Vacation Time: What camera should you buy? Part II

In the Part I five basic points were suggested in considering a camera to purchase for your vacation. Price, camera size. brand, ease of use and your subject matter. Price and brand were covered pretty much as needs to be. Just a few things to touch on.

Taken With a Sony a350

As with the price, if you think you might use your new camera in more situations after your vacation, then you might want to budget more. Do have children in you near future, nieces, nephews, yours, friends? Have you recently retired, looking for a new hobby or are you planning on traveling more in the future? Photography can be addicting. Don’t forget to budget for batteries, memory cards and camera case.

Taken with a Canon 5D MKII

A little more on camera size. Think about the nature of your vacation. Are you doing a lot of sight-seeing, shopping, camping, hiking or taking a cruise? Are you going to be in high populated areas, large crowds? Are you going to want to keep up with a large camera case? If you really want to capture your memories, you should be more willing want lug it around. Never fails when you don’t bring it, there is always a perfect photo op that you just missed.

Taken With Panasonic DMC-FZ7

Are you technically challenged, never read the manual and toss it aside or do read it cover to cover. This is where ease of use needs to be brought up. A good hint for the finding the technicality of a camera is to look at the manual before you buy. How many pages and will you read them. The thicker the manual than more frustrating it may be for someone who in a non-manual reader. Most stores won’t let you open up the box just to see the manual. But if they have a display camera, they should have a manual. If not locate the manual on-line. The more the technical a camera, in most cases the higher the price. In my opinion, if you are going to only going to shoot on auto, opt for the less expensive point and shoot rather than the DSLR.

Taken with a Sony a350

Next point to keep in mind if what will be the majority of you subject matter. Scenery, architecture, indoor, low light situation, action or even underwater. Will you be in damp or wet areas or dry and dusty. There are plenty of cameras that are marketed for certain types of situations and there are plenty that work in most. Some of the features on cameras will increase the price of the camera, so it is a feature you won’t need or want you may want to look at a few more cameras. Once again I want to remind you to check the photography restrictions on the places you want to visit.

I would  be glad you help you find a good camera to fit your needs and once you get your camera, be sure to sign up for photography lessons. If you decide that it is too much hassle to take photos, bring me along as your own personal vacation photographer and photojournalist (wink wink).

Check out these articles on popular vacation spots for photography

Top 10 vacation spots great for photography

25 Most Photographed Places on Earth

The attached photos were taken with:
Canon 5D Mark II  This is a great camera, but is expensive and large. Unless you are very serious about photography it alot to keep up with while on vacation.

Panasonic DMC-FZ7  Have had this camera for 6 years and it has held up great.  It is now my daughter's camera and she really enjoyes it.  Not recommended for low light.  Has a high zoom capapilites, but as with any digital zoom you loose image quality.

Sony a350 Had a lot of fun with this DSLR, was pretty easy to carry around too.

Other camera's linked on this page are just to show examples, not recommending or saying they are inferior to other similiar prodeucts.

Camera reviews DP Review 

Camera retailers
BH Photo

Adorama
Don't forget to get plenty of memory for the extend of your vaction if you are unable to upload images to another source until you return home.