Best travel camera

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surfs-up

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I am leaving in 3 days time for the UK, and want to buy a compact camera to take with. I have a Canon 7D, which takes great pics, but I couldn't be bothered with lugging around lenses and a big camera while travelling. I also have a Canon SX40, with great 35x zoom, but it does not have GPS tagging, which is something I REALLY want while travelling. The Canon SX50 has a great 50x zoom but no GPS. The Sony HX300 also has 50x zoom, but they dropped the GPS (they had GPS in the earlier HX200) why they dropped GPS in the newer model confounds me !

What I want in a travel camera
1) portability
2) good zoom
3) GPS and Wi-Fi
4) reasonable battery life

I have come down to the following 2 recently released cameras - Canon SX280 HS and the Sony DSC HX50V. Snapsort rates the Sony as the number # 1 travel zoom camera, with the Canon at # 6 http://snapsort.com/recommend#!type=digicam&general=small&lens=zoom&features=gps

Does anyone have any good/bad experiences with either of these cameras ? Can you recommend a different camera to these two ?

From what I have read....the Canon is better with video (high speed 260 fps, to later watch in slow mo), but has piss poor battery life and only zooms to 20x.
The Sony has 30 x zoom and seems to be the better camera (and more expensive) but does not have high speed video.

Looking for personal experiences, as you can't always believe what you read from people trying to push a brand
 
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Why not just use your cellphone to record a GPS log then it's a simple process of marrying the two together. As long as both the camera and phone clocks are in sync you won't have any problems. I used to use a small gps dongle to achieve the same thing but now with most cellphones having GPS and a plethora of apps available to log your movements I rarely touch the think.
 
Thanks bwana, I hate to admit ignorance, but I wouldn't know how to "marry" a cellphone GPS log to a multitude of pictures taken at random locations. I will be taking both an iPhone 4 and Android Samsung S3. What APP would be used to create a log ?
 
Bwana, that looks like an interesting link, I will read through it now. I use Mac computers, iMac, MBP and MacMini, and use iPhoto for my pictures. As you know, iPhoto has mapping functionality for pictures, and I will see if I can import a GPS log from iPhone to iPhoto....however it seems easier to just buy a compact camera that has a GPS chip built in, and have the camera imbed the position on each picture
 
surfs-up said:
Bwana, that looks like an interesting link, I will read through it now. I use Mac computers, iMac, MBP and MacMini, and use iPhoto for my pictures. As you know, iPhoto has mapping functionality for pictures, and I will see if I can import a GPS log from iPhone to iPhoto....however it seems easier to just buy a compact camera that has a GPS chip built in, and have the camera imbed the position on each picture
Click to expand...

Sure - if you're looking to buy a camera then go right ahead - I'd be looking to spend that money overseas on other stuff.

You might also compare camera prices here and there.
 
I have a Nikon compact with built-in GPS. After getting bad battery life, including having it go flat overnight while turned off, I did some searching. It seems that it is a passive GPS that stays on permanently, even while the camera is turned off. This is so that the GPS is locked onto the coordinates immediately when the camera is turned on.

I disabled the GPS since I did not get the camera for that feature and the battery life is now normal. The moral of the story is that you should do some checks on the effect on battery life before buying a camera for this feature, otherwise you could be let down at the wrong moment.
 
I'm with bwana on this. Research apps that can do what you want and spend the cash on your holiday.
 
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