Which camera should you use to take pictures while traveling? My answer is it depends on what you want to do with those photos after you’ve taken them. So many photos just end up sitting in storage whether that be on a computer or the camera card or in the cloud. If that’s the case then there really is no reason to use an expensive camera to take these pictures. Now if you want to get a poster made from some of your travel photos than using a DSLR may be the camera to use. Here are a couple of options based on my experience taking travel photos for the past 20 years or so.
Phone Cameras
I couldn’t find any recent estimate of how many photos are taken with phone cameras but that number keeps rising every year as they continue to get better and better and the most available camera for most people is on their phone. Phone cameras are better than most point and shoot cameras of only 5 years ago in image quality. What a major improvement in a short time. The biggest advantage of taking your travel photos with the phone camera is that this camera is already with you whenever a capturable moment presents itself. And don’t forget, these cameras can often get into situations that other cameras can’t especially in tight places.
One of the downsides is limitations in editing and enlarging these photos. You can’t do as much with editing software on photos taken with a phone camera as you can with other cameras. This will likely change as these devices continue to improve. Enlargements can be more restricted due to the reduced image quality when wanting to have a 20 x 30 print of that amazing photo you captured. Another problem is the battery life of many of the phones and taking pictures with your phone wears the battery down even faster. Controlling what the camera focuses on can be a bit of a challenge which can affect some of your pictures and their sharpness.
Photos taken with a phone camera are great for quickly uploading them to social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Emailing a photo taken with a phone camera can be easy to do and faster compared to any other type of camera. Smaller prints are great from most phone cameras as well as using these pictures in smaller photo books works well.
