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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Anywhere I like
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Canon Power Shot SD 1400 IS. 14 megapixels, hi def video, weighs nothing and has a lithium-ion battery, holds a hell of a charge. no view finder, works well in the cold. $200.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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I have to second the opinion on the Canon Powershot. Really any of the digital Elph models by Canon take great video and photos, and fit in your climbing pants pocket they are so small and slim. So you get those shots you would otherwise not bother to take.
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altelis
Mountain climber
DC
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I really like my cannon powershot d10.
its a little bigger than the real slim point and shoots, but not enough to really matter. fits well in a (non-pants) pocket. its their all-weather camera. does super well in the cold and the water, and the rain and snow. down to 35 feet underwater i believe.
its super burly, has some impact protection, and batteries last a while. i took a week long trip in the Selway Wilderness and shot tons of photos and video (we flew in so took a lot of shots/video from the cub) and didn't need to change the battery till the evening of the last day.
it takes really nice pictures. it doesn't have an optical zoom, but i find with climbing/landscape cameras that isn't a big deal, and that's one less thing to break.
the lens is recessed, which helps a lot. the lcd screen is made to take a lot of abuse, PLUS i just bought a generic anti-glare screen guard for a smart phone and put that ontop of the screen (can do this with any lcd sceen on any camera).
can't say enough good about it. the fact that its totally weather proof has REALLY increased the opportunities for great photo and video.
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/digital_cameras/powershot_d10
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altelis
Mountain climber
DC
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This is clearly an area where people have widely differing opinions, but my experience has been (both with P&S and with DSLR) that I prefer NON standard batteries as they are much much smaller. I simply bring a few with me.
Like I said, I made it through a week of intensive shooting on my cannon d10 on a single battery. bringing 2 is no big deal.
i made it 20 days in AK doing wilderness education stuff, shooting for the company along with teaching, on 1 battery for my D70. And I reviewed a lot each night.
I find that i get better performance out of the non-standard batteries, plus it takes up less room to bring 2 extra batteries and an extra card than it does to bring 1 set of extra AA (at least with the small P&S cameras).
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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I'm with locker on film - but if you have to go digital look at nikon the cool pix are nice. & nikon is still the toughest.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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The Nikon D3x is a nice little climbing camera that isn't too expensive and has a nice zoom lens. Everyone should have at least one. Here's my friend Jack with his. Hard to believe it fits in his pocket...
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Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
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Jack must get a lot of dates with that in his pocket.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Yeah, and you should see his BIG camera... haha
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Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
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My favorite...
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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that nikon dx3 is a great camera but no match for my little minolta. that little camera has made it in & out of more places that no one knew i had a camera. the pictures are very nice.
P.S. it has a flash attachment.
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altelis
Mountain climber
DC
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I have used lithiums. I will say though, that I used them a long time ago, when they were first really making a big splash. The devices I was using them with weren't the most efficient, and that paired with early generation lithiums may have given me a bias versus what they are capable of now.
All that said, you really can't beat the size of most of these P&S batteries. You can get good extras for relatively little money, and that's an investment you don't need to keep making. True, if you are traveling abroad, esp to developing countries, it can be difficult to consistently find places to charge.
LIke I said though, in my AK trip I was out there for 42 days total. I brought 2 batteries and only had to re-charge one of them.
W/ the Powershot D10 I took about an hr of video, tons of photos, spent lots of time at night looking at the footage and shots, and the battery lasted a week. Plus being able to swim with it, rugged enough not to worry about a case while climbing (unless you are in a chimney/offwidth). I'm totally sold on this camera.
People tend to steer clear of it b/c it doesn't rate highly on review sites or mags. But if you actually read the reviews they pretty much all say, to the letter, this is the single best weatherproof P&S, its just ever-so-slightly larger than the rest that most reviewers don't consider it to be a "pocket sized" camera and so don't really include it or dock it heavily for that reason.
I really love having a burly, weatherproof camera that travels really easily. You can fit it into almost all the cases meant for the smaller cameras, there just isn't a ton of extra room. You leave it accessible all the time, never worrying about rain, snow, swimming, etc.
There are some downsides, for sure, but all around I've been very very impressed.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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I'm totally converted to the proprietary Li-ion batteries. Two of those can last for as many as 1000 shots depending on how much you are using the flash. That's equal to a bucket load of AA's. And they are lighter and smaller, and the camera is thus lighter and smaller.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Picked up one of these back in May and have had pretty good luck with it so far:
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/digital_cameras/powershot_sx210_is
Canon SX210 IS
14.1 megapixels and 14x optical zoom
$299
The one thing that I don’t like about it is the fact that it is slippery! I find that these little cameras are difficult to hold onto for people with big hands and I wonder why the outside of the camera is not lined with rubber, for a better grip. Seems funny how they can put so many resources into developing the technology for the internals of the camera, yet something as simple as holding onto the damn thing is overlooked (duh…). There are so many control buttons that there is very little space to grab the thing. I use the wrist leash because every once in a while the thing falls out of my hand.
Seems like going with the AA batteries would get expensive over time, considering the fact that you always have to keep buying more. The lithium batteries have worked fine for me. I carry two extras, but that is mostly in case I forget to charge the one in the camera when it gets low. The charge on the lithium batteries lasts quite a while and I have been happy with battery life – no problems there.
There’s no optical viewfinder on this camera but I found that I hardly ever used the viewfinders on my older point-n-shoots. The only time was when I was trying to shoot video of F/A-18 fighter jets out in the desert. It’s difficult to track them on the LCD screen.
I wish this camera was a little bit more dust proof. It’s already got something stuck to the inside of the lens or the sensor – have to send it in to be cleaned. I always keep it in a case when not in use and it hasn’t even been out to the desert yet. Must be the multi-stage zoom mechanism… not dust proof. Maybe Canon should hire some mechanical engineers instead of just worrying about how many megapixels they can fit into your pocket. The weatherproof models don’t seem to have all of the features that I want and a good zoom is important to me.
PS – Nice pegmatite, FRUMY!
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mission, your $250 will buy you one hell of a camera today. There's never been a better time to look for cameras than now.
99% of the pics I take are from a camera tied to a flying kite.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30901290@N03/
I've wrecked a few cameras. Two totally destroyed, and one only partially destroyed ( works once in a while, but usually not ).
The one thing that wrecks these cameras is the retracting/telescoping lens mechanism. If the lens doesn't move anymore, or if it doesn't stop in exactly the right place, the camera's shot.
Cameras like the Olympus Stylus Tough series ( like Coastal Climber suggests ) or the Pentax Optio W series don't have a lens that moves - at least the lens doesn't move outside the camera - so you're less apt to wreck that mechanism.
They still get decent zoom - 5x optical ( I believe, I never use the zoom on the kite-camera ) and I'm sure they pile some optical zoom on top of that.
The latest Pentax Optio, the W90, even claims some level of impact resistance - 1 metre drop, or something like that - waterproof to 20' and freezeproof.
I've been beating the hell out of a W80 for over a year now, and it still functions as if it were new. I've crash-landed it in trees, junipers, dirt, rocks, grass yards, plowed fields, and a parking lot.
Sometimes I intentionally bump it into the subject in an attempt to guage it's altitude or just to get a close shot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30901290@N03/4778703925/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30901290@N03/3807654407/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30901290@N03/3830202179/
I just love stuff I don't have to be careful with.
I beat the hell out of a W30 for about a year as well - even worse treatment than the W80 has recieved - and it also never has had a problem of any kind.
I looked at the Olympus Stylus Tough cameras a couple months ago. 14mp ( vs 12 for the Pentax ), but I ended up with a Pentax Optio W90.
The reason I thought I needed a new camera is I'm building a rig around an infra-red shutter trigger ( called the "GentLED" ). The W90 has an IR sensor ( made for a TV-like remote-control, remote not included ), while the Olympus and my W80 do not.
If you end up with a Pentax, you'll want to set the ISO to 100, and leave it there. You'll probably get graining in ISO 200 or anything higher.
Good luck!
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marv
Mountain climber
Bay Area
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the D40, bizarrely out of production in 2011, is mega-classic
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I've been using a Canon G-10 for three years now.
Size wise it is not miniature, but way lighter than an SLR.
For landscape and formation photos and close ups it is killer.
14.7 megapixels raw but a smaller noisier sensor than its big sisters. Just try to use the lower ISO settings as much as possible. The image stabilization is pretty good at slow shutter speeds.
Fantastic battery life + you can turn off the screen and use the viewfinder.
Very durable and reliable. If the G-11 and 12 are as well made and you can handle the size this is a killer rig. For the work I am doing this camera is a great comprimise between size and capability.
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