Vacations & Travel

Travel Zooms

The travel zoom genre earned its nickname because these cameras have everything you need in a vacation-ready snapshooter: Great image quality, a long zoom range, fun features, and a user-friendly interface crammed into a pocket-sized body. They often have extra features like built-in GPS for geo-tagging, sweep panoramas, and high-def video. They’re basically beefed-up point-and-shoots with beefier price tags to match, but the out-of-box versatility and carry-anywhere portability is tough to argue with.

Tough Cams

What do beach bums, rock climbers, and snowboarders have in common? Their vacation destinations could wreck their cameras. If you fit into one of those traveler categories, it might be a wise idea to invest in a rugged digital camera. These cameras are waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, and freezeproof—not totally indestructible, but tough enough to withstand some general abuse. The tank-like build usually comes at the expense of image quality, but that’s been improving every year, and some of them even have high-end features like sweep panoramas, built-in GPS for geo-tagging, and high-def video.

Mirrorless Compact System Cameras

Not too long ago, truly excellent image quality only came from big, bulky cameras. Those days are past us, thanks to mirrorless compact system cameras. These shooters have large sensors—approaching or equal to the size of those in traditional DLSRs—and interchangeable lenses, but they’re designed like high-end point-and-shoots. The image quality is phenomenal compared to a point-and-shoot, but some of the most recent models can comfortably fit into a jacket pocket. It’s the best of both worlds, and they still only cost as much as an entry-level DSLR.