My husband and I are looking for a replacement camera to take on our travels.

Our Olympus Stylus film camera just died, and it had been our constant companion on our trips for @10 years.

We recently bought a Canon Sure Shot A510, but it is pretty basic.

Can't decided if we should get another film camera or a higher-end digital. I find myself not being able to take shots sometimes that I would like - low light, night shots, wide angle, etc.

We don't want a high end expensive camera, or anything too heavy. I'm also worried about having 2 digital cameras, and accidentally deleting all of our pics from our trip!

Would like to have something that could be fully automatic, but could do some manual things with.

Can anyone suggest a camera that they use that meets our needs?

How much do you want to spend?

How do you plan to see your pictures; if prints and computer screen, go digital. If you still prefer something like slides (my preference), then you need to go with slide film or print film developed by a firm that will provide slides from the negatives (I only know of Photoworks in Seattle that does this).

For traveling, I highly recommend digital. No more film rolls to loose, no changing film, no x-ray machines. I have a awesome waterproof case that I carry my memory cards in:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

And if you have 512 mb memory cards or less, you can go into photo stores on your trip and have them tranfer your memory cards onto cds in about 10 minutes. So then if you don't erase your cards, you will have 2 copies of your photos.

I have a Pentax 555 Optio that I love. But they are coming out with the A10 in March. Eight megapixels and it is supposed to take movies that look great on tv. It is tiny and will be under $350.

Check out this website for tons of reviews on all the latest digitals.

http://www.dpreview.com

One more thing I love about my digital is the built in macro lens. I can put it on the flower setting and take pictures up to half a centimeter away from the subject. This has allowed me to take wonderful pictures of text on signs I want to remember.

Hi everyone. Thanks for your comments.

I guess I'm "stuck" on film for some reason - I like having prints to put in albums. We don't have a photo printer, so printing from our digital involves going to Ritz, waiting in line, choosing the photos, then coming to pick them up.

Perhaps we also haven't used our Canon Sure Shot enough, it just seems really basic - i.e. not a really great zoom, etc.

We looked at some higher-end digitals like the Canon Rebel XT, but didn't really want to spend 1K+. That's another reason we were looking at a higher-end film camera - they are much cheaper. The Canon Rebels are I think $200-$300.

I want a camera that is a great "point and shoot" for when I don't want to fiddle, but one I can grow with, take great night shots, close-ups, panoramas, etc.

Appreciate everyone's help!

We own two Sony digital cameras, a 3.2 and a 2.0 megapixel. I've had them for 2 & 3 years, respectively and we've taken them to Europe with us. We have stuck with Sony because the pictures are excellent, and the Memory Sticks are interchangeable between cameras, so it's nice to have that.

The first trip we took to Europe, we had nothing to download our pictures to, so we stopped in a couple of Internet cafes along the way and had our pictures burned onto CDs, and that worked fine.

This last trip we had an iPod with us, and had the ability to plug our camera straight into the iPod and download the pictures to it, then we could see the pictures were there and could then erase our Memory Sticks and continue on our merry way. When we got home, we plugged the iPod into our computer (with the USB port), and now have all our pictures there.

HP makes an outstanding Photosmart printer, and they're not expensive. I print only the pictures I want, and can edit them so that the lighting is better, or crop it to get rid of some undesirable thing on the edge of the photo. I can also print enlargements for a fraction of the cost of what it would take at a camera store, and the gratification is immediate.

Now, digital cameras are less and less expensive (I think a 7.2 megapixel Sony is around $250 on Amazon.com or BHphotovideo.com, an outstanding New York based photo/video store)

Also, once your photos are on your computer, you can upload them to several websites where you can have them print them on photo paper and mail them to you, so the line at Ritz is over.

We also can burn selected photos onto a CD, and show them as a slide show by playing them on our DVD player. The DVD player we bought to do this was all of $50 at Best Buy.

Once you go digital, I promise you, you'll likely never go back to film cameras. You can have the photos, you can print them cheaply, and you can see on the spot if you "got the shot" and re-shoot it while you're standing there, instead of hoping that you didn't miss something.

Happy travels,

Jules

I still don't own a digital camera, but it's clear that film is dying. Didn't people see the news that Nikon (I think it is) will discontinue production of conventional cameras?

It's clear that digital is winning this battle.

So while I don't have a type to suggest, I'm suggesting digital.

I have the Sony DSC-W1, and it comes pretty close to what you're looking for (the current model is the DSC-W5, I believe; essentially the same, just 7 MP instead of 5, it's just as good, my sister got it for Christmas and I played with it some). Some manual controls, though certainly not as much as an SLR, smallish but not so tiny as to sacrifice features (it'll fit in a coat pocket comfortably, men's pants pockets are a stretch). And it takes AA batteries, so if the good rechargables it comes with run out of juice, you can just stick normal AAs in there, which are available pretty much everywhere. It ran me about $250 or $300 when I got it, which is about what the new models were running around Christmas.

One advantage of digital is pictures that you don't really want a copy of, you do not have to pay for.

I came home from Italy with 500 digital pictures. I culled that to the best 150 and paid for those 150 (not 500).

And the local Wolf charges less per picture for digital.

Personally, I like digital still, even with the desire to have some prints. I carry a bulkier digital SLR, so that's truly a matter of taste, but I like having the variety of options an SLR provides. Wouldn't recommend it to everyone, and have even chosen to carry a smaller digital on city walks. So I wouldn't try to talk anyone into one.

But I do feel, having done both film and digital, that digital has more options. (Film though does have some unreplicatable and intangible positives too). Just wanted mostly to point out that you needn't go through all of that to get simple prints from digital.

We pick and choose our favs from the hundreds of digital shots we took on a trip (so glad not to be carrying film at that volume). Once we have the ones we want, we upload them to someplace like Walgreens.com. Then we swing through and pick them up at our local store in a couple of hours as if we'd dropped off film. We've been paying 9 cents per print and don't have to pay for all those experimental and so-so shots we could afford to try because I was shooting digital. I also enjoy the ability to work with cropping, contrast, lighting levels, etc in a "digital darkroom" using something like Photoshop, where I have never had the skills to do the same in a true darkroom. After I've got it the way I want it, I upload somewhere and so far even the non-camera shops haven't really messed one up (plus I still have the original if they do).

We do have a photo printer that we print larger formats on, but even in-house, with the cost of ink, I can't beat the price of a Walgreens, Walmart or a Costco.

I understand the reluctance people feel about migrating to digital from film. For myself, I worked as a pro photographer (briefly - babies and weddings - ugh) and thought I would be a staunch holdout for film. Even have a color darkroom in the house.

When I finally switched over it was with great concern that my control and creativity with film would go away.

It's the opposite. Control, convenience, creativity - it's all there in spades.

As for the initial camera cost being less for highly capable film v. digital cameras, that's a temporary thing, and you need to compute in the cost of film and processing into the "life cycle" budget - a 1-GB memory card may cost as much as 15 or so rolls of film, but you use that card again and again, so the net cost per image falls to zero quickly, compared with film and developing costs (never mind prints).

For enlargements, a 5 mp digital has about the same "grain" size as the finest grain Kodak film product, so if you want a 16" x 20" super enlargement, it will be as detailed from a good digital image as it would be from the best 35mm film camera.

Almost any color inkjet printer will do 4" x 6" prints that will be just fine for albums - get a "photo printer" only if you want to make big enlargements or blow up small cropped areas. Otherwise, you won't know the difference.

I have a couple of very high-end Nikon film cameras gathering dust in a closet. They're lovely relics of the 20th Century.

My current digital rig is a $400 5mp Panasonic Lumix SLR with 12-power zoom (the equivalent to 28mm - 400mm) and a lens made by Leica. Awesome rig.

My wife uses the "compact" (cigarettte-pack sized) version of the Lumix with 6mp definition and 6x zoom. Keeps it in her purse. $300 soaking wet.

Wanna buy a nice old Nikon?

My suggestion would be to spend some time on a forum in WWW.DPREVIEW.NET .

The forum is broken down by brand names. You can easily go into, for example, the 'Canon' forum, and search for any information on any camera. Since you've posted to Fodors, you're comfortable taking advice from others on the net.

DPREVIEW.NET is probably the best source of non-commercial camera information on the web

I'm a professional photographer and swore I would never jump to Digital. Then Nikon brought out the D100 which I finally bought two years ago. It (at the time) has 6.1 mega pixels, and the reason I bought it is because all my glass (lenses) would fit it. I have thousands invested in lenses and didn't want to get a fixed lens camera.

They have since come out with a D200 and it is I believe over 8 mega pixels.

I no longer carry 60-80 rolls of film on a trip, and I no longer spend 2,000 on film processing at a pro lab when I return. (I had my own darkroom until I moved back to the states and then relied on pro labs).

I can shoot hundreds of pics at a time, the quality is fantastic, and it is just like shooting a manual camera as the Nikon series is a Prosumer line.

However, my husband bought a Sony last Spring, small but shoots 6 mega pixels I believe. The only downfall is it is a fixed lens, which I won't use.

The possibilities are endless out there. Look for high resolution options, if you want pictures you can enlarge past 4x6. Otherwise you tend to end up grainy on enlargements.

Other than that, I say digital is freedom and the way to go!

Thanks. I think I have been convinced to go digital.

Thanks to the person who sent the digital review site as well as the forum site.

Can anyone help me understand the pros/cons of an SLR camera such as the Canon Rebel XT?

Wanderer, this may be too late to add since you're now convinced but I love my Olympus C-5500 digital. It has a 5x sportszoom with 5.1 megapixel, is very user friendly and cost me about $250, I think, on sale at MicroCenter.

An SLR will give you more flexibility and, usually, the potential for higher quality pictures compared to a point and shoot. Both a pro and a con is that it uses a variety of external lenses; pro in that that gives you flexibility, con in that it's that much more stuff to have/buy (though you can get buy with one or two for a lot of uses). Cons are that it's bulky compared to a point and shoot (some of which are incredibly tiny, and nearly all of which can fit in at least a coat pocket), it's more expensive (usually, and don't forget the cost of lenses), and it's not as simple (both a pro and con, again, depending).

We switched to digital for a multitude of reasons the biggest being the hassel at the airport with film. Just a short horror story. My husband and son are underwater photographers and each has an underwater camera. I had a regular film camera. Of course, we took a lot of film, three rolls a day for a total of 48 rolls. We bought two full boxes, opended one to peek, the other was still sealed. My son carried one box in his camera bag and I the other. We got stopped at SFO and pulled aside because of the film. They ran the chemical sensor pads over the boxes and both set off alarms. I have never seen so many security people run over in my life. We were both a bit freaked out especially my son who was only 15 at the time. They took us to another area and opened every single roll and individually inspected them. Out bags were TOTALLY gone through and then they wrote up reports on us and at one point were discussing it they would even let us on the plane. I am glad they were thorough but it was rather unnerving, we did make our flight. Rather quickly after than event we all switched to digital even, the underwater cameras.

Wanderer, A good place to learn more about the pros and cons of DSLRs is the forum at

http://www.dpreview.com.

I think dpreview is the best site for camera reviews. Other good sites for camera reviews are

http://www.imaging-resource.com
http://www.dcresource.com
http://www.steves-digicams.com.

Steve's Digicams offers detailed descriptions and photos of the cameras, but he goes a little easy on the cameras when he reviews them.

After years of using a non-SLR digital camera and missing action shots because of shutter lag time and slow autofocus as well as botching indoor low-light shots, I am taking the leap into a DSLR -- much faster shutter, faster autofocus, and faster writing to the memory card, and better low-light performance in terms of AF speed and noise. Unless another camera comes along to knock my socks off in this coming week, I am getting the Olympus e-500, their 14-54mm lens, their 50-200mm lens (maybe, as it is quite large and heavy at 6+ inches unextended and 2 pounds), and their FL-36 supplemental hot-shoe flash. I've long been an Olympus girl, loyal to the brand because I love the distinctive Olympus tonality that other brands of camera have been shown not to be able to duplicate.

The kind and knowledgeable posters on the dpreview.com forum helped me decide what I needed in a camera, and just in time for my April trip to Paris.

By the way, I am taking only the camera body and the 14-54mm lens to Paris, as I want to travel light and can do without telephoto zoom of the 50-200mm. Maybe I'll do without the supplemental flash as well.

You kind of have to decide how central photography is to your travels. Are you taking a big kit in a big bag with a tripod hanging from it, or just one camera in maybe a holster?

To use a film camera without airport hassles (and x-ray exposure), I buy my film when I arrive at my destination and have it developed to negatives before I return. Once I'm home, these can be scanned and manipulated as digital images. I print only what I want after cropping and enlarging. Okay, so it costs me 5¢ to throw away a shot.

I bought a 5 mg Sony two years ago just before a trip to France. I also brought my Rollei along and used it for most of my shots. Last year I went to Italy and left the Rollei at home. I took almost 500 shots on my digital. After weeding out poor shots, I selected my favorites and had them printed at a local photo shop. I also had a few enlarged to 16 x 13 and they are great. I had a couple of cd's made at CVS for about $2.00 each.
One of the things I love about the digital is the ability to edit. I had a great shot of the Ponte Vecchio but a woman stuck her hand out just as I snapped the pic and it showed up in the lower left corner. I was able to cut that side of the photo and had a lovely photo.