High Sierra Topix

Just received a tiny Canon PowerShot ELPH 190 camera, $149 4.7oz 10x zoom 720p video, that is mainly going to be my cheap pocket camera for resort skiing. Has very basic minimalists features and AUTO operation. Should get use in a couple days when I ski Tuesday what will likely be the best cold dry light dump of this 2019 winter. Will likely bring it up on some backpacking trips complementing my A6000, as a pocketable always at hand tool, quick for use along trails for less serious info shots. Prefer to leave the A6000 in my photo daypack except for worthwhile subjects and with 1080p is much preferred for serious videos.

I have been using my 5.4 oz moto g cellphone for that, however small smartphones are only wide angle and my unreplaceable lithium ion battery is showing its age, battery drain on any smartphone even new is large, don't GPS, and I never use the phone in wilderness. This is my fifth compact digital over the last 17 years. I own a similar older Nikon Coolpix 3100 but its battery is now weak and will be relegated to my Forester glove box.

If you take snapshots, then you will find it to be OK, but if you make photographs, you might find features lacking compared to a real camera. My first complaint is that it can't shoot RAW files.

I have an ELPH, and I find the lack of RAW to be disappointing. Every other digital camera that I've had over the last 17 years has shot RAW. I use RAW files to be the equivalent of film negatives, so I have lots of RAW files going back for those 17 years. My ELPH has to be managed differently. It is a nicely compact and lightweight camera though.

RAW is huge to deal with highlight peaking and banding. I just got a used iPhone 8 with RAW to replace my 6, and the difference is startling, I wish I had done it earlier. RAW mitigates a lot of the deficiencies of a small sensor.

The ELPH is lightweight and very small, which beats all my other cameras by far. It is not expensive, and that is considered when out in a hostile environment. I used it to document my trip, not to try to produce fine art. However, there have been just too many cases with other cameras when the RAW file allowed me to recover details that were lost otherwise.

My Canon, which I lost this last summer, had RAW. I shot RAW one season, and in the end, I was not able to process it any better than the non-RAW photos. So either my photographic skills are not up to RAW shooting, or my processing skills inadequate. RAW files were also very large and require hefty storage cards. I think better photographers than me could benefit from RAW. The camera I get next, will likely have RAW capabilities because I want a larger sensor, but RAW will no longer be one of my "must have" features. An actual view-finder is higher on my priority list.

I also am torn between something like the ELPH and more expensive cameras. If I were to leave an ELPH on a rock and not be able to find it (yeh, I did that with my Canon) it would not be such a loss. I also fell down a hillside and ruined another camera. The last two trips I used my I-phone, but I did not like it: I have an old I-phone. But then, if I ruined a fancy new I-phone, that would be worse than a $600 camera.

The question about whether it is worth bothering using a small camera/iphone or if their efforts are "serious" is personal. I think RAW does make a difference, so if I am going to bother shooting anything, why not have it be the best it can be for that device? I can't always determine the light when I am shooting, and I prefer to just do a quick RAW edit to move through 100 images rather than stacking layers, etc. Yes, I know all the cheats and I work with the limitations, but the combo of small sensor and no RAW is a tough wall to climb.

Back to the OP, the Canon S cameras which have RAW and are comparable in size to the ELPH, like the S100 and later, are pretty good aside from softness past 50mm. One can probably find a used one for $50, so Daisy, you can shoot stress-free. Don't get an older model like the S95, they don't shoot as wide and the image-shake function is not as good.

Though this technique is not new, not many folks are aware of the power and versatility of the "Blend If" sliders, it allows many professionals the ability to quickly edit a photograph back to acceptable levels. Here's a quick and easy tutorial, that can expand your abilities and to get a more appealing photograph, even in harsher lighting situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNqIxbdUAPs