Is this a good camera for thru hiking

[jimyjam]

Has anyone used the HTC - RE 16.0-Megapixel Waterproof Digital Camera? Was wondering if the picture and video quality are any good. Trying to find a good camera for my thru hike next year.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/htc-re-1...&skuId=9619093


Life is full of ups and downs! Hike on!

[Walkintom]

I've never used it or even held one but reading the reviews clued me in to something that would disqualify it for me.

You have to adjust the settings via an app on your smartphone. So if you want to do anything other than snap a quick pic, which it sounds like it does well except in low light, you have to pull out your phone, open the app and muck around with it.

I'd rather just take pics with my cell phone(GS5). One less thing to carry, charge and deal with.

[jimyjam]

I've never used it or even held one but reading the reviews clued me in to something that would disqualify it for me.

You have to adjust the settings via an app on your smartphone. So if you want to do anything other than snap a quick pic, which it sounds like it does well except in low light, you have to pull out your phone, open the app and muck around with it.

I'd rather just take pics with my cell phone(GS5). One less thing to carry, charge and deal with.

I guess I missed those correlations when I was reading about it. Just read some more reviews.
Ya, I think I'll keep looking!
Thanks


Life is full of ups and downs! Hike on!

[bigcranky]

Any basic point and shoot camera from someone like Canon, Panasonic, Sony, or Nikon (among others) will be fine. I like to have a wide angle zoom lens, and it really needs optical image stabilization. Bring an extra battery.

The Canon S100 and S110 are small, light, well made, and take excellent photos. I picked up an S100 last summer to replace my former trail camera, and it was only $150 as a refurb. But any small p+s will be fine. When it's raining just put it in a ziploc bag.

If you're a serious photo enthusiast or a professional, then you might want a "better" camera. But for most hikers who want something more than their phone, the basic p+s is great.


Edit: my wife shot all her Long Trail photos with her iPhone 5S, and they look great printed. Much better than I expected. She did some sweep panoramas and we printed those as two-page spreads in a large Blurb book and they are just fantastic. (I did have to work them over in Photoshop a bit, but still....)

[Acacia]

Big Cranky, on your Long Trail website photos, did you use the photos from your wife's iPhone 5S or from your Canon S100?

[bigcranky]

Big Cranky, on your Long Trail website photos, did you use the photos from your wife's iPhone 5S or from your Canon S100?

Both. Probably 2/3 mine and 1/3 hers, but that's a wild guess. If she's in the photo, I shot it, and vice versa, but the scenic stuff could be either of us.

Here's the thing: I shoot photos for a living, so on the one hand I have very high standards, but on the other hand the last thing I want to do on vacation is lug a big camera and feel like I'm working. So I'm constantly looking for a small, light, high quality camera that makes photos which make me happy.

So, more thoughts:

The S100 shoot raw files, so I can have more control over them in post processing (of course it shoots JPEGs too if you don't want to do any post). The sensor is very small, but the files turn out to be pretty good, even up to ISO 800. Good enough for a nice 11x14 inch print, anyway. The camera is very small, has a nice fast (large aperture) wide angle zoom lens, great image stabilization, and seems built pretty well.

The photos from the iPhone 5s were predictably somewhat noisy and grainy - after all, that is a very tiny sensor - but with a little massaging in Lightroom they printed very well. OK, some of them took a lot of work, especially the panoramics, but the files are good enough to take it and many of them would make me happy at 11x14, and most look great at 8x10.

We did a large Blurb book as our personal photo album from this hike, and the photos really look great. I was honestly pretty surprised.

Finally, if you are a serious photo enthusiast and have a lot of spare coin, the new Sony compact cameras are a major step up. I have recently acquired a Sony RX 100 (version 2), which is not much bigger than the S100, but the sensor is at least 4x the area, making the final image quality greatly improved - basically equivalent to a DSLR. But the current version is $800 new, so that's the major downside.

I know, this is a rambling post and way more than you asked for.