In my experience it makes no difference if its marked gift or not - chances are she'll get a customs charge as well as VAT.

This depends on the parcel getting stopped though. Chances are it won't - unless its Fedex or something in which case they ALWAYS seem to charge me taxes.

Best thing to do would be to mark it as gift, and remove all retail packaging from the camera. Worth a shot.

Sometimes they are sneaky and you think you've got away with it - until an invoice pops through the letterbox 2 weeks later!