Almost time to leave and still fretting over camera choice

It’s a tough one. I go with my DSLR with 18-140 lens. I don’t carry other lenses with me on trips as a weight compromise. It fits in my purse - no case just a thin protective sleeve. I wouldn’t want to carry a huge camera bag around but I just don’t like the smaller cameras I have access to. So...DSLR one lens in a normal bag

My thought is that I get better pictures from the big camera, I’m spending a lot on the trip and want the best pictures I can make, and why have the camera if not to use it.

Some people argue that frequent photographing takes you out of the moment or diminishes enjoyment. I strongly disagree because for me I notice more when I am looking at a place with light/angles/framing in mind. To me it’s a way to pay attention to what I’m seeing. I traveled with an artist once who said a similar thing about sitting and sketching. I’ll get up at dawn for a photo walk and experience the city in a new way.

That said I am hoping someday there will be a smaller, lighter camera with similar results because the weight is still a big drawback.

You need to take your better camera. Photography is so important to you, you will be so disappointed if you don't have it with you.

It's different for everyone, but your writing makes your priorities clear. Take the Canon 5D.

I got into photography when I moved overseas in 1981. Started with an Olympus OM-1, then OM-2 and finally an OM-4. Had three different lenses, all in a large camera bag that I lugged around while traveling. It was heavy, but I was in my 30s and could handle it.

With the advent of digital cameras, I made the decision about 10-12 years ago to go with convenience. I gave away my Nikon SLR and purchased a Nikon digital camera that you could put in your pocket. It was small and the lens only popped out when you turned the camera on. I discovered that I could take about 80% of the photos easily with good quality that I had previously done with the SLR, but I decided I wanted more. A few years later, I purchased a Nikon with is a compromise, I can't put it in my pocket, since the lens sticks out a bit, but I don't need the huge camera bag. I can take about 90% of the great photos that I could with the SLR. The ones that I can't capture well are when I am taking a photo with the subject or landscape and the sun is facing me directly.

Choices, choices, just pick one that makes you happy. I am 70 these days and just don't want to hassle of the SLR with lenses.

Steve, I've taken a slightly different path: from simple but quality point & shot Nikons to a Sony RX100 which sounds quite similar to your Lumix. Portability was my primary criterion - the camera is ALWAYS available since it's in my pocket. Also, when I purchased the Model I the Sony's sensor was head and shoulder's more capable than other P&S cameras and comparable to entry level DSLR. At this point I started shooting RAW and using Lightroom for editing (previously I used Google's Picasa). Whether I'm at a family event, walking the Camino, enjoying a city tour with RS Guide, or on a passeggitia with my wife, the Sony is always at hand. Buen viaje.

I love taking photos. In fact, I think I should have a tshirt that says “if I can’t take photos, I’m not going”.

I use a panasonic G7 with a 12 to 40 lens that I use most of the time. I use a peak design strap that goes over the shoulder because I hike a lot and find it a lot better. No neck strain and as the camera hangs by your hand, you can still keep a grip on it if necessary.

Clearly a very personal choice, but I take the DSLR. I'm looking at a shot right now that's hanging on my wall--from Varenna with a P&S. I can see the lost detail that the DSLR would have have been able to discern, so understand you're feelings when you're processing your shots. For me, I'll lug the DSLR as long as I can. Two reasons for this--I like blowing up some of my shots pretty big, and like you it irritates me during processing of P&S shots to see what could have been.

I agree 100% with Kim's reasoning. If you're looking at your prior photos and regretting that you didn't have the better camera, you will feel the same after this trip - so take the better camera.

Adding to the chorus: the posts above nail it. Everyone's different, but you obviously put a high value on your photos, so take the heavy DSLR and live with it (personally, I take less underwear along with me, to compensate for that).

I'm about to starting to pack for an upcoming trip. I'll be bringing my nearly-full-size Panasonic GH5, and my point-and-shoot Canon. The issue I struggle with is whether or not to bring that heavy 100-400 zoom lens. Then I think back on the last 3 trips...

• Trip to Hokkaido last summer: I only used the 100-400 zoom once, and only for a few minutes. But it allowed me to get decent-enough shots of a bear on the beach, taken from a boat offshore. The bear was just a tiny speck to my naked eye, and my wife never actually saw it (she tried but it was too far away) - until she saw the photos on my monitor.
• Trip to Sardinia last fall: I used the 100-400 zoom just a few times, to shoot flamingos (my wife loves flamingos). With the long zoom, you could see all the details - eye pupils, individual feathers, etc. In my wife's iPhone photos, the flamingos were just tiny specks.
• Trip to Mexico last winter: I used the 100-400 zoom two days, while we were in a monarch butterfly sanctuary in the mountains. The long zoom allowed me to get "close ups" of individual butterflies from a distance, some of the best photos of the trip. Damn.

We're leaving for the Baltics in a few days. I do need to squeeze my gear down to fit a low cost airline's tight carry-on limits, so I was thinking of leaving the long lens at home and just taking the 12-35. But we're planning a hot air balloon flight one early morning over a rather picturesque castle, and I'm probably going to need some reach there...damn. I guess I need to leave more underwear at home...

Take both. Adding the Lumix won't take much space, and will be handier for those quick candid shots. Or put your travel partner in charge of it. If photography is a big part of your travel experience, you must take the DSLR. Maybe a smaller lens if you're concerned about weight/space.

Take a good camera. It would be a shame to not take it and wish you had. Those photos will be your trip memories o you them them to be as good as possible.i carry my Canon Rebel T5 in my backpack and will also carry a telephoto lens depending on where we’re traveling to.

We're off to the airport in three hours and both cameras are still sitting on my desk. The Lumix is ahead at the moment, but the clock is ticking ...

On the subject of lenses, I rarely find myself wishing for more reach. I find wide angle lenses (24mm or less, full-frame equivalent) more appropriate and useful for travel.

I missed having a good zoom lens when I broke my 100-300mm on a trip a few years ago. I would never be without one again. When I got my Lumix DMC-FC1000 last year, I thought I'd never use the (effective) 400mm zoom, but I use it all the time (and the pic quality is a lot better than I'd imagined). Then again, I'm often wishing I could zoom out beyond 25mm too. Sometimes I miss my 5D M2 with the 17-40mm for really wide shots. But I just accept I won't be able to get a few of those shots anymore.

But that was my choice: buy a bridge camera so I could leave the 5D at home. And I've never once regretted it - it was a huge simplification that still allows me to take great pictures without the whole DSLR rig, even with the Lumix's limitations. Obviously too late for you to make that choice now(!) but think about it for next time. I wouldn't be comfortable with just a little P&S, even a good one. A bridge camera is a nice compromise.

You may regret having the 5D when you are actually traveling (ugh - heavy!) ...but you won't regret it later when you go through your pictures! Have a great trip either way!

My hubby is the photographer and camera nut. I must say I enjoy his pictures but am always waiting, waiting and waiting for him. At times, it is just not fun anymore. I also get nervous when he is hiking and taking all his camera lens etc. with him. I say take what you enjoy but be cognizant of your loved ones with you. ENJOY

That's one big reason I travel alone, Nancy!

The best camera is the one you have with you. You'll always have the Lumix with you and you'd get tired of carrying the big lens. So either take both or just the Lumix.

Stan and Richard make a good point - if you're taking the DSLR, there's no reason not to pop the Lumix in your bag, too, as it won't take up much more space!

Anyway, you've departed by now. Hope you have a great trip!

Take the big camera. Take all the lenses.

I have been troubled by carrying the camera and the lenses. I went to a work-clothes retailer, and bought their $60 vest. This has large pockets, big enough for a lens each. The vest is light weight, and can be worn in the summer. Rather than carrying the bag, I wear the vest. I do not take a tripod, although I am rethinking that.

My long story short is I bought the phone with the best camera and it's all I take now.

My long story long is ages ago (1980's) back when we still had to bring our 35 mm film, I went on a trip through Korea, Philippines and Japan with a friend and our spouses. I brought a camera bag with an SLR, multiple lenses (portrait, wide angle, zoom, doubler), filters, tripod and gobs of film. My friend brought a very small all in one auto-focus Canon.

Back then you didn't know how your pictures would be until you got home and developed them. My photos were great. My friend got his pictures back, his were great too. Mine weren't enough better to justify lugging the weight. 90-95 percent of my photos didn't require any special lens, filter or tripod. My friend had better candids because it was much easier to pull his camera out of a pocket and snap a quick photo. Candids IMO are the best travel photos.

Since then I've gone with the smallest possible camera. Over the years, I've gone smaller and smaller but always with the best camera in the category. I have a great Canon elf with a fairly large zoom and really good low-light capability tucked away at home. It's about the size of a deck of cards. As I travel ever lighter these days, I like reducing all my electronics down to one item, the phone, and one charger. There are occasional times when I can't get the shot I'd like with my phone. It's so rare, however, that I appreciate traveling lighter more than I miss the extra photo gear.

There is absolutely no way I would go on holiday with just a smartphone, even one of the models with a 'good' camera. Sure, the old saying that the best camera in the world is the one you have with you is absolutely true, there is also no question that there is a world of difference between a smartphone camera and even a half-decent compact. As for a full-frame DSLR well, they don't bear comparison. Even a compact with a 1" or larger sensor will whack any smartphone out of the field.

Where this shows up most of the time is in challenging situations. In good lighting, a smartphone will do fine. However, throw in low light, a fast-moving subject, backlighting, high contrast or highly variable subjects, or the need to isolate the subject from a distracting background, and a smartphone will be completely out of its depth. Then there is the very limited focal length of smartphone lenses - usually fixed ('digital zoom' isn't really zoom at all but in-camera cropping) - and you can take it from me, a smartphone will, more often than not, be more limiting than your own imagination.

On this last trip, I eventually decided to take the little Lumix. Yes, there were times when I REALLY missed having one of my DSLRs with me but, 90% of the time, the Lumix was perfectly adequate - and I didn't notice it was in my bag when hoofing it up a mountainside. Next time however ...

Thanks for coming back and revealing your decision. Glad it worked out!

On my last trip to Europe I took my mini IPad for communication reasons. I took my smaller camera with me but started using my iPad camera also while on the trip. I was amazed on how good the iPad photos came out plus the ability to edit. On our BOE tour one person who brought their large camera and a set of lens and had to check his camera backbag at museums. On my first trip to Europe I brought my large camera and a small camera, frankly it was a pain dealing with the large camera though the photos were slightly better in a few cases. The the issue may have been the quality of my small camera, which I’m planning on replacing with a better quality one.

This is what I did on the trip I am currently on......I brought my smartphone, a nice P&S, and my DSLR. I used all three! When I didn’t feel like carrying the beast, I left it in the room and took my smaller camera. I have used all three!

what did you take?

a couple of years ago i switched to a fuji xt2 from a 5D because the 5D is just too big for travel (not to mention the video is subpar at this point). the 35mm 1.4 lens has become my favorite lens ever.

picture quality is amazing, and the lens/body combo is so much smaller and easier to handle than the 5d ever was.

if you don't like fuji's offerings (i picked fuji for video, which i need for work, and a great array of affordable lenses), there are other mirrorless out there that you might consider.

Well I've processed all the pics from the trip. There were over 900 ... The first cull (OOF, duplicates, unsalvageable) reduced that to a slightly more manageable 760.

I'm happy and I've learned a lot more about the little Lumix. I also went to the trouble of buying a photo-processing app for my tablet, so that I could post pics to my family FB page en route and that was a success, too. Whereas I had been pretty underwhelmed with the out-of-camera JPEGS from the LX100 previously and so shot exclusively RAW (which I will continue to do for my 'serious' DSLR work), I managed to find a suite of JPEG settings which, after just a little tweaking here and there using the tablet, were more than adequate for viewing on-screen.

The proof of the pudding, as they say, was finding myself doing something I have never done before, in decades of photography: I liked one photo so much I had it turned into a wall canvas, which now hangs on our dining room wall. It is 1 metre long by 40cms tall, a panoramic shot taken in Venice - a row of docked gondolas with Chiesa San Giorgio Maggiore in the background. I didn't realise it at the time, but it turns out that vista is a popular one with photogs.

Anyway, I reckon this is a significant moment for me. This is not to say that I won't be challenged by the very same decision before our next big trip of course, but I am now leaning more heavily in favour of the compact when travelling. Sure, it was a limitation occasionally, but not very often. The 24-70mm lens range was fine, in fact the same as the lens I would normally have taken with the DSLR. I never needed more reach, though a little wider at the short end would have been nice. Image quality, as evidenced by me hanging a copy on the wall, is good enough. Reduced dynamic range (versus the DSLRs) was probably the most significant limitation, but not a deal-breaker by any stretch.

So, thanks to the little Lumix, we now have a daily reminder of our Venetian wanderings, hanging in the house.

I didn't realise it at the time, but it turns out that vista is a popular one with photogs.

Indeed it is...I have a 2' X 3' pre-dawn shot of that exact location hanging on my wall. It's a great spot!

Glad you enjoyed learning about your new gear, and thanks for coming back and sharing with us how everything turned out.

My Venice pic hanging at home (24"x36" framed print) is from the Rialto Bridge at dusk, facing south (approximately). I can see lots of gondolas out on the water as well as some docked, etc. This is another well-known Venice location. I shot this with my Canon 5D DSLR about nine years ago. I doubt I could have gotten it with just a P&S, even a nice one shooting with RAW. It looks quite nice blown up this large - very little noise, a lot of detail. I did shot it RAW as well (I shoot everything RAW+JPEG these days) and had to brighten it a few stops - it was a little under exposed, but it came out just about perfect.

Andrew, have you ever tried metal prints? It can be an unforgiving format (it can show incredible detail) but if your pictures are not noisy, in focus, and have good color, I have found it a great medium for larger prints. The 24X36 I mentioned earlier is on metal, taken with a D810.