Which camera to buy?

[Montenegrin1919]

Hi all! I'm looking for some travel camera that i can put in my pocket and that is waterproof. It will be used ONLY for photos. I was thinking bettwean GO Pro hero 7 black and Olympus TG-5 or 6. You are free to give me other recommendations. Thanks. You can also recommend me some no-waterproof travel cameras

 

[Tropicalmemories]

I have the TG5 - its OK, lots of features, great macro capability, but let down by its tiny sensor.

GoPro are not good for stills

I'd recommend a 1 inch sensor waterproof camera for stills:

SealLife - nice bright lens and 1 inch sensor
Sony RX0 - small, 1 inch sensor, but not the best handling

 

[Original katomi]

It sounds daft but I bought my g kids a drop proof water proof point and shoot and they are getting some good results. May be worth a look at kids cameras. I have the canon g9 that’s not bad, getting old and worn now as it’s used everywhere I don’t want to take my DSLR eg on the beach in the rain lol

 

[dunfly]

Waterproofs are great and I have one for snorkeling, but they are limited to about 140 mm (35mm field of view) with optical zoom, which is a killer for me in a travel camera. The TG-6 is limited to 100mm equivalent.

I use a non waterproof Nikon S9900 as my backup and pocket camera on trips. It is discontinued but the current model is the Nikon A900. It has a 1/2.3 sensor, which is just a little bit better than a cell phone, but it has a good 35x optical zoom lens which gives much better images when you zoom in. It has P S A M modes but only takes JPEG images (which are actually pretty good).

A 1" sensor is clearly better, but you pay more and give up zoom capability. For travel, I would pick the Panansonic Lumix DC-ZS100 (24-250 mm equivalent) or the Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200 (24-360 mm equivalent). They are not waterproof but have excellent features and take both raw and JPEG images. If you really want to impress your friends, you can get a Lieca C-Lux, but it is essentially a Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200 with a sexy body and a little bit better color quality. It is only about $300 more.

 

[Solarflare]

Its Leica, not "Lieca". And dont pay extra just for a name, thats wasteful and silly, and only people of questionable intelligence would be impressed by that. Leica compacts are just rebranded Panasonic compacts, just buy the originals.

Besides, Hasselblad also had a good name and they just effectively got bankrupt and got sold to DJI. Leica might go the same way, though they didnt acted as poorly as Hasselblad did in their final days.

There is no such thing as a travel camera. One can use any camera for travel. Whats talked about here is superzooms. Which certainly is one possible choice for travel, but certainly not the only one.

If I really wanted a superzoom, I'd pick a Fujifilm X-T2 and a Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 OIS from the used market. That would be around $1200.

But, fun fact: I never want a superzoom. They are anything but a universal lens, since they are quite dark and slow autofocus. Most are also disappointing image quality, though Fujis 18-135 managed to transcend that. Its actually so good I would consider using it. Still dark though.

My actual pick for a travel camera would thus be a system camera and a couple prime lenses. For example, with Fujifilm, XF 16/2.8, XF 23/2 and XF 60/2.4.

About GoPro etc, really just take your pick. I have no special advice there.