blacks and true-to-life colors. It holds up well over time; the images we printed in 2013 look exactly like they did when we got them. We also like Mpix’s books and calendars.
If you need to print gifts for your family, Shutterfly is having a sitewide 50 percent off sale. We’re fans of Shutterfly’s book printing service, which had the best results so far in our testing of photo printing services. We also like the calendars. The printing is good enough, especially for the price, and shipping is generally speedy.
The highest-quality prints in our testing came from Adorama’s Printique service. It would be the top pick in our print services guide if it were a bit cheaper, which, with this deal, it is. You can choose from a range of papers, and they’re listed by their actual names, like Kodak Endura or Fujifilm Matte. I also like the option to print the date and file name on the back of each image.
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