Best camera for travelling around South America

If the 350d was lost it wouldn't be replaced. So there's no worry there in terms of loss. More concerned about not using the camera as much as I should when I'm away as it'd be too big to bring everywhere. Should be able to pocket most micro 4/3 or similar.

The Canon g11/g10 were mentioned to me by another user on here, but although they were great in their day I would imagine the micro 4/3's have taken their place in terms of image quality.

Any opinions on the nx100? Budget is tight! Can pick one up for sub 160ish

muppetkiller wrote: »

Honestly haven't a clue about the nx100 but it seems to get very good reviews.
Another option is
http://www.amazon.co.uk/OlympusPen-E-PM1-Compact-System-Camera/dp/B0058GI8F0/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1367581766&sr=1-2&keywords=epm1

and suits your budget ?

Yup the epm1 seems great. Saw one in pc world for 180 brand new a couple of weeks back. But i was an eejit and didn't buy it because i wasn't sure about it when insaw it. Came back 2 hours later and she was gone!

NX100 at the right price and i think id be happy enough.

Cant really see myself upgrading. Might have something in the bag at the minute. Ill report back soon.

Well I thought I had a great deal on an NX100, but it fell through. So back to where I started.

I have to say I liked the feel of the Samsung, so the NX1000, might not be a bad shout. It comes in at 300 new, or at least in or around that price.

The Nikon V1 is at 250 now, but after seeing the quality of the pics from the Samsung and it's rather large sensor I think it appeals to me more.

Well the camera arrived this morning! Shipped on a bank holiday and received two days later. Fantastic stuff:D. Was only thinking last night how I'd love to get it this morning...little did I know the An Post man would make my day!

This is going to be my first impressions mini review:

First of all, taking it out of the box the camera is light without the lens. Really light. Almost feels too light to me, like its a toy. That being said, it has a much better feel than the NX100 did, although the body is plastic it definitely feels well put together, and the texture of the plastics is nice.

I think the weight of the camera without the lens makes sense when you put the kit lens on it. It suddenly feels like it's the perfect weight. The perfect weight for stuffing the camera in baggy shorts pockets or to have around your neck. It's certainly no DSLR that's for sure!

Powering the camera on is quick, and your taking your first picture in about 2 seconds I reckon. Including power up and focusing. It's certainly not the fastest startup I've seen, but at the same time we're talking milliseconds here. The screen on the back of the camera is bright and vibrant. It certainly has good colour and sharpness. The menus are very intuitive, and when shooting full manual you have access to everything you need within 3 clicks.

There's a couple of features that stand out for me, that I've never seen before. The first of which is the iFunction on the kit lens. This is a button on the side of the lens, that you will push with your left hand. Pushing this button changes the function of the manual focus ring. When shooting in full manual mode it will enable you to change exposure, and aperture settings. Which is unbelievably handy on a camera like this. You can also customise what this button will change by default. I'm thinking of just having it change the aperture, as there is a wheel on the back of the camera that will allow for exposure settings. This will mean I can change the two most changeable items on the fly.

The next feature I really like is again relating to the manual focusing ring on the camera. Once the camera has auto focused on your desired point, changing the focus ring will digitally zoom the screen in. So you can fine tune your focus and dial it in to perfection. :cool:

Now I feel it would be unfair to comment on the image quality, as I've only taken about 50 shots. But so far I'm very impressed. I was only shooting JPEG today and obviously using the kit lens.

I found the colours and contrast to be great. Coming from my 60D so the bar was set high. And comparing it to my most recent shots on my 60D with a Sigma 30mm F1.4 prime is probably not fair! Considering the lens cost the same as this camera alone :P.

The images upon review look great, perhaps a little soft when looking at the full res 20.3 files at 100% on my admittedly not great screen at home. As I said, my bar was set unachievable high for this so I'm actually rather pleased! I've also read that the JPEGs can be on the soft side, so perhaps shooting RAW would make some difference.

It's the honeymoon, first day period with a camera so it'd be unfair to rate it. But so far so good. Give me a couple of days and I'll write a detailed review!

Well over three weeks into my south America trip and the camera is treating me well! My only complaint is the battery life, which although not terrible, can be tricky when you're away from power from 4+ days!

Otherwise a superb camera, very pleased.

I'll be honest, the low light performance of this camera was rather excellant. I got some fantastic low light shots with this camera.

I'll report back in a week or so, when i update the firmware and this trip comes to an end. At least then i will know if the frustrations I've had are purely as a result of an early firmware, or something else entirely.