New camera suggestions

[fishmonger]

Quick comment from someone who will carry 8 pounds of camera gear on every 200+ mile hike, just because I would kick myself for not having the best full frame sensor, tripod and glass I own in my pack when it matters.

For lightweight cameras, I am a convert to current flagship phones. You carry the phone anyway. Just a few weeks ago, I would have never thought that I would say that, but my carrier was more or less giving away Pixel 7 Pros for 350 bucks spread over 3 years, so I ditched my old Samsung S10e and gave it a shot, wondering if all that talk about how good these phone cameras are was true.

Just a few test shots later, yeah, this is the best "point and shoot" I ever used. Optical zoom, low light, true macro lens. What impresses the most is the software, though, what it does in-camera to process images. At first I shot every frame in JPEG/RAW duplicates, but I quickly set that back to JPEG only and reserve RAW as an optional selection for the shots that matter. I have not been able to do better in Camera Raw than the phone did internally. For the kind of images I take while traveling, the phone really will hold its own. There are limits, like night skies and long exposures with ND filters, but for the 95% of what I usually shot, the phone is close to the DSLR gear I used to carry, just not as high resolution (the 48mp sensor bins down to 12mp in camera, there is no way to get the full resolution out of it).

For me, if I am ever in a position to have to cut my pack weight a lot (dreaming of the PCT...) there is the answer. It even shoots slow motion video in 4k resolution. The cratering of the point and shoot camera market is a direct result of how good phone cameras have become. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff I have no use for, like artificial background blur for portraits you could just use that 2 pound f/1.4 lens for, but out on the trail, you don't usually carry that. Who knows, I may even use that one of these days. I am not that much of a purist. If the result looks good, why not use it? For now, I am very impressed with the camera in that phone and it will get a lot of use soon: I have to record my life with a rescue puppy that is arriving from Texas on Friday and it needs to be photographed more than anything. That's where a phone that i always in your pocket is just unbeatable.

[SSSdave]

Thanks @fishmonger for the P7P report. Indeed, not all my Sierra Nevada trips from San Jose are photography oriented. Sometimes late season on sunny road trips, I just like spending mid day time having fun on easy to reach stream rapids or bedrock lakes that can finally be less cold enough to get in and play in for hours. Maybe some early morning fishing, lunch food, music, drink. No bugs, less people. So yeah just a smartphone works.

I bought the A6000 February 2014 plus a Nodal Ninja multi row column manual panoramic head that replaced my 4x5 view camera. With focus stack and stitch blending with sharp primes using optimum apertures, it can be as large a format as I choose to structure and have time and patience to work. For a lot of modest subjects, a top smartphone image file will be probably be fine enough for anything but close critical viewing on large 8k screens.

Anyway, since Sony just released the new A6700 body ($1400) that finally has in camera focus bracketing, I'm going to order that from the Sony Store as soon as they have more stock. That will be an immense boon to my photography in the field since taking all the stacked shots in short periods can mean a lot my wildflower, leaf, and water close ups can be shot quickly in a few seconds during single breeze lulls. And later on the computer, registration will be on average much closer. All my Zerene Stacker work manually selects by my eyesight perceived sharpness of frame area image sections from the image stack instead of using the automated functions I don't want. So Sony got it right by NOT providing in camera focus stack blending, just image storage. Bad idea to sum artifacts and noise in clean image element areas (like blue sky) across a bunch of images.

[SSSdave]

Have been checking the Amazon Sony Store daily and surprise, today they had remaining stock of 1. Just as reports related, units are dribbling in very small numbers at a time and I today got the last one. Thus immediately bought that one body for $1.5k including tax/shipping that is supposed to arrive in 2 weeks with a signature required at delivery, thank you. Per above, the main reason for pulling the trigger is the new focus bracketing function.

Will likely keep my decade old A6000 until am certain the new body is functional. Though a wee scratched from much use, it still works perfectly as one can see from high resolution images I've continued taking this year and that includes the sensor/filter that I tend to religiously clean even in the field with Eclipse methanol fluid. Also collecting dust are early Sigma 30mm and 60mm F2.8 APS-C primes and the Sony SEL55205 zoom that I could sell used as a package.

Currently have been using noticeably sharper Sigma 30mm F1.4, 56mm F1.4, 16mm F2.8, and Sony 85mm F1.8 primes and the Sony SEL1650 pancake kit zoom lens that is just for videos and occasional info shots. So almost all my shots are with primes essentially at optimal F4.5 to F5.6, then focus stack blended that are just as sharp per sensor square area as any Sony full frame cameras but require stitching to reach similar angle of view. But then my camera plus lens weights are significantly lower as well as my Nodal Ninja MKIII panoramic head (Versus the huge Right Stuff full frame beast.).

[JWreno]

Well after finishing our September trip I have a new opinion. I enjoyed taking photos with my Fuji X-H2 and 18-50mm f/2.8 Sigma lens but my 66 year old back told me to bring less weight next time. I didn't mind the heavier Canon 6D and 16-35 f/t lens back in 2014 but I was 9 years younger then. If the hike is more than a day hike I will stick with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I hike with a wide brim hat so I will have to use that sometimes to see the screen under full alpine sunlight. I enjoy the iPhone for topo maps with the GIAAGPS app and the PCT data on the FarOut app. The photos and streaming music off my phone library mean that I will be keeping my iPhone charged while section hiking the PCT. The video and photo capabilities of these phones are pretty impressive considering the sensor sizes. The phone and Garmin Messenger make satellite texting and/or cell service are very helpful for keeping the family back home aware of whats going on.

I have a dream someday someone will make a larger sensor that can dock to the iPhone via the USB C port on the phone to take advantage of better raw data combined with the computational photography that can be done on the phones. Think what a phone could do with a 4/3 or APC size sensor.