Convince me to take my DSLR on a 5-country European trip

In My Humble Opinion
1

…or confirm my growing conviction that my cell phone is all I need.

In July my wife and I will be spending five days in Florence and Venice, then taking a ten-day Viking cruise with stops in

  • Koper, Slovenia
  • Zadar, Croatia
  • Dubrovnik, Croatia
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • Corfu, Greece
  • Katakalon, Greece
  • Santorini, Greece
  • Athens, Greece

followed by an additional four days in Athens.

I have a Canon 80D DSLR (24 MP) with a number of lenses, and my phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 (12 MP). Obviously, the Canon can take superior pictures, but its equally obvious disadvantage is weight and bulk.

The old saying is “the best camera is the one you have with you.” I have to take my phone on the trip and everywhere we go. If I also lug the 80D (and an extra lens, and spare batteries) with me, I might be able to grab some higher-res shots than I could have gotten with the phone, but is that reason enough to haul it around? My initial conclusion is no.

ISTM that, aside from resolution, the chief advantage of the 80D is that it can capture better telephoto shots than the phone. I thought I might overcome that issue with a monocular which, unlike a telephoto lens, can also be used just to look at distant things by eye.

So I got one, but attaching it to the phone is a bit fiddly, the optical quality is not stellar, and handling it is also somewhat tricky, even with a pistol grip to support the whole setup. But the total weight and bulk is still less than that of the DLSR plus extra lens.

I have worked professionally as a photographer on and off for decades, but I am not a master landscape photographer, and even if I were, we will be on organized tours for much of the trip, so I won’t be entirely free to go wherever I want and take all the time I want to capture the perfect shot.

So my conclusion is to leave the DSLR at home.

Do you have any arguments to persuade me I shouldn’t?

2

Leave your DSLR at home. Expensive cameras have a habit of disappearing during these trips unless you plan on carrying it around with you 100% of the time. Enjoy the sights instead of trying to capture them for perpetuity. If you must take a picture, your phone is probably good enough in 90% of cases.

3

A modern phone camera can come remarkably close to a DSLR for daylight shots. Where they really fall down is in low light, or if you need telephoto shots.

So think about what kind of photos you want. If you want to shoot pictures of landmarks from the river, you might want your telephoto lens, and if you are hoping to shoot night pictures, the phone will likely let you down. But for walking around in daylight, I’d just carry the phone.

Also, what are thr photos for? Just your personal photo collection? Or commercial purposes?

4

Just personal.

5

If you have the money, you might also look at a compact super- zoom camera or a compact 4/3 camera which has the same dslr sensor size in a much smaller package.

I bought a Canon G1x to use with a housing as a dive camera, and wound up using it for all my shots on vacation because it was almost indistinguishable from my 60d DSLR.

But really, if you don’t need night shots or telephoto, your phone camera will likely be fine.

6

That would be my main consideration here. Otherwise if you just want daytime landscapes/riverscapes on your cruise and are not interested in niche photography that would require a DSLR, I’d probably leave it.

I mean I wouldn’t - I shoot birds a lot :wink:. But I assume you have no such esoteric needs, so at that point convenience and good enough become the overriding criteria.

7

Thanks for this idea. I’m looking at a Canon EOS M200.

Which is pretty much what the reviewer there said, too:

Of course, if you take photos on your smartphone, the M200 represents one more device to bring with you. If you’re mostly doing wide-angle shots of landscapes or cityscapes, or even just selfies, your smartphone is probably good enough.

So do I want to spend $400 for a new (refurbished) camera just to up my pixel count and have a few extra features? I’ll decide in the next day or two.

8

They still make Leica M’s:
https://us.leica-camera.com/Photography/Leica-M/Leica-M-A

9

I think the two biggest reasons would still be night/indoor shooting and telephoto.

If you are hoping to shoot the landscape from the river, you might try a few shots from a similar distance where you are, and see if you like,the detail.

If you zoom with your phone, it will likely be a digital zoom. It might look okay in a small preview window, but will likely look awful on a larger screen. So don’t use the phone zoom past any optical zoom range it has, and see if landmarks at the distance you want to shoot them are large and detailed enough for you.

As for indoor shooting, you can alsways use the phone’s flash. But I find natural light indoor shooting to be much better when you can do it. Again, the phone might look like it’s capturing a scene ok on the phone screen, but it’s likely doing electronic amplification and the final image will be very noisy. Test that too, and see if you are okay with it.

As for that Canon M200, it’s a great camera. But there are two types of these smaller cameras: The compact 4/3s ones with interchangeable lenses, which pretty much can do anything a DSLR does, and compact zooms that have a built-in lens. They have smaller sensors typically, but some have pretty fast lenses and can zoom crazy far. If you want to zoom in on details on the shore from the boat, or capture birds or other wildlife, one of these may be the way to go. Some have optical zooms out to 3000mm (DSLR equivalent), which is crazy (my longest telephoto is 250mm). They stay small because the sensor is small, so it won’t give you better low,light performance than your camera, but the zoom is awesome. Better focal length than my 8" astro telescope.

Here’s a review of some of them to give you an idea of what’s out there:

10

I’ve been looking at many of the same issues, preparing for a Safari trip next year. I learned when I was doing dive photography that I’m a point-and-shoot guy. I don’t want to spend time setting up a bunch of features. I want to take a few shots and then enjoy the scene in person.

For the safari, I want a good zoom, and I want to be able to print 8x10s at least. The Cannon 540 has been on my radar for that. I’m happy to see a link that wasn’t influenced by my search history to cross check it!

11

One thing to be aware of with superzooms is that their speed changes pretty dramatically with zoom level. Some are f2.8 wide open, but can go all the way down to f8 or f11 fully zoomed out. So again, they’ll do great in bright daylight or at low zoom pevels, but in poorer light the highly zoomed images will require a longer exposure. And every time you change the zoom level the speed changes and you may have to adjust settings again (unless you are on auto). That’s why cameramen shooting action sports buy $15,000 telephoto lenses.

12

It really depends on how serious of a photographer you want to be during the trip.

Only you can answer that.

mmm

13

And how good a photographer you are. My nephew, who is a photographer, once shot a few rolls of photos in the surf using disposable waterproof cameras. The photos were far better than anything that I could imagine creating with any equipment at all.

14

That’s the thing. I’ve taken the DSLR on other trips only to realize that I didn’t have the time to do much more than snapshooting anyway. And the pictures I got weren’t that much better than ones my wife took with her iPhone.

Not as good as I’d like to be, or as I might be if I dedicated more time to it.

Thanks, all, for the advice.

15

Leave the Canon home. Years ago I bought a Sony NEX-3 for travel. Lots of megapixels, but still compact to carry all day with ease. Does panorama and such as well. Not sure of the latest model.

16

As I mentioned above, I’m still considering a Canon P&S. Any new gear I get will almost certainly be Canon, since I’ve been invested in the brand for decades, and don’t want the hassle of learning another maker’s interface, menu structure, terminology, etc.

17

Point and shoots are the way to go. I love mine. I think it’s a Canon. Among other things it doesn’t make my arms tired and I can slide it into a pocket.

18

After you enjoy getting that great, perfect zoomed-in shot of, say, an eagle nest on the cliff,
ask yourself: what are you going to do with it, where will you keep it, who will you show it too, and how often will you look at it.?

If the answer is that you will frame it, hang it on the wall of your house, show it to everybody and enjoy it every day–then take the DSLR

If the answer is: store it in a folder on your PC labeled “vacation pics”, and flip through it once every two years…then take your phone.

19

For the most part now I carry either my Canon 80D or my phone, I don’t carry a P&S unless it’s specifically for underwater or when backcountry skiing. I’ve got a great rig for attaching my DSLR to the shoulder straps of my daypack so it’s always handy when hiking. On European travel I have to make a decision whether I want to be a photographer or not. I carried the 80D with me through Barcelona and was happy to have it.

I may look into a mirrorless to save space and time, but my experience with P&S, even the advanced ones, is that the results aren’t dramatically different than a good phone camera in the hands of a good photographer. Except for a new underwater camera I don’t think I’ll be buying a P&S ever again. Instead I’ll upgrade my phone.

20

I’m in the same situation with an upcoming trip to Alaska. My phone does great in almost all situations, especially low light, but it doesn’t have an 18-300mm telephoto lens, or a 60mm macro lens. So I’m probably going to end up taking an old Nikon D90.

I know I’m going to want to take pictures of small, far away things, like whales (compared to the size of the ocean) or seals (compared to the size of the glacier). The downside is I dread having to travel with a whole additional bag filled with delicate equipment.

The best answer is probably to buy a fancy zoom phone, like the S23 Ultra, 7 Pro, or 14 Pro Max, but I already have access to the D90 and lenses for free.