What makes for a good travel camera?

spigot said:
I believe good photographs are less to do with the aforementioned gizmos & more to do with the person pointing the thing.

One only has to look at the mind-blowing images captured by the likes of Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson et al on equipment that is nowadays regarded as antique.

I also read recently that film is making a comeback, thereby giving an incentive to compose pictures rather than firing off dozens of frames in the forlorn hope that one will fit the bill.
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Totally agree, I've seen some amazing images taken with a smart phone. I inherited my wife's high end kit and by taking tuition and using it as much as possible I may one day start taking images that do it justice.
 
You have pretty much covered it all there even to the point where I dropped my Canon on the pavement smashing it open when we were in France in Oct. :mad2::mad1:
 
in some ways the olympus 750uz i bought for 5 pound on flea bay a few years ago is an ideal travel camera.....it lives in my work van

its 4megapixel , wtich is pleanty for a full frame a4 print more than ample for viewing on a computer screen
its got a 10 x zoom
it runs on aa batteries, either rechargables from the solar charger or alkalies available in any shop worldwide.
it was cheap enough that i never worry about knocking it or getting it damp
its got a viewfinder
its chunky enough to sit on a fencepost so i can getmyself in the piccy with the infrared remote control.....most modern compacts are so thin they fall over.
it will fit in a large pocket

its only real downside is its sceen is minute, roughly the size of a 35mm slide.
 
I once used to carry around a 35mm slr and couple of lens, but for some time have been looking for a 'one for all device', this year I brought a Nokia 1520, with a 20mp camera it takes good enough photos for my purposes and it's always to hand, the Nokia camera app is very easy to use and I've managed to take the best ever sunset and firework photos ever for me, the screen is 6" and 'clearblack' this means it's big enough to see clearly and you can view it in the strongest of sun, for telephoto I digiscope, this has some limitations but I can live with them, or as photos are usually viewed on tv screen just crop a 1920x1080 image. And as it's 'one for all' use it for posting on here.
 
colinmd said:
I once used to carry around a 35mm slr and couple of lens, but for some time have been looking for a 'one for all device', this year I brought a Nokia 1520, with a 20mp camera it takes good enough photos for my purposes and it's always to hand, the Nokia camera app is very easy to use and I've managed to take the best ever sunset and firework photos ever for me, the screen is 6" and 'clearblack' this means it's big enough to see clearly and you can view it in the strongest of sun, for telephoto I digiscope, this has some limitations but I can live with them, or as photos are usually viewed on tv screen just crop a 1920x1080 image. And as it's 'one for all' use it for posting on here.
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Not a dig at you, but I sometimes wonder why people buy 20+meg cameras and view on an HD screen which is 2mp or just post online with even less resolution.
 
The camera is probably the least important item (especially modern digital cameras) 'Seeing the image', composing the image and then applying the correct settings for the desired outcome are all more important than the camera itself except for having a camera with you.
 
I prefer my Pentax x-5 bridge camera which has most of the benefits of a dslr, compact and camcorder with 26x zoom and a switchable option to choose screen or eye level viewfinder.
I also own a Samsung dslr and get decent results but with it's extra lenses, filters etc is quite a lot to carry.
Some of my best shots have been on the ipad camera.
 
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