The main weakness of digital cameras while traveling compared to film ones is their power source. Once every few years, a film camera would cease to work for no apparent reason, that's when we remembered that film cameras had batteries! With a digital camera, batteries run out day after day. As far as battery life goes, digital SLR cameras have a big advantage over regular digital cameras since they use their LCD much less often. Even among similar looking digital cameras, battery life can vary enormously. For example, among 8MP prosumer digital cameras, DP Review reported the Canon Powershot Pro1 to last 2h36m while the Olympus C-8080 lasted 5h52m.

When traveling with a digital camera it is important to have enough power to last through a day of shooting. Of course, this depends on the amount of shooting you expect to do. For many medium to large cameras a single battery (or set of batteries) is enough. If a single battery is not enough, as for most ultra-compact cameras, a second battery will be necessary. This is when the price advantage of AA batteries shows the most. At the end of each shooting day, remember to recharge the batteries that were used during the day. That way, each morning a full-day of shooting power will be available.

When traveling abroad, the voltage and power plugs may differ from the ones which came with your camera's battery charger. It is important to get informed about this before traveling. Most lithium-ion battery chargers are voltage-switching which means that they only need a simple plug adapter. Not all AA battery chargers are voltage-switching but those can be obtained cheaply. The 100V-240V range will work almost anywhere on the planet.

When common land-line power is not within reach, there are some alternatives which strongly favor AA batteries. A common alternative is to use the car lighter as power-source. Many AA chargers often support this as a lightweight option. Some lithium-ion chargers support this too. If the lithium-ion charger that came with your camera doesn't, look for a charger for your battery from a third-party vendor. If neither is available, don't despair, you can obtain an inverter that will produce normal voltage. Unfortunately, inverters are usually large and bulky. The final power option is to use solar-power. There are relatively cheap solar AA battery chargers which will recharge 4 AA batteries in roughly 5 hours. For this alternative you must have double the number of batteries because they can obviously only be recharged during the day. When all else fails you can buy a large box of disposable AA batteries. Just don't tell green peace!

The weight of a digital camera is important while traveling. After all, you will be carrying it around on most days. Get a camera which you wont get tired of carrying after a long day of walking.

If your photographic needs require an SLR, consider the lenses you really need. Zoom lenses offer a lot of flexibility and sometimes a single zoom lens can be used. Even most photojournalists travel with about 3 lenses. Of course, you should consider your subject. Architecture photography is commonly done with wide angle lenses. Wildlife photography is more common with a telephoto lens.

Small cameras are not only light to carry, they are also easy to conceal. This is important when visiting the poorer parts of the world where having a camera can make you an obvious target for thieves. Traveling with a group provides protection against opportunistic thieves which more often pick isolated targets. On day trips to very poor places, it is advisable to leave the digital camera in a hotel safe. Those moments can be memorized using a disposable film camera which is of practically no value. Be the judge of what you carry where, but remember that the more people are traveling with you, the safer you are.

Some cameras have built-in charging circuitry, this means that you don't have to travel with a charger unless the circuitry is not voltage switching. It won't change the weight you carry day to day, but it is less travel weight. On the down side, you can't charge a battery at the hotel while you are taking pictures outside. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some cameras can only be charged in a camera dock which is bulkier to carry than a charger.

Digital memory is not as cheap as film but it is far more flexible. The ideal is to carry a single memory card large enough to accommodate all the pictures you could take during a trip. This way, you can't lose the card without losing the camera (since you don't need to take it out from the camera). This strategy may not be feasible for one of the following reasons: cards larger than 2 GB are relatively expensive, some memory-card formats don't come in large sizes or your camera may not support memory-cards larger than 2 GB. Solid state memory-cards are very tough and durable but there is a one-off chance that a card ceases to function. This is the only risk in carrying a single memory-card. To diminish this risk select brand name cards.

The size required depends on the average picture size and the number of pictures taken. A typical 5 MP camera produces 2 MB pictures, so 512 MB would be sufficient for 256 pictures or the equivalent of 10 rolls of 24-picture film. Remember that you get to delete pictures that don't come out along the way, so you will bring back more good pictures than with 10 rolls of film.

Obviously, another possibility is to carry multiple cards in order to have sufficient capacity to last a whole trip. The only problem is that small memory cards can easily get lost. Try to carry the least number of cards possible. If you do carry plenty of cards, get a card-holder big enough for all your cards. A microdrive is a cheap way to get lots of capacity. Currently microdrives are available in capacities up to 8 GB. These miniature hard-drives are supposedly more fragile than their flash counterparts but we never had any problems with our microdrives. Microdrives have one real disadvantage versus flash cards: they can't operate above 10,000ft (3,300m) of altitude due to lower air-pressure.

The third possibility is to keep a single card, large enough for a single day of shooting and transfer pictures out of it daily. This strategy simply requires the purchase of an additional device which copies the contents of a memory card into another medium. Such devices either copy pictures into a built-in hard-drive or burn them into an optical disk like a CD or DVD. Hard-drive based devices have the advantage of being more compact and keeping your pictures in one place. The main disadvantage is that hard-drives fail much more often than flash memory, so there is an increased risk of losing all your pictures for the trip. The option we prefer is to use a CD/DVD burning device. Since blank CDs and DVDs are very cheap, a CD/DVD burner has virtually unlimited capacity. Also, because the media and the device are separate, it is easy to make duplicates for added safety. Duplicates can easily be mailed from abroad or kept in separate places such as a suitcase and a carry-on luggage.

Traveling with a laptop also count as an external storage device. A laptop's CD/DVD burner and its internal hard-disk-drive can be used as secondary storage. For added redundancy both can be used. In order to limit power requirements, it is preferable to use a card reader rather than hooking up to camera directly. Laptops can use PCMCIA card readers which are extremely fast and light-weight. Of course, USB readers can be used too. Whichever device is used to transfer pictures should be verified before leaving on any trip. Disadvantages of traveling with a laptop include increased size, weight, power-consumption and visibility. Smaller laptops are more suitable for traveling due to diminished size, weight and power-consumption. There are also rugged laptops made to withstand rough handling which may occur while traveling.

Sometimes people buy a new digital camera just before going on a trip - or worst during the trip itself. This can result in many unsatisfactory pictures. The more different the new digital camera from the old one, the worst it gets.

Digital cameras are complex devices whose behavior can vary a lot between models, particularly between models of different brands. For example, most cameras have exposure-priority displays which reflect the final exposure on the LCD preview, others do not. Knowing this difference is crucial for obtaining properly exposed images.

It is important to know the camera that you will travel with. If getting a new camera before a trip, better get it a few weeks in advance. If you have less than a week, better get a camera which is an upgrade model to the one who previously had. For example, getting a Canon Powershot A640 if you had a Canon Powershot A540 is better than getting a Panasonic Lumix LX2.

When you get your new camera, make a few tests and try it on a variety of subjects. It is important you view your test shots in the same way as you would your vacation photos. Photographs can look very different in print than on a computer-screen. Until you know how reliable your camera's LCD screen is, do not use it to judge color or exposure. Frequently, a brightness adjustment is required to make playback images accurate.

Even if you have had your digital camera for a while, it is possible you have not used it for a while. In such case, it is recommended that you check the batteries and quickly go through the camera's manual. Lithium-ion batteries are vulnerable to age and simply stop keeping their charge after a while, regardless of how much use they had. On the other hand, NiMh batteries last for a number of recharge cycles, typically a few hundreds. After that, they do not recharge completely. Also, when buying new NiMh batteries, they need to be charged and discharged several times before optimally keeping their charge.

The right gear for a trip depends on various factors including potential subjects, landscape, weather and transportation.

Subject matter depends on both preference and location, meaning you may not want to photograph everything you see. Bring only the lenses appropriate for the subject matter which interests you. For architecture and indoor shots, wide-angle zooms are ideal. There are several suitable digital SLR lenses which start around 18mm. If you like shooting in dim locations, bright lenses offer an advantage although are generally heavier and have shorter zoom ranges. Long telephoto lenses are usefully for wildlife photography. For birds, 300mm+ equivalent lenses are ideal. With such long telephoto lenses, stabilization is important to photograph animals at rest since they normally prefer shade.

The weather can influence or even ruin opportunities for photography. Rain and high-humidity are problematic for most digital cameras. When expecting rain or snow, either use a resistant camera or bring some protection for it. The safest protection is an under-water housing. Since those are bulky and expensive, you can settle for a zip-lock bag. Place the camera inside but do not cover its lens, that would ruin the pictures. Instead, leave the lens peaking out and tighten the bag around the lens barrel using an elastic. There are also rain hoods available for purchase from professional photo stores. Note that water alone will not damage a lens, but salt-water can. Therefore, it is recommended to bring a protective UV filter when shooting near the ocean.

Considering transportation comes down to thinking about weight and space. Transport to remote locations, even planes, can be very small. On trips with lots of hiking, it is better to carry less weight. There are also cases like shooting in crowds where there is space is tight at the shooting location. For those occasions, smaller cameras can be more practical, even at the expense of some image quality and versatility.

When selecting photo gear for a trip, make sure to consider the whole trip as well as the individual sites. If you add up the ideal gear for each spot, you may end up with more gear than is practical to carry. When doing a trip for the purpose of photography, most professionals also recommend bringing a second camera, in case the first one gets damaged or stolen. Ideally, both cameras would be identical so that they can share lenses, memory and batteries. When this is not affordable, any camera, even a point-and-shoot model, will do.