MartinG wrote:

I think that point and shoot of yours is pretty friggin good.

Yeah... I did quite a bit of research before buying it, as it was a Christmas present for my wife a few years ago. It was pretty much the best point and shoot on the market at the time. She's not using it as much I thought she would, so I figure I may as well steal it for the occasional camping trip. 

tentsterforever wrote:

I leave my DSLR at home, and take my canon G15, which is a higher end point and shoot. It does a great job in all settings and I love the video capability. ...  battery lasts for about 10 days, less if you do a lot of video,but I found it easy to bring an extra battery and so far haven't run out of power on longer trips.

So you're saying the 15 batteries I have packed for that camera might be overkill? ;)

I installed an app on it for time lapse photography. Taking a shot every 10 seconds for 30+ minutes chews through battery in a hurry. I actually probably will go through all those batteries, assuming I get nice cloudy days, or sunrises, or sunsets worth time lapsing. 

I've fallen into the "it's going to be an early ice-out" camp for this year, so I wouldn't bet on Victoria Day weekend being light on bugs. The single worst black fly experience I ever had was over that weekend in 2010 (although ice-out that year was in early April). 

After waffling on it for quite a while, I just moved up my spring trip by a week specifically to avoid emerging black flies. I'm now heading in very early May. 

 

Thanks for the feedback. When I bought the 60D (which was many years ago) video wasn't something I thought about or researched. I bought it to take pictures, full stop. I'd love to replace it with a more modern SLR, but I'll have to wait until I'm not paying $1700/month for daycare!

@Peek: you lost a 60D in the Petawawa? That's hilariously awesome. I feel your pain... I lost a lens cap once in Ink Creek ;)
And no, I wasn't taking the 60D only for videos, just the opposite. It was always for pictures with the occasional video thrown in. But I'm having fun doing video trip reports lately, so there will be a lot more of that going forward. And since I can't trust the 60D to take videos in focus, I'm now maybe stuck with taking one camera for videos, another for pictures, and a third (waterproof) mounted to my kayak. And batteries. Lots and lots of batteries. 

@RobW: ... "will give much crisper pictures". I think those five words have shaped my decision, but I'll have to see what my final pack weight is. My Spring trip is 9 days which means lots of food, lots of batteries, and lots of extra weight. Between the waterproof and point and shoot cameras I'm already taking over 30 batteries, which is over 1 and a half pounds. My thinking, as of this moment, is that the SLR will likely still join me for most trips, but on long trips it might have to stay behind. But on the other hand, 3 pounds is 3 pounds. It's not going to snap my femur while I walk a portage, it'll just make me a little slower, a little heavier, a little more tired. 

Game-time decision still... sigh. 

 

Here's the dilemma: it's heavy. Pack weight is something I try to knock down whenever possible, and my SLR with lens attached is 1255 grams or ~2.8 pounds. Nonetheless, this camera has come with me on most of my camping trips for years, and I've always been really happy to have it along. But I filmed an up close and personal moose encounter with it last summer which was out of focus, and that really ticked me off. I know I know, blame the camera when I should be blaming the operator. But it turns out (after some googling) that the autofocus on my SLR is crap for videos, and I should have known and expected that all along. As I'm starting to film more and more videos for trip reports, that's not okay. So I've added another camera to my camping gear, which will join me for the first time on my Spring opener. It's a point and shoot, but a good quality one. I'm going to use it for all videos which means the SLR, if I continue to take it, would be for one purpose only: taking pictures. 

So finally the question, which is this: Just how much image quality am I going to lose if I turn this point and shoot into my 'taking pictures' camera as well? Will I regret leaving the SLR at home if I get that perfect sunset? 

The SLR is a Canon 60D. The lens is a Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM. 
The point and shoot is a Sony DSC-RX100 III. 

In a perfect world I'd go out and buy a new SLR that handles video properly; problem solved. But spending money isn't an option right now, and I have to work with what I've got. My Spring trip has 36 kilometers of portaging, so 3 pounds definitely matters.

I realize at the end of the day only I can decide if the extra weight is justified, but I'm hoping the photographers here can give me a sense of just what I'd be losing, image-quality-wise, leaving the SLR out of my pack. 

 

This is by memory as I haven't really inventoried it in a while. And by "a while" I mean too long, so I think I'll go through it when I get home today.

Bandaids of various shapes and sizes. Lots of bandaids. 
Gauze pads, and a gauze roll or two as well
Wound closure strips
Moleskin
Folding scissors
Iodine
Polysporin
Advil
Benadryl
Tick remover
Safety pins
Some sort of medical tape, I don't really remember what it is. 
A long tensor bandage. I've never needed it, but it has so many potential uses it seems worth bringing even though from a size perspective it's about the same as the rest of my first aid kit combined. 

ATVenture mentioned an emergency blanket. I don't carry one in my first aid kit, but on shoulder season trips I have one in a pocket of my PFD. 

What gets used on most trips: iodine and bandaids. I pick up minor scrapes like a magnet picks up iron filings. Most are so minor I'd probably ignore them if I were home, but letting any wound get infected while camping is a great way to take a lot of enjoyment out of the trip, so I care for them all. I went through a lot of gauze (and iodine and polysporin) on one trip keeping a badly cut big toe cleanly wrapped. Moleskin gets used from time to time - I portage in water shoes on bare feet, so the occasional foot abrasion makes an appearance.

If we just reverse the sky and the ice, then that becomes a picture of open blue water on a cloudy day.

Ah... you posted it when I was busy feeling sorry for myself because an injury ended my camping season. Reading it now!

Glad to hear it went well. Are we going to get a trip report out of it? Camping season is still at least a month away, so give me something to read!

It's great having eyes on the ice, so to speak. I haven't been to the park at all this winter so would otherwise have no idea what it looks like up there. 

My pessimistic response is that this feels a lot like last year so far. A mild winter that should have translated to an early ice-out, but Spring was late and cold, and ice-out trickled into May. It wouldn't surprise me if it's another early May ice out this year, but I will be very happy to be wrong - as long as ice-out precedes my prediction that is!