Camera or cell phone for European trip

[HFWR]

When carrying the DSLR is too arduous, I carry a pos (no, not that kind of pos...), an older Nikon Coolpix S51. The iphone takes great full-frame shots, but, for example, take a pic of the moon, and it's a few tiny pixels, rather than the magnificent glowing orb you photographed... 😜 The pos has an 3x internal lens zoom, so maintains a slim profile, but will pull in distance or small features that would be lost in a phone pic.

I would like to upgrade to a pos with bluetooth, but so inertia has won the day...

[donheff]

If you are into serious photography a DSLR and knowledge of how to use it are key. For memorable snapshots a modern smart phone or point and shoot are pretty impressive. I am the later, I like to take lots of photos on trips but I am not serious enough to drag a DSLR around. Many of my trips are bike rides where pulling out a cell phone would be inconvenient. Instead I hang a Canon G11 around my neck. It is slightly larger than the small point and shoots but it has an optical viewfinder (which I love) and is pretty fully featured. DW and my daughter just returned from Iceland and I was impressed by the photos they captured on cell phones.

[hiker88]

I used an iPhone 5s for my carry around camera on a Europe trip in 2015. It did ok for bright, sunny middle of the day images, but I was disappointed in the quality of photos I shot indoors or outdoors near sunset. After I returned home, I bought the Sony RX100m3 point&shoot for future trips. It does a much better job in low light.

[tulak]

We're traveling in Europe right now and have an iPhone 6s and an Olympus mirrorless camera with a high quality lens. The Olympus takes very nice pictures, but I find that I prefer not to take it and use the iPhone instead. We'll see how the next few weeks go, but at this rate, I might get rid of the camera and stick with the iPhone. Pictures might not be as good, but probably more than sufficient for our needs.

As an added bonus, we get GPS data embedded into the pictures. I should also upgrade iPhone storage to allow backing up of pictures to iCloud. I tried backing up with Google Photos, but couldn't get it to work. Maybe I'll need to try that again.

Thankfully Apple invests in camera technology. Each generation of the iPhone takes better pictures. That alone might be enough reason to upgrade to the latest iPhone.

I'll also add that using a phone as a camera also makes it easy to share pictures with family and friends while traveling. Another plus for using an iPhone.

I wrote more than I expected. Mostly to convince myself that the phone's camera is good enough.

[walkinwood]

As someone said, the best camera is the one you have with you.

If your wife wants to create a hardcopy book, then you should try printing some of your smartphone pictures at the same size to see if they are acceptable to both of you. Use the zoom function and see how it degrades the print, so you know just how far you can go before it gets too bad. Take some low light or night shots and see what the print quality is. Then, I think you can make a more informed decision.

I know a couple who create a photo-book every year with the year's highlights. They use smartphones exclusively. I find some of the prints are unacceptable to me because they are blocky with little detail, but it meets their needs and that's all that matters. They want prints to remind them of the events that took place and it works for them.

Enjoy your trip.

[sengsational]

A point and shoot with a quality optical zoom is actually better than binoculars*. The digital zoom on my MotoX phone doesn't do that job well. So there's another vote for a real camera. And cameras come with wifi. Fire up the phone app, transfer the uploadable shot or two, post to BragBook right away!


* Take a shot with optical zoom, then view it on the camera with the zoom feature.