Traveling and taking photos seems to go hand-in-hand. You want to record the memories with a snapshot or two and let mom, back home, see too. The problem with cameras, when traveling, is three-fold: bulk, batteries, and storage.

I’ve been taking photographs for years, so my manual Nikon F3HP is what I am most comfortable with. Unlike it’s digital counterparts, I don’t have to worry about battery life at all: a smaller than dime-sized lithium battery can literally last a few months of heavy camera usage. Most of the camera is mechanical. Bulk-wise, it’s a bit heavy (it’s made of die-cast steel), but as long as I don’t lug around a bunch of different lenses, it’s manageable. Film as a storage medium isn’t so bad either. It’s the developing that is time-consuming and costly (unless you do it yourself).

I also use to own a Digital Nikon D70 SLR (for the complete story on why I don’t anymore, read here). It is a great camera that takes wonderful photos. Bulk-wise, it’s about the same as my manual F3HP, albeit a bit lighter (made of plastic, instead of steel). Battery life, in terms of other digital cameras was good, lasting a couple of days. However, when traveling, then you must worry about power conversion in order to charge it, not to mention lugging the charger. And what happens if you are in a place without outlets (hostel anyone?). Picture storage is another issue on long trips. Nowadays, you can buy 4 gig memory cards. But even then, if you are on a month-long journey, that is probably not enough for those high-resolution RAW photographs of yours. Your best bet is to take along a photo-enabled iPod and download your shots to it’s large hard drive…and then of course, you must bring the iPod charging equipment, etc.

In the end, there are trade-offs between bringing a film or digital camera with you on your excursions. For shear simplicity in some far-away destination, a manual film camera can’t be beat. But for short jaunts, Digital should do just fine.

Photo by: BigRice