Hi Mike

Because I love avain photography I normally travel with a M43 mirrorless camera with two lenses, one being a Leica 100-400mm zoom.  It weighs a lot and weight is an issue when cycle touring.  So on our current tour I decided to leave the kit behind in our storage facility in Port Elizabeth.  What a bad decision !  Every day I hanker for my long lens.  

However, most of the pictures I post in my journals are taken with a really cheap cellphone and they serve the purpose of documenting the trip. The avian and wildlife pictures I take with the camera are for myself and only make their way into my journals when I think they have something to add.  

So perhaps the question you should ask yourself is what your purpose for taking photos is while on tour.

I think that perfection is only within reach of a minuscule proportion of humankind and also that the tool is only a tool.  Roger Federer would beat me if he were playing with a frying pan, Haile Gebrselassie would run away from me wearing gumboots and Frantz Lanting would take better wildlife pictures than me using a 1990's vintage cellphone.  The worst thing people who think they are photographers like to hear is "Wow, those are great pictures.  You must have an expensive camera!".  I'll never be a good photographer but that doesn't stop me getting pleasure out of photographing birds so I guess when we get back to the Eastern Cape in a month or so times my camera gear will be loaded back onto my bicycle.

Jean-Marc

Mike I’m a total convert to my iPhone camera.  It’s astounding how good the images are for such a tiny lens.  I doubt if I’ll ever again carry a separate camera on a cycle tour.

Over the last few years I’ve been occasionally emailing photos to our local ABC TV station’s ‘WeatherPics’ email. About 10 of them featured on the weather segment and all were taken with my iphone. 

Quality, convenience, weight, simplicity, reliability and volume. The camera phone ticks all these boxes.

Also I now store my photos on the cloud with cross backup (by wifi) on my iPhone and iPad. 

Steve carries a small pocket camera which I have put on a string attached to a loop on his cycling vest. He can take pictures one handed while still riding and not worry about dropping the camera. In the rain it goes in the handlebar bag, and in anything other than a light drizzle it stays there. We do not aim for art photos but really as aides to remember what we saw, so our standards are moderate. The cell phone is for phone calls, only!  My cell is the gps phone, and it is stored in a waterproof handlebar mounted case. I have an ebike with a cable that allows charging as I ride, so no worries about running out of guidance at the end of the day.

I use a hybrid of phone and camera (actually a camera lens). To start with I’m a gram counter when it comes to touring and getting to be more so as I enter my mid-seventies. 

The majority of my pictures are taken using my phone, which is attached to the handlebar stem with a Quad Lock system. Besides taking pics of scenes of the landscape and people-scapes I take lots of “note shots” of signs, roadside storyboards, town markers and the like to help ID and locate pictures used in my journals. 

But when I’m taking a shot of a mountain goat on a distant cliff face or a selfie at more than arm's length I use my Sony QX-10 with its 10x optical zoom lens. The QX-10 is basically a point and shoot camera without the camera. It links to my phone via wifi and uses the phone’s smarts and screen for operations. It weighs about 140 grams, which is 40 grams less than my phone. It automatically copies your pictures to the phone so the pictures are saved in two locations. Sony will also back them up to the cloud when there is cell phone service. It has a 30+ ft wifi range, which allows for some interesting remote shots. It has a standard USB charging port. Perhaps the best feature is the bigger viewing screen my phone provides.

It does have some cons. It’s a bit fumbly to set up. Buetooth needs to be turned off. The wifi is dedicated, which means disconnecting your internet wifi and selecting the Sony wifi. On the other hand when you turn on the camera it links up automatically with the phone. But you also have to run the Sony camera app. In short you're not going to catch that bull elk crossing the road in front of you. 

Well that was interesting!

Thanks to all who replied.

Mike