Best Travel Cameras
Updated October 10, 2011
I could rant on about a lot of great cameras here. But when I think about a travel camera, I think of something that is small, light weight, easy to use and something that will allow you to have fun taking photographs and end up with a picture that you would be proud to show your family or friends.
What Makes the Best Travel Camera?
You need to remember that when you are traveling, especially in today’s world that the smaller you can make things the better off you are. You are going to pay more to carry more baggage onto almost any form of transportation and it is more to keep track of and worry about losing. That means that size should be the most important thing to consider when you are trying to conserve for traveling. And that means that travel cameras must be first and foremost LIGHT. Sure, if you are a serious photographer, you may want to bring your heavy high end DSLR with a tripod, flash units, and a zillion lenses. But if you are the type of person who wants to travel light, take quality pictures, and spend more time enjoying your vacation then fussing with camera equipment, then you want a travel camera setup.
There are several cameras idea for "travel":
- Point and Shoots -- ultra small, light digital cameras that lack the features and image quality of bigger cameras
- Compacts -- more powerful point and shoot cameras housed in a more compact, bulkier body
- Super Zooms -- compact or point and shoot cameras with huge zooms (12-16x)
- Entry Level DLSR -- lightweight DSLR's
Of course, which style you choose depends completely on what you are shoot, your shooting style, and what kind of photos you are taking.
Important Travel Camera Features
Travel photography can have a demanding set of requirements; one day you could be lounging by the sea and the next you could be hiking the himalayas. Ideal travel cameras should have most or all of the following features:
Speed -- the faster the shutter, the faster you can take pictures. For travel landscape photography, this might not be that important. But if you want to take pictures of people and events while traveling, speed is important.
Zoom -- this is probably one of the most important features to look for in a travel camera. The longer the zoom, the more flexible your camera. Ideally, you want a zoom at least 3x or longer. You might even want to think about a superzoom camera that's 12 to 16x which would give you a huge range.
Manual Control -- higher end point and shoots, DSLRs, and compact cameras will offer you manual control features. This gives the photographer more creative control over how the picture is taken. The ability to control aperture priority, shutter speed, and ISO levels can mean the difference between a good photo and bad photo, especially in situations with low light. While this is not a "must have" feature for those who just want to point and shoot their camera, it's a good feature to have if you want more control over your picture taking.
Size -- the golden rule of travel is to travel LIGHT. Since your camera will be with you everywhere you go, it's it's important to pick out a light camera. Carrying a heavy camera around can be seriously draining when you travel. The size of the camera really depends on what sort of pictures you are going to take and what you will do with them. If you are shooting professionally or are a serious camera buff, you'll likely want to bring a DSLR and assortment of travel lenses. There is no way around the weight you will be required to bring. But if you are just going to be casually shooting pictures of your travels and want a good camera to take along, you can look at a point and shoot or compact camera that offers features you might want.
Battery Life -- It's important to have a battery life that will last a good amount of time before a recharge is required. You don't want your battery to limit your photography.
Large LCD -- large LCD's (2 or more inches) can make composing (and viewing) pictures much easier.
Other Features -- You might also want to look at some of these features:
- Powerful Zoom
- Large Memory Cards
- Weatherproofing
- Optical Image Stabilizer
Choosing the Perfect Travel Camera
With that in consideration you need to consider the end result of the camera that you are going to be taking. Do you want to get photographs that you can sell of all of the wonderful places that you are going to visit or are you looking to balance out the photo quality with the size factor of what you are going to be carrying along on the trip.
For most people a travel camera is simply something that they use to make a great photo record of what they did and where they went. It is designed to be a utensil that they use or a tool that they have that will allow them to take an accurate representation of what they saw and did.
Also you may want to remember that traveling can be very stressful and it is often better to keep things as small and simple as you can. With the advances in technology there is a wealth of cameras on the market that can and do give phenomenal results for a smaller amount of money and a lot of them are so small that they can literally be carried anywhere and not take up any room what so ever.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier in the article, my all time favorite travel camera is the Canon SD-1400 IS. It is small enough that it can be hidden in your shoe if that should ever need to be hidden, it gives you 14 mega pixel resolution and if you take along a spare battery and use one large memory card, you can shoot your entire trip on only one card and actually not have to worry about where this lens is or what happened to the other piece that you need.
I find that with my SD-1400 IS I can usually shoot around 800 to 1000 photos on two batteries and I end up using an 8 gig card which gives me more than enough memory to store the many shots and the videos that I shoot. I usually carry an additional 8 gig card just to be safe and in the event that I am going to be on a long holiday, I can take two additional batteries which has never left me needing anything. The two cards give me just a little over four thousand shots that I can shoot and with four batteries I end up with enough power to shoot about two thousand shots before I need to find a place where I can recharge the batteries. If you happen to be an avid hiker this is a very good thing. You are looking at a total weight for the camera and four batteries of just over six ounces. That makes it very usable and small enough that it will fit in shorts so hiking and biking are not a problem.
Now assuming that you are the type that enjoys being able to enjoy your travel rather than being weighed down by all the accessories , this is the camera that will make the most sense and give you the best results for a limited amount of cash outlay and give you the most effective use of your weight and packaging area.
If you insist that the quality is the one thing that you simply can not do without and you would like to save as much room as possible, then I would highly recommend taking the CanonT3 and using a fixed length prime lens with a low f stop such as f 1.8. The only thing here is that you will lose the ability to zoom in and out but it will give you the great quality and dependability of a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera and the faster lens will allow you to shoot in lower lighting so you will rarely run into a scenario where you will not e able to capture the image.
You will be able to record video and at 12 mega pixels you will be able to do the post production work and enlarge / crop the photos when you are home on your PC and you will have enough resolution that you should be able to get by.
The advantages of this set up is that you get a larger image sensor than on the smaller SD-1400 IS so you will have more information being saved to the film memory card which will ultimately result in a better shot. You will be using a much faster lens so that low light and stop action shots will be no problem. Also, by using the pop up flash on the camera coupled with the faster lens, there is literally nothing that you should not be able to capture fairly easily without having to tote around an add on flash.
By not adding on the addition of extra lenses and flash and using a fairly small physical sized lens such as a 50 mm or an 85 mm you are still getting a fairly small footprint that will take up much less room than a full fit while allowing you all of the fully manual choices that you want or need to be in complete control of your photographic process.
"Cheap, Small, and Useful"
Let me start with a camera that is still available if you search and one that is small enough to easily use and yet will take good enough photos that it will rival the shots taken on a nice entry level DSLR. That camera is the Canon SD-1400 IS.
It is small, smaller than a small wallet. It is truly about as big as a stack of about 25 business cards stacked together. But it is 14 mega pixels worth of pure point and shoot joy. I carry one with me 24 / 7 because I never want to be without a camera.
What makes this little jewel a phenomenal camera is the fact that not only can you put it in full auto and make it a great little no brains required point and shoot gem, but it has a plethora of manual over ride capabilities that will allow your creative brain to have control and get the exact shot that you want to capture. In fact, the only downside I have seen with it is that you have no view finder and have to do everything with the rather large LCD screen.
In addition to aperture and shutter priority, you can change the white balance and the ISO speed as well as compensating for exposure settings and all of the things that you might expect from an entry level DSLR. Now the imaging sensor is a little small so there is some amount of quality lost but the size and ease of use combined with what it ill allow you to do more than make up for that issue.
The one downside (if you can call it that) is that the camera uses a rechargeable battery system which is proprietary so there may be issues in getting the battery to charge depending on where you travel across the globe. A power adaptor for the countries you are traveling to will be requiring or else carrying some extra batteries. The manual says approximately 230 shots per charge; I personally experience somewhere closer to about four hundred shots per charge.
I think that anyone that is looking for a small point and shoot style camera and who does not want to give up total control to the camera needs to investigate this little gem before the next trip. You will not be sorry that you did, that is for sure.
This is actually a model that is a few years old and can be found rather inexpensively on eBay and other outlets; that being said, it is a very hard camera to beat on features and on photo image quality. That is mainly due to the fact that you will get an f 2.8 Carl Zeiss lens in the camera which means great shots in low light. That is something that is hard to get in a point and shoot camera and at an f 2.8 it is a lot faster lens than you will get with any of the entry level DSLR cameras on the market without spending a lot of money to add on an additional lens.
It uses the Sony Memory Stick which means that you are stuck with a proprietary memory option but when the size and speed of the lens and the amount of zoom that is available in the camera and you have a combination that is hard to beat. It is a rather large camera so it is going to be very similar in size to hanging on to a DSLR with the exception that you can not change lenses on it. For some folks that might be a negative but if you are traveling I tend to find this a positive point. Less things to hang on to and keep track of and you still get a zoom with a range large enough to cover most anything from a moderately wide angle to a mid range telephoto.
The camera uses regular AA batteries so you can be assured of power no matter where you travel and also comes with rechargeable batteries and a charger as well. The LCD is 1.8 inches so it is smaller on size but it does have a view finder which is in color so you can make sure you are getting what you want and need. It also captures video although not at a high resolution quality so you can save your travel video memories on your Memory Stick as opposed to on tape or DVD. The downside is that the resolution is only 6.3 Mega Pixels which is good for all but the most demanding travel shots that you might take.
It’s going to be hard not to include this camera in a list of travel cameras. It is relatively light and offers you the flexibility of a DSLR at a rather modest price, all things considered. You get fourteen mega pixels of resolution and with the standard kit an 18 to 55 mm lens which will over a good portion of the needs that you should have. It is a three power zoom that will do most of what you need.
The D3100 has a three inch LCD screen which is plenty big enough for just about anything you will need from reviewing the photos to changing the camera settings. You also get “Live View” shooting.
You also get the ability to shoot full 1080p HD cinematic video – a nifty feature to have when you travel.
We are also dealing with yet another camera that has a rechargeable battery system that will require that you purchase and carry some sort of current converter should you decide to go overseas. This is neither a plus nor a minus; it is simply something that you need to be cognizant of before traveling out of your country. It is either that or carrying a lot of expensive batteries which have already been charged.
The Nikon allows you a significantly lighter frame than a lot of the other cameras that are on the market and this means that it will make your travel a lot lighter while still giving you the benefits of using a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera to make sure that you get the best quality photo that you can.
The other distinct advantage is that you can take along extra lenses should you feel the need so that you can be sure that no matter what type of photo opportunity should arise, you are able to take advantage of the situation and capture the image.
The cost of the basic kit on the Nikon D3100 is five hundred dollars so it is certainly not the least expensive of the available options on the market and it is in no way the priciest.
If you are really trying to save money, you could opt to go with the Nikon D3000, which is the previous model (and still available) to the Nikon D3100. You should be able to get it for around 350 or so new.
While I normally don’t like cameras with a ton of features, when you are looking at a general all around camera that you can use for everything that is going to happen in a vacation it only makes sense to combine as many things as you can.
For Six Hundred dollars list price, the Canon T3 offers you 12.2 mega pixels of image quality, a 2.7 inch LCD and the ability to capture HQ video to the memory card. That is great because you will be able to use this one camera to capture everything that you see on your trip.
If you buy the kit with the 18-55 mm lens and then add on a 55 – 250 mm lens and a 50 mm f 1.8 prime lenses, you will have a massively great combination that will allow you to shoot great stills and awesome video all in one bag.
The two zooms will cover almost anything that you could imagine and having the 50 mm f 1.8 will allow you to take advantage of low light and shoot video and photos in near darkness with a minimal loss of quality.
This model of camera also allows what Canon refers to as live view which allows you to use the LCD to see what you are shooting as opposed to using the viewfinder. I personally prefer to use the viewfinder. I can shut the LCD screen off completely which will save on batteries and as a result I can extend my battery life immensely making the need for recharging much less important than it might be should you be using the LCD.
Having the amount of money that you are willing to spend implanted firmly in your mind before shopping for the best travel camera is always a great idea. This is especially true when the range of prices will run from somewhere in the one hundred dollar range to over six hundred.
Now if you already have a compliment of lenses for an existing camera that might tend to skew you towards a certain model if you were talking the DSLR models then you might tend to lean towards one avenue or the other and simply use your existing lenses to make the whole thing easier and cheaper to use.
But you need to remember that no matter what you try and do you need to make sure that the end result is easy to use and something that you are familiar with so that there is no learning curve when you are supposed to be enjoying your vacation.
One other option that might be something to consider if you are looking for a unit that is strictly going to be a travel camera that you take on vacations and trips would be to look seriously into avenues such as Craig’s list to see what people in your area might be selling there. I looked at the local listings before I wrote this part of the article and I found that locally there were two people selling models of the Canon DSLR family as bodies only and as low as one hundred and fifty dollar. For me, being a Canon guy that would be a God send because I am familiar with how they work and also have the lenses that will help me to maximize the package.
"Part DSLR, Part Point N Shoot"
This camera offers a lot of muscle for the small size, in no small part due to the fact that it is a "mirrorless" camera. These cameras are a new technology that merges DSLR sized sensors with the smaller compact bodies. You get the quality of the DSLR and the size of a compact point and shoot. At a price of $450, you could choose an entry level DSLR or a high end compact point and shoot, but the E-PL1 offers quite a few perks. For one, you can swap on different lenses (you can use Micro Four Third mount lenses). This allows you to have your cake and eat it too: one of the biggest sacrifices you make when choosing a non-DSLR travel camera is you don't get the lens swapping flexibility; but with the E-PL1, you can swap lenses and you have the small size.
If you are the sort who does not use DSLR's or you want maximum image quality and flexibility in a small package for travel, it's hard to beat what the E-PL1 offers. And for less than $450 bucks, it's a steal.
"Super "Cheap, Super Small, Feature Loaded"
Not every travel camera has to be expensive. One bargin-priced point and shoot that offers a lot of muscle for the price is the Panasonic FH-3. For less than $150, you get a 2.7 inch LCD, 720p HD video shoot capabilities, wide angle 5x zoom with image stabilization. You get a pretty fast 5 frames per second to top it off and 14 megapixels to boot.
If size and weight is important to you, you won't have anything to worry about carrying around the FH-3. This camera is very small -- one of the smallest point and shoot cameras on the market and one that's surprisingly feature loaded. So for the budget minded consumer who wants a full featured point and shoot camera that's small, the Panasonic FH-3 is the sure choice.
If you want to save $20 bucks, you can opt for the older model, the FH1 which offers pretty much the same specs but with 12 megapixels.
"Portable Alternative to DSLR"
If you need ultra portability and want some of the features present in a DSLR, you have two choices: look at a Micro Thirds camera or pick up a high end compact point and shoot. Of the two choices, a high end compact point and shoot will offer size advantages. One of the best reviewed (and a camera I personally own and use) is the Canon Powershot S95.
This camera is often called the baby G12 -- a larger point ant shoot that's Canon's flagship high end compact camera. The Powershot 95 offers most of the G12's features (minus the manual control dial on the top) in a much smaller, more portable body. Basically, this is your dream travel point and shoot.
If you want more creative control, this camera offers that to you. You can shoot in RAW format if you wish. There's a manual shooting option where you can control the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. The video shooting capabilities are great too with 720p HD with stereo sound. The lens is a low light f2 which makes it pretty good for close up pictures (narrow depth of field) and shooting in low light. There is also a control ring around the lens section that you can use to customize the settings on the fly, giving you a bit of the DSLR feel to the camera.
The camera shoots at 10 megapixels, but don't let that smaller number fool you (many point and shoots have 12-14 these days). The sensor is twice the size as normal point and shoot sensors This means each pixel captured is twice as large which yields better quality images and much less "noise" when you shoot images in less light.
Basically, this camera offers very high quality pictures, full manual control, a dedicated ring dial around the lens which can control shutter speed, ISO, focus, or whatever you set it to, the ability to shoot in RAW all packed in a small frame. The camera is the same size as the "average point and shoot" and just a bit heavier.
So if you want a true pocketable camera with great image quality and full creative control over your photography, you can't beat the S95.
Note that Canon has announced the successor the the S95, the S100, but the camera has not begun shipping yet. Word on the street is that it improved incrementally on the S95.
"12x Zoom for Travel"
The Panasonic ZS7 has pretty much universal praise from users and critics alike. This is a sweet travel camera with a 12x (25-3000m) zoom, making it easy take close up shots with ease (you can take photos from a distance). This compact gives you full manual control -- a feature that DSLR lovers will appreciate. You can shoot high quality 720p HD video with image stabilization.
This compact is not cheap. At nearly $500 dollars, you are paying a premium for a compact and approaching entry-level DSLR or a Micro Thirds camera price level. But for a compact point and shoot with high end features, the Panasonic ZS7 is one of the best.
Conclusion
Final Thoughts There are many things that you can take into consideration when you are trying to piece together a camera or camera system to use as a travel camera. You can get as simple or as involved as you would like for it to be but the bottom line, the thing that is going to be the most important thing in the decision making process, in my opinion is deciding if you are looking to have fun on your trip or to make it a working trip. In my life I spend almost each and every waking moment of my life, thinking about photography and what I could have done better on the last session or what I need to do on the next session. And it was my wife that said that I never took a break from it. That set me off thinking. You know she is right and sometimes it’s just nice to take a photo for the sake of taking a photo rather than trying to plan and set up every aspect of the picture. Since then, the only time I take along a full camera setup with my DSLR and the accessories is when I am going to do an actual shoot. Other than that I pack a high end point and shoot in my pocket and head off. I have found that I enjoy traveling more now and I even found some of the joy that led me in to photography at the start. That makes having the right travel camera a great thing on many levels.