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Digital in Travel photography
Digital in Travel photography
The price of digital cameras has fallen significantly, and the quality of the images they capture has increased, to the point that they're rapidly replacing film cameras in many travelers' luggage. They usually have the advantage of allowing instant review of the shots taken and deleting/repeating those that went wrong. Digital storage can hold far more pictures in a smaller amount of space; you may be able to take thousands of photos without reloading. The storage cards can also be reused from one trip to the next, and you save the cost of buying and developing film.
However, digital cameras still tend to be more expensive than film cameras with comparable features, and high-end digital cameras with interchangeable lenses still command a price premium over 35mm SLRs. They demand much more power (requiring frequent battery recharges or replacing expensive disposable batteries) than film cameras.
The various storage media (SD, Memory Stick, Compact Flash etc.) all work pretty much the same; all that really matters is the capacity of the cards you buy. Longer trips will require more memory, unless you bring along a laptop or another way to backup your pictures and clear your memory card. These days, many cameras are sold with a small memory card, and you will almost certainly need to buy a larger one before leaving on your travels. You could also consider buying additional memory cards for additional space and to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
Digital cameras usually have different quality modes available which use more/less storage space for each picture. They sometimes have confusing names like SHQ, HQ, and SQ1, and different resolutions (how many pixels). Experiment ahead of time to figure out what quality setting you want to use. Keep in mind that you don't need multi-megapixel images to fill a computer screen or make a pocket-sized print, and you'll be able to fit a lot more photos on the same card with lower settings. Don't use the in-camera display to determine what setting to use, because it can't show you how much detail you're losing; look at the final results in a print or on the computer screen (depending on how you plan on viewing your photos). The ability to switch to lower quality settings can also be useful if you're running out of storage space in the middle of nowhere: better to have the last couple dozen pictures taken at a less-than-ideal quality setting, than to run out of exposures before you reach home.
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Travel photography Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.