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OT: Vacations

Also, @MindzEye @hockeylover, I'm looking at getting an actual camera again for vacations, especially if I'm going to be going on a safari or the Galapagos or something. I don't want something insanely expensive because I'm the forgetful type . I have an older Pentax DSLR that another family member has in their possession, so I could probably just buy a nice zoom lens for it or something, but I'm open to suggestions whether it be a DSLR, 4/3 (had a Olympus PEN-E but left it on a cruise), or a nice point and shoot.
 
Deckie007 said:
Also, @MindzEye @hockeylover, I'm looking at getting an actual camera again for vacations, especially if I'm going to be going on a safari or the Galapagos or something. I don't want something insanely expensive because I'm the forgetful type . I have an older Pentax DSLR that another family member has in their possession, so I could probably just buy a nice zoom lens for it or something, but I'm open to suggestions whether it be a DSLR, 4/3 (had a Olympus PEN-E but left it on a cruise), or a nice point and shoot.
Click to expand...

Here's my questions:

- Define "insanely expensive"? Budget defines a lot of choices here
- What do you want to shoot, subject wise? This will inform lens choices
- Do you want to be able to process and print any of your images? Gotta know how old/small of a sensor we can get away with.
 
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Deckie007 said:
- Not sure if you've been, but I know Icelandair does stopovers in Reykjavik on the way to London. Don't technically need a week, but 4-5 days to see the major sites could work.

- Dublin works well, super cheap to fly with a low cost carrier from England.

- I'm biased, but I loved Copenhagen. Expensive though.

I'm looking at a vacation *somewhere* in the next couple of months. Thinking of a safari in South Africa/Kenya.
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I’ll give a humongous +1 for Reykjavik. Amazing spot, well worth a few days. Fucking expensive though.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's my questions:

- Define "insanely expensive"? Budget defines a lot of choices here
- What do you want to shoot, subject wise? This will inform lens choices
- Do you want to be able to process and print any of your images? Gotta know how old/small of a sensor we can get away with.
Click to expand...
He just needs to be able to take tasteful nudes of Jonas.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's my questions:

- Define "insanely expensive"? Budget defines a lot of choices here
- What do you want to shoot, subject wise? This will inform lens choices
- Do you want to be able to process and print any of your images? Gotta know how old/small of a sensor we can get away with.
Click to expand...

I bought this camera what seems like ages ago. Haven’t used it in a while. A century ago in terms of camera tech years

Mostly use it on vacays (haven’t had a long vacay in a while)

Are the specs still adequate?

Sony DSC-RX100 III
 
MindzEye said:
Here's my questions:

- Define "insanely expensive"? Budget defines a lot of choices here
- What do you want to shoot, subject wise? This will inform lens choices
- Do you want to be able to process and print any of your images? Gotta know how old/small of a sensor we can get away with.
Click to expand...
Ah sorry. Wildlife would be the primary subject. Printing the images would definitely be a plus. I have some nice pictures from my older SLR that I've blown out to 11x17 that turned out well but I don't think I'd do much bigger. $1K for the budget? I'm somewhat concerned about losing/damaging it in rugged conditions.
 
CH1 said:
I bought this camera what seems like ages ago. Haven’t used it in a while. A century ago in terms of camera tech years

Mostly use it on vacays (haven’t had a long vacay in a while)

Are the specs still adequate?

Sony DSC-RX100 III
Click to expand...

So my first admission here is that I'm generally anti point & shoot. They're fine for social media image quality but not much more than that imo. But looking at this one, it definitely looks better than most but I've got a concern points.

So, Sony is the biggest photo sensor manufacturer in the world and by a lot. So the quality of the sensor is going to be pretty good from a material and technology stand point. But when I see the word "effective" next to a megapixel count, I cringe a bit because that means pixel binning. So it's listed as a 20 mpx sensor, but if that's 4 to 1 binning, it's a 5 megapixel sensor which makes it a mid tier cellphone sensor and there's only so much you're going drag kicking and screaming out of that. For reference, I have a drone i bought in 2020 that has a 48 mpx 1 inch sensor, which is actually a 12 mpx sensor with 4-1 binning. The image quality is fine for what it is, but compared to the 12 mpx full frame sensor on my now ancient as fuck D700, the image quality on the 15 yr old full frame sensor deep dicks it from space. With that said, maybe the muggles at Sony have dragged excellent picture quality out of a small ass sensor, but without looking into more it I'm skeptical. Can't see wanting to print anything that comes off of it.

Thats honestly my only concern point for what that is. 24-70 is a great swiss army zoom length for most travel photography (street, architecture, lifestyle portrait, landscape) and though it's a tiny lens, if I trust anyone to jam decent glass into that form factor at non professional prices it would be Zeiss. Fast aperture for low light conditions or getting decently rendered bokeh also a bonus I don't think would be too common on point & shoots. Also, Sony's auto focus algo's have been industry leading for years now so there's a decent chance the auto focus on it is fairly snappy and might even have eye detect. So basically for most people I think that would work as a little travel camera if you don't really care about capturing anything far away and don't care about printing. For having a tool that can handle fairly creative travel photography uses that is easily replaceable if broken/lost/stolen and will produce files that show well enough on the gram, sure.
 
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Deckie007 said:
Also, @MindzEye @hockeylover, I'm looking at getting an actual camera again for vacations, especially if I'm going to be going on a safari or the Galapagos or something. I don't want something insanely expensive because I'm the forgetful type . I have an older Pentax DSLR that another family member has in their possession, so I could probably just buy a nice zoom lens for it or something, but I'm open to suggestions whether it be a DSLR, 4/3 (had a Olympus PEN-E but left it on a cruise), or a nice point and shoot.
Click to expand...
I use a Nikon 5300 - I have a kit lens (18-55m), an 18-200mm Sigma lens, and an f1.2 85mm Nikon lens.

Did a lot of family/kid portrait stuff for friends to pay for the lenses but now I just take photos for fun/travel. Mostly just stick with Lightroom for editing.

It's not really an up to date Nikon model but I like that I can send all the pictures to my phone by WiFi while I'm on vacation.

(Mindz go easy on me)
 
Deckie007 said:
Ah sorry. Wildlife would be the primary subject. Printing the images would definitely be a plus. I have some nice pictures from my older SLR that I've blown out to 11x17 that turned out well but I don't think I'd do much bigger. $1K for the budget? I'm somewhat concerned about losing/damaging it in rugged conditions.
Click to expand...

Okay...this hurts my soul because I'm a Nikon fanboy and also full frame mafia, but I think your best bet here is going to be a Canon crop sensor DSLR. They were the budget wildlife kings of the 2010's.

Best bet is to find a used Canon 7D Mark II. Fast shutter for the time (10fps is fast enough for your purposes), auto focus is decent even by 2023's standards. 20mpx crop sensor will do 11x17 or 13x19 well enough. Pro body, so it can take a bit of a beating, has some weather sealing so getting it a bit wet isn't a death sentence for it. You should be able to find one in the 500 dollar range used.

So part of the bonus here is that because it's an APSC, if you strap a lens designed for full frame on it, you get the "benefit" of the crop factor. So a 100-400mm lens becomes a ~150-600 (Canon's crop factor is 1.6 I think. Nikon's is 1.5....or the opposite, can't remember but more or less identical). Also has the same effect to your aperture though, so you're a bit hooped in low light situations if you're shooting a 4.5-6.3 on the long end and you're at an effective F9....But for day time shooting you're good. For that reason, if you can, find a copy of the Tamron 70-210 F4 if you go that way. Fixed F4 aperture becomes a ~6 with crop factor, which isn't dreadful in shaded conditions.

Other option is going with the old Canon sports flagship 1Ds Mark iii. It's what a professional wildlife photographer would have been carrying around in ~2010. But it's fast, reliable, and built like a tank. Also full frame, will play nicer with a wider range of budget super telephoto lenses like the 150-600 stuff from Sigma & Tamron.
 
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Deckie007 said:
Wildlife would be the primary subject. Printing the images would definitely be a plus. I have some nice pictures from my older SLR that I've blown out to 11x17 that turned out well but I don't think I'd do much bigger. $1K for the budget? I'm somewhat concerned about losing/damaging it in rugged conditions.
Click to expand...

So, I think (maybe) the choice of glass might be an issue here? Wildlife usually requires reach unless you like to live dangerously, so some kind of zoom?

1K for body and glass generally means a kit lens package or maybe body-only with interesting 3rd party lenses if the format supports it (which is a pain in the arse if you don’t want spend time shopping.)

Too bad about the PEN. Good little rigs.

Edit: Ah, didn’t see ME’s last post. That’s some good intel. 👍
 
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