To take a camera or not....?

I used to get right into the photography side of a trip, but found I was spending too much time experiencing things through the lens. Now, I spend a lot more time just appreciating the surrounds. However, I should take photos of the Te Araroa Trail when I hike it starting this August. Maybe not for you lot, who've seen a thousand photos and read loads of blogs, but for those who haven't had the privilege of experiencing some of the stunning views NZ offers. I want to hike light, so was thinking of not even taking a camera, but just using a mobile phone for photos and as an e-reader. Thoughts?

I am always overweight on camera gear. Too much so at times. If I was going out the TAT I wouldn't be able to do that. I would look to getting the latest Olympus Tough camera. Small, light weight, virtually bullet proof. Stills, video, GPS, the works, including waterproof and underwater capable. Take it out in the rain, throw it back in the pack, it isn't going to worry. I have one of the earlier models but am looking at the latest.

You're likely to get a lot of suggestions here... I used to lug around a DSLR and lenses but eventually the market came up with some compacts with large sensors and I took the plunge and bought one. These new compacts have the advantage of capturing exceptionally good images for something so small, taking up little space on your pack strap, lightweight and accessible for those moments when you 'wished' you had a camera! Using your mobile to cover the trip will mean battery time on that device will be halved and possible storage issues. Take a look at the pics it produces and ask if that's good enough for an adventure such as Te Araroa.

Well my thinking goes like this: If weight is the most important thing then a smart phone with a good camera is probably the most versatile path because it can combine an excellent camera, mapping, gps, mail and web in one device. Personally I'd contemplate a Nokia Lumia 1020 which is probably the best of the camera phones. There is a relevant thread here: http://tramper.nz/?view=topic&id=3721 (I've used a Lumia 820 for over a year now and the pics from it have always exceeded expectation.) If the imaging from the Nokia (or the lens limitation) is the defining issue then you'd want to go for a serious Micro 4/3 camera. I'm a die-hard Olympus boy and I'd be happy to lug an OM-D with maybe two primes. (The PRO zooms are great - but very solid lumps of glass.) Either that or one of the E-PENs which are lighter and still fantastic cameras. Or as FrankB suggests above the latest Oly TG-4 is a pretty smart option as well. Although I've owned a TG-1 for a few years now - I have to admit I've taken more pics on the Lumia recently. Then maybe a lower end smart phone for the net connectivity and mapping apps.

Even the best phone camera struggle to compete with the quality of the photos achievable from any decent compact. The saving in weight is not worthy of the compromise photos you would get.

Cheers. Some good points. I'm not too worried about the picture quality. My phone takes alright shots, and is waterproof. My thoughts on taking the camera: GPS for ease of identifying where a pic was taken, and the ability to attach a mini tripod for those absolutely necessary selfies. Not a fan of them, but I probably should be in a few, and I don't expect to encounter anyone else on the trail.

using teh camera on a phone sucks the battery life out of it fast, theres plenty of good lightweight compact cameras around, you never know when you're going to need all the battery life on your phone that you can use. a phone has far more importance when you need it as a phone, and the battery life left on it can be extremely important. if the phone gets damaged or dies and you dont have a camera, then you have nothing, no camera and no phone. you put all your eggs in one basket, thats your choice, is it worth saving the grams for that? you choose..

I find myself with @wayno on this one. A phone is something that belongs in a waterproof, shockproof case deep inside my pack. A camera lives life on the edge attached to my packstraps. Unless you have an apple, the battery thing is less important. I carry up to half a dozen spare phone batteries. They weigh stuff-all and adding a few more to cover photos would be no drama. Other cons: - I've yet to meet a phone that can (analog) zoom in more that 2x. The digital zoom is a waste of time as you might as well take the shot fully zoomed out and then crop the picture later on a PC - same thing. - The lenses on my phone camera always end up scratched to death - I've yet to have a phone with less than several hundred millisecond delay between toughing the screen and taking the photo. Useless for action shots. - I've yet to have a phone that can take photos when my hands are wet (all require touchscreen to work, which is no good with wet hands, even in a waterproof case. not found a camera app that lets me take pictures with the physical buttons)

On the gps in camera thing, I tried that out of interest a couple of years back but kept running into problems. Firstly, unless it's changed, nobody who reviews cameras does any useful review of the gps in the camera. The best info I could get was a superficial assessment of the gps being another feature and how great it was that it had it when other cameras didn't. Did it drain much battery? No idea. Did it take much time to get a satellite fix? No idea. If the antenna high sensitivity of any sort? Nobody knows - even the camera manufacturer doesn't publish hardware specs. Were the locations being stamped onto photos even accurate? Nobody really cared, as long as the gps looked up the correct nearby city from its database when it stamped it onto the photo. With the camera I bought, I found the gps always had a warm up time of a minute or two, switched on and searching for its satellites, until I was allowed to take a photo. Not very practical in that mode if you like pulling it out to take photos quickly of what's in front of you. The other mode left the gps on, draining battery, which is fine if you don't mind recharging your camera our replacing the battery periodically and leaving your camera in a place where the antenna can always see the sky. For practicality, I ended up just switching the gps off, and returned to my system of leaving my etrex tracking my entire trip, then running software to stamp positions onto photos based on timestamps afterwards. I'm sure camera gps's can be great, but don't assume it'll be useful until you've been able to verify its performance.

gps are massive hogs of battery life as well...