Good Camera for travelling round the world

If you don't want a SLR, the Canon S95 or the latest model I heard is very good, someone I know didn't take his Nikon D3 but used his wife's S95 and made a A2 or A1 print at sunset handheld.

Have Sony Alpha DSLR and Lumix digital compact. Had hand held 1/4 sec f5.6 indoor shots published from the Sony and very pleased with Lumix performance.

Both have steady functions for handheld shots - reason why I bought both cameras so I could maximise the number of shots I take without having to lug a tripod around. Oh, and because I've also had a stroke and need all the steadiness I can muster!!!

Camera function on phones can also be useful. LP did a recent mail shot about this and it was also covered in the Wanderlust magazine travel photography special that was published recently here in the UK.

"I don't have a budget I just want the best one. I don't know anything about cameras really"

I recommend you do some reading and learning at the same time. You can spend $20,000 on a Leica with one prime lens, and your images can be worse than someone with a $200 second hand camera off eBay. Reading up about how cameras work, exposure works etc, plus learning about photography in general: these will likely provide you with a greater improvement in images than more $ on a camera.

As nwdiver does: I too would recommend a Canon G1X, or something similar: a camera with a large sensor (Four-Thirds at least), lightweight compact body that fits in a jacket pocket and with a zoom lens. Everything in one package, no lenses to change. Having controls to use it more manually to control/improve your photography later is a bonus, plus that you can shoot RAW later if you find you want to get more out of it, but it has fully automatic options in the meantime.

With the large sensor, two main benefits are that you have improved low light performance with lower noise high ISO (image is cleaner in dark situations, so you don't lose as much detail in the image) and seconly, you get a shallower depth of field at any given aperture for better subject isolation (i.e. you can make the background go blurred).

:D

tomono....I did not know that there is a relationship between sensor size and depth of field...I thought it was a purely a function of aperture. I'm interested in your comment, so you can please elaborate?

Thanks!

Brian

Edited by: rockrug

Hi Brian, yes, there is a relationship - just google "sensor size depth of field". Lots of information out there and can get very technical if you like maths/physics/optics :D That's why lanscapists using view cameras will go to crazy apertures like f/22 which on a DLSR is just a way to kill your image from diffraction, but necessary on such camera to get large DOF. Hmm... f/1.4 on a view camera... epic. I'm not really up on the hard core technicalities but here's an example:

If you have a small point and shoot you'll notice you cannot get subject isolation like on a DSLR, if at all. For example, and this is only a rough example, a point and shoot with say a 1/3" sensor (they're about this order of size) at 50mm (equivalent of 360mm at 35mm!) with an aperture of f/2 gives something similar in terms of DOF to a 35mm full frame DSLR does at f/14.4. This is rough stuff, but if you've used a 35mm camera, you'll know f/14 doesn't give any DOF at 50mm and in fact, you lose sharpness because of diffraction. On the flipside, if you want everything sharp and in focus and you need a large DOF, those small sensors are great!

Also, DOF is affected by focal length. A 35mm full frame camera with a wide lens, say 20mm, will not give you shallow DOF like a 200mm lens will at the same aperture and subject distance. That's one of the reasons (or perhaps benefits) why for landscapes with close foreground subjects you use a wide angle... and for portraits, other than to avoid faces looking distorted, you use more normal/tele lens for subject isolation, hence 50mm, 85mm etc at wide aperture.

I used this to get these figures btw... I'm not into the maths stuff... http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

Cheers,

Tom

I have the SZ31mr - and recommend it without reservation. The suggested SZ30mr is very good - too.

Damn... I just noticed the SZ31MR! Still glad I bought my SZ30...but now I want the 31!

Thanks Tom. I knew there was a relationship between DoF and focal length, but not sensor size. I guess I never really thought about it since I can't change sensor size while shooting!

Brian.

One thing they forgot to show... and I almost forgot, was the auto-panorama modes of the 30 and 31.. also a nice plus for travel!

The panorama mode is available on all Olympus's SZ models.
It's features (the whole SZ series) are way ahead of cameras costing twice the price.