There’s nothing worse that a difficult, balky and quirky travel companion for that summer jaunt across distant continents. That’s why it’s essential to choose the right digital camera for your trip. Here are a few hints:

• Unless you’ve got a lot of photography experience, and don’t mind the weight, the lens changing, the potential for getting dirt in your camera, and the fact that every thief can see what you’re carrying, you shouldn’t take a digital SLR with you on a travel holiday. Mid-sized models are also too bulky.

• What you really need for travel vacation (when you give up some image quality for portability) is a camera that easily slips into a pocket. This either an ultra-compact (the kind that fit neatly into the palm of your hand and can be as little as an inch thick), or a compact, which is somewhat larger and often has more features.

• Prices for compacts and ultra-compacts are largely in the $200 to $800 range, dependent on such things as quality of lenses, zoom capability, build and features. You can spend less and you can spend more, but why would you? There are certainly a lot of good cameras from $200 to $400, so stick to your budget.

• Seven megapixels appears to be the entry point these days for the latest models. You don’t really need more resolution than this, unless you’re planning on blowing up your photos to more than 11x14 inches. But, if you want to crop photos and then blow them up you might opt for more megapixels.

• Optical zoom (trust me, digital zoom is not a feature you should ever use) is something you should check out thoroughly in the store before you buy. A camera with 6x optical zoom might offer a range of the old 35mm camera equivalent of 35 to 210mm, while a 10x can give you, say, 28 to 280mm. Only you will know how wide you want to go or how tight a shot you might want.

• One feature I would certainly not go without these days is image stabilization, which helps prevent blurry photos. It’s also helpful if you shoot video, an option most of these cameras have.

• Face detection might worthwhile if you like to have people in your travel photos, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, say or you want to use that same camera for family birthdays later. Smile detection is just silly.

• Most cameras come with multiple settings for scenes like sunsets, fireworks, portraits, etc. However, in my experience, users try these once then stick the camera in program or auto mode and never go back..

• If you’re headed to the beach or are going to be boating a lot then a water-resistant model would be good.

• If you think you want total manual control over your cameras then your choices are extremely limited when it comes to ultra-compacts or compacts. One that I like (and so do other reviewers) is the Canon A 720 IS (I own an earlier version), which, at about $220, is not expensive for what you get.

• The biggest favour you can do yourself before you buy is to head for camera review websites like Digital Photography Review (www.dpreview.com) and Steve’s Digicams (www.steves-digicams.com) and read the in-depth examinations of individual models that have caught your interest. Should you want cut to the chase, you can simply skip to their conclusions and see what they feel are good and bad features of specific cameras.

• In the camera store, take your time. Go early in the week when you can get the full attention of a salesperson who will let you get a hands-on feel of such things as the controls, the LCD resolution, and the feel of the camera in your hand. Don’t buy any model that doesn’t feel right to you.

• Don’t skimp on the memory card. Buy the largest you can afford, since you don’t want to be running out of shooting room halfway through Spain. Also, the larger the card, the higher the quality of the images you can shoot without worrying you’re filling it up.

• Never choose the lowest resolution setting for images or you’ll end up with photos suitable only for posting to the Web and that’s why you have a camera phone. Always go for the highest quality available. Check your manual to see how to change this setting.

http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/experts/peterwilson/article/269