Camera comparison

[JerryFn]

iPad anything for photography? it depends on your 'embarrassment sensitivity'. Have you seen folk hose piping with their iPads?

Even a small (decent) compact camera is better than ALL of these, if you must, choose the iPhone.

 

[wilsonlaidlaw]

I sometimes have the same problem as my Leica M240 (or its predecessors) and some of the lenses, e.g. the 50mm/f0.95 Noctilux or 80-200 Vario Elmar are very heavy. Where I really want to travel light, I would not dream of trying to use either my iPhone 5 or iPad3. Firstly I think people look really stupid using an iPad to take pictures with and both it and the iPhone have limitations imposed by their tiny lens and sensor. My personal choice for a lightweight camera is the excellent Olympus EP-5. The 12-50mm (EFOV 24mm to 100mm) lens is also a real lightweight and although nothing like the quality of my Leica lenses, on the EP-5 with its internal correction algorithms, produces surprisingly good end results. Even the out of the camera JPEG’s are acceptable. It has dozens of toys for special effects and the 5 axis image stabilisation is very effective. The RAW (ORF) output is first class. The only downside is the HD movie output which is less than wonderful but I don’t take a lot of video. If you want the camera very small, you can leave off the electronic viewfinder (VF-4) and use the back LCD, which is high resolution and works reasonably well in sunlight.

Wilson

PS. It can take all my Leica lenses with a Metabones adapter

 

[RoughOne]

If this is a trip of a lifetime, and it sounds like it is, I would drop anything unnecessary and use what was at the location instead (toiletries, etc) in order to bring an SLR. I have never been happy with phone photos. My wife travels for business to europe a great deal and while her photo pix are fun to see where she is, I would not consider printing them or even using them for desktop photos on my mac. Their quality is just not very good. The cameras do not compensate for changes in light, and have very poor ISO and are frequently quite noisy.

I would bring one body and two lenses (or perhaps one if this was a wildlife/safari shoot) Wide angle being optional. That 100-400mm sounds like a great choice. You might consider renting the lens you would like to bring. Be aware that there are forms you have to fill out when bringing camera equipment into some countries. Make sure you have your serial numbers of your equipment handy.

Dunno, once in a lifetime trips like what your sounds like, I would not want to spend any time regretting you missed a shot of a lifetime. On the other hand, if you just want to take some snaps and experience most of your trip 'in the moment' and not behind the camera, I'm sure you will be perfectly happy with your cell phone and some add on lenses.

Your vacation, so it is your trade off.

 

[caribiner23]

My well-constructed and lengthy response to this thread got whacked with the database crash on the forums last week.

I agree with the sentiment that says "Trip of a lifetime, bring a camera."

I have an iPhone 4 and iPad Mini and neither come close to my Canon s95 point-and-shoot. I bring the Canon with me whenever I want to be sure I capture the best images.

 

[Khandakulu]

Alternative to SLR and iPad for travel

I have what I consider to be the ideal (almost) travel camera - the Panasonic Lumix FZ200! It has a 12MP sensor and a single lens that extends from f25 ( wide angle) to f600(zoom that has a massive SLR lens equivalent) with F2.8 capacity over the whole range of zoom ( a lot of light!) . It allows shooting in RAW ( for manual image processing in the computer at home) as well as a good automatic function, and I have won prizes with the pictures it takes. The only drawback is that it has a small sensor that means in low light the quality of the image drops off more than an SLR - ISO 800 is really a practical maximum, and it is not waterproof. However these are small penalties to pay for a camera that has all these features in a unit that weighs less than a SLR with basic lens, and at a significantly lower cost.

 

[goody4paws]

I work in an outdoor museum where we have up to 4000 tourists a day from all over the world. 90% use their phones for photos, even the ones with DSLRs slung around their necks. The ones who don't use phones, just don't have smart phones - that's what it boils down to these days. Latest iPhones and other brand smart phones take very good pics. Photos with addon lens look fine - have also seen these in operation at the museum, super easy to slip on and off and use.

I also know someone who is a press photographer, did the Kokoda trail with full camera gear for a doco ... used his iPhone as backup and for that instant shot when nothing else was to hand.

Not sure why it's necessary to take both iPad and iPad mini though.

 

[fefie]

It really depends on what you want to do with your photos . do you want to make small prints and publish them on facebook or other such sites ? for that your iphone and such is just fine. You can't make large quality prints with those photos, for that you need a DSLR.

 

[chas_m]

Khandakulu made an excellent suggestion -- I wavered a lot between the FZ200 and what I eventually bought, the Canon SX50 HS. If you can only have ONE real camera and NO extra lenses for a trip, a superzoom that can shoot in RAW is likely to be the best possible option short of a DSLR and various lenses.