Menu

Compact camera recommendations

A friend asked the internet:

Can anyone recommend a mirrorless camera? I have some travel coming up and I’m hesitant to lug my DSLR around.

Of course I had an opinion:

I go back and forth on this question myself. My current travel camera is a Sony RX100 mark 3 (the mark 4 was recently released). Some of my photos with that camera are on Flickr.
sony rx100 m3 camera
If I decide to get a replacement for my for my bigger cameras, I’ll probably go with a full frame Sony A7 of some sort. The Fuji X system APS-C, and Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 cameras look great, but they don’t offer enough improvement over the RX100 to excite me much.
 
One of the biggest issues for me is sensor size. The smallest camera with the largest sensor is usually the winner for me. Other compact cameras I like include the Panasonic LUMIX LX100 and Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II. Both have bigger sensors for shallower depth of field. If the Panasonic supported remote shutter release I would definitely have picked that instead of the Sony (I have a predecessor to the LX100, the LX3, that I loved). If you don’t care to do timelapse like I do, then remote shutter release might not be a requirement for you.
 
Back to my RX100: its my go-to digital. I shoot raw, sometimes with auto-bracketing, to maximize dynamic range. Even without bracketing, the raw files have great dynamic range–much more than my Canon bodies. The only reason I’ve used my Canon bodies recently is when I needed a hot shoe for strobist work (which I’d like to do more of).
 
To give context to my rambling: I offered my camera history up to mid-2014 previously. After that, I got deep into film, including instant and celluloid. My darling wife agreed to let me to buy a Hasselblad in March if I promised not to say a word about buying another camera for a full year. That lasted about a month, but at least (most) film cameras are cheap. I’m easy to find on Flickr and Instagram.