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Best camera for travelling around South America

Alanstrainor

Alright lads/ladies,

Going travelling around south America for two months in June. Trying to figure out what camera to bring with me. I currently have a 60d and a 350d but I have a worry bringing either away. I fear they will be too bulky to have with me all the time, and that I will miss certain situations due to it being buried in a bag. And also, the fact that it would stand out a mile to any would be muggers with it strapped around my neck.

Which has me wondering if I should buy something more pocketable. Missed the chance to pick up a new olympus epm1 for 180 quid recently which would have been ideal!

Thinking along the lines of a micro 4/3 camera, or possibly a bridge of some sort.

I can get a Nikon V1 for 275. Its the size I'm looking for, takes good quality snaps and has a digital viewfinder. It is however at the very upper end of my budget.

I would be interested in a bridge camera potentially, but would worry I wouldn't have manual controls.

As a photographer, I want access to my manual settings as quickly and easily as possible. So I want something that will give me manual settings, take great shot, be somewhat pocketable and after all that wont break the bank!

I'm not picky like :P

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pedatron

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Well lads, i ended up taking a punt on a Samsung nx1000 new from amazon. I've been thinking far too much about this bloody camera situation, so i just had to bite the bullet!

Ill right a review here when i get it!

Wow looks a lovely machine. Looking forward to what you make of it!

Alanstrainor

And it's been shipped already. Should be here in the next couple of days :cool:

muppetkiller

Don't forget your 60 euro cashback

http://www.samsung.com/uk/smartcameracashback/

Alanstrainor

muppetkiller wrote: »

Don't forget your 60 euro cashback
http://www.samsung.com/uk/smartcameracashback/

Cheers, but it's since expired

Booo :P

I just ordered a new hama lens cap with lanyard and a UV filter. I'm thinking I might get a polarizing filter too...might be a tad overkill all the same.

Alanstrainor

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!

Alanstrainor

I know these shots probably aren't worth very much in terms of showing off the camera. But I have to say I was surprised at the low light capabilities of this, as well as the colour and contrast in these shots. These were all taken along south wall.

This shot was taken at 1600 ISO and the noise is starting to become a problem, but to be honest it's very impressive all the same:

This shot is at ISO 1600, again noise is noticeable, but its not bad.

This below is at 50% crop and 800ISO. Shutter speed was 1/80 so not fast enough really for what I was shooting, but given the circumstances not too bad.

The next two are at ISO 800

dirtyghettokid

muppetkiller wrote: »

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

i just ordered that, thanks to your post!

we'll see how i get on with it now! :cool:

dakar

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

i just ordered that, thanks to your post!
we'll see how i get on with it now! :cool:

Now I've got an itchy 'Add to Basket' finger because of *your* post!

dirtyghettokid

dakar wrote: »

Now I've got an itchy 'Add to Basket' finger because of *your* post!

i'm now dealing with post buying guilt

:o probably cos of moths flying out of my wallet

dakar

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

i'm now dealing with post buying guilt :o probably cos of moths flying out of my wallet

The moment's passed. One unnecessary photographic purchase from amazon (like, for example, a 35mm f/1.8 lens I may have accidentally bought earlier) due to following a link to a bargain on the forum per day is my limit.

Maybe tomorrow...

pedatron

Hi guys,

Was hoping to get the Samsung NX1000 bought by Alan here for when I went inter railing later this summer. Funds have taken a hit due to work needed on my car so a brand new camera is looking unlikely. Anyone know of somewhere that I could even rent a good spec handy sized camera for about a week?

If not my budget limit to buy something half decent is about €150 now. I'm looking for something with decent zoom and the highest picture quality I can get for that money(not asking for much I know). It would sicken me to have poor quality pictures coming home from such a trip. I know a good camera isn't the be all and end all but I literally have nothing to take with me only my SLR and that's not happening. I will be more than likely be bringing my tripod and gorillapod along with me also.

Any links, tips, ideas or miracles would be greatly appreciated!

Ped.

pedatron wrote: »

Hi guys,

Was hoping to get the Samsung NX1000 bought by Alan here for when I went inter railing later this summer. Funds have taken a hit due to work needed on my car so a brand new camera is looking unlikely. Anyone know of somewhere that I could even rent a good spec handy sized camera for about a week?

If not my budget limit to buy something half decent is about €150 now. I'm looking for something with decent zoom and the highest picture quality I can get for that money(not asking for much I know). It would sicken me to have poor quality pictures coming home from such a trip. I know a good camera isn't the be all and end all but I literally have nothing to take with me only my SLR and that's not happening. I will be more than likely be bringing my tripod and gorillapod along with me also.

Any links, tips, ideas or miracles would be greatly appreciated!

Ped.

http://www.connscameras.ie/equipment-rental-243749cm2.html

Alanstrainor

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.

Alanstrainor

Over 6 weeks and thousands of shots later, i have to say I'm not all that impressed with the camera. It has started to crash every 20 shots or so, and is generally buggy. The camera struggles to handle the external flash. Any time you use it in aperture priority mode it will blow out any image you take.

The extra features such as WiFi upload just plain does not work. You might get it to upload/send one photo but then it will either sit there for eternity or crash with am error 00.

I have a feeling that a firmware update will fix alot of these issues, but that's just not possible on the road. And I've had prior experience with updating Samsung cameras and if it fails the camera is irreversibly bricked. So attempting it on the road doesn't appeal to me.

Kilree

Just on the point of pressing the "place order" on Amazon when I read your post. Given your comments I think I'll hold off on the NX1000 for the moment. Don't want to end up buying a "pig in a poke". Thanks you for your honest and truthful review.

Fiskar

Think I will stick with my Panasonic TZ7 and wait for a price drop on the GF6 or an Olympus. Gadget show also had problems with this model in low light conditions.

Alanstrainor

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.

Kilree

Looking forward to that. Haven't entirely given up on the NX1000 although I'm also looking at the Olympus E-PM2 4/3 system.