TheDailyNathan recommends Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 as Best Easy Digital Camera for Travel, Children, Action, and Low Light Photos Under $400.

Photography is the conversion of light into images (from the greek roots phos (photo-, light) and graphê (-graphy, drawing), “drawing of light”. Photography thrives on light, so when we have lots of it available - bright outdoors in the middle of the day, for example - cameras have no problems producing great pictures. Light levels drop when you’re indoors or outside at night, however, and with less light available, photography becomes a much more difficult process: the camera has to use a long shutter speed to capture enough light, causing blurry pictures because the camera is shaking or your subject is moving; or the camera has to use a higher ISO sensitivity, causing noisy/grainy pictures.

Travel takes you around the world to a wide range of scenes and vistas, and consequently the photographic situations you’ll encounter on travel will run the gamut from social scenes and portraits of your friends indoors to sweeping panoramic landscapes to candid street photography. Travel photography requires a little bit of everything, so the ideal travel camera is a well-rounded camera that can cover all bases.

Young children and pets are somewhat tricky, especially at night or indoors. Flash usually isn’t an option, since young toddlers or animals may get frightened, and low-light image stabilization technology isn’t particularly useful because it won’t stop your active children or pets from running around and causing motion blur. Thus, having a good high ISO ability is needed to take indoor or night photos of children or pets. Beyond this, a telephoto lens (long zoom range) is helpful in taking good portrait pictures of children and pets.

The key to great fast-action photos is utilizing a short shutter speed - with subjects that are moving quickly, being able to use a short shutter time is essential to freezing the action, instead of catching a photo full of motion blur. Towards that end, features such as high ISO are extremely important, especially if you’re shooting in low-light situations (at night, or indoors, or even if it’s cloudy/overcast). Since most action and sports is shot from afar, you’ll also want a long telephoto lens to be able to zoom in to get close-up shots.

Features to look for

There are three features available to help take pictures in low-light situations.

• Image Stabilization: Image Stabilization (IS) is a term that describes a host of technologies that stabilize a camera element (the lens or the image sensor) to compensate for camera shake (when you don’t hold the camera steady) and reduce blur. Image stabilization can be extremely effective for low-light situations, but will only work for static subjects, which makes it an excellent tool for taking pictures of things like buildings, landmarks, landscapes, and interiors while on travel. IS isn’t capable of stopping your subjects from moving however, so when taking photos of active children or pets, you still might get motion blur.
• Low-noise, High ISO: An alternative to using a long shutter to capture enough light is to simply use a high ISO to boost the image brightness - this is akin to turning the volume knob on your stereo to play music louder. By doing this, you can use a faster shutter speed, avoiding the camera shake and motion blur problems typically experienced in low-light. The downside of using high ISO is that images become noisier, with color splotches or random “grain” (this is much like turning up the volume to get a louder volume, but generating louder static at the same time). How bad the noise will be will depend on the camera and individual tolerance, but some cameras, large-sensor SLRs in particular, have extremely low noise at high ISOs, making them ideal low-light cameras.
• Large aperture: A lens aperture is the size of the lens opening - it essentially defines how much light passes through and reaches the camera’s sensor. A larger aperture lets in more light, and as a result a higher shutter speed can be used to eliminate the problems of camera shake and motion blur. Aperture is usually denoted by f-numbers: f/2.8 would be a relatively large aperture, while f/5.6 would be a relatively small one. For most compact cameras, the aperture is virtually the same f2.8-f5.6 for almost all cameras (this denotes the maximum aperture from the wide zoom end to the telephoto zoom end). Larger aperture lenses can be found for digital SLR bodies, although most large aperture lenses don’t fit into the budget considerations for a $750 camera.
• Flash: For the most part, flash is not a feature of a good low-light camera. While flash is often used to illuminate dark scenes, it usually creates harsh, flat lighting and shadows, and isn’t effective beyond a close distance, making it useless for photographing things like buildings or landscapes or anything beyond a few feet. In addition, flash tends to startle young toddlers and animals, making it undesirable for portraits of your children or pets. However, some cameras are better than others in this regard - cameras with “pop-up” flashes fire the flash from a less direct position, reducing some of the harshness and shadows that appear when a built-in camera flash is used. Even better, high-end compacts and all digital SLR cameras have a “hot-shoe” that allows you to mount a dedicated external flash, reducing the harsh direct-flash effects even more, and allowing you to use more advanced techniques such as bouncing, reflecting, or diffusing, if desired.

Typical usage of flash tends to produce bland, featureless pictures compared to using natural light

Flash comparison

For easy point-and-shoot use, the best low light camera will offer a combination of both image stabilization and good low-noise, high ISO ability. Flash can be a useful tool as well, although it can’t be fully effective without utilizing more advanced techniques. For taking photos of young children and pets in low light, the most useful feature is good high ISO capability.

For travel photography, the key for a do-all camera is versatility: the camera should be able to cope with many types of situations and be capable of taking almost any kind of picture.

• Wide angle lens: One of the most useful features for travel photography is a wide-angle lens. While most cameras have lenses that have a wide focal length (the furthest you can “zoom out”) of around 35mm, there are some cameras with a 28mm lens, giving you a wider angle of view and allowing you to capture more in the scene - say the entirety of a towering skyscraper or some sweeping landscape, instead of chopping off the edges. Having a wide-angle lens is also great for indoor pictures when there’s not much room, and you want to take a large group picture with a bunch of people. With all the benefits offered by a wider angle lens, and considering that most travel photography (landscapes and landmarks) is done at the wide-angle end, a wide-angle lens (preferably in the 28mm range) is a must-have feature.

Having a wider angle allows you to capture more in the picture

35mm vs. 28mm

• Long zoom range: On the other end of the zoom spectrum, you’ll also want a camera that came “zoom in” very close - this is known as a long “telephoto” focal length. While most travel photography uses the wider range of the zoom, having a telephoto zoom gives you much more flexibility and greater variety - usually telephoto is better suited for portraits of people, zooming in on faraway wildlife or architectural details on buildings, and even for landscapes. For photos of pets and children, the ideal portrait range is usually in the 50-200mm telephoto focal range. Many cameras advertise “6x”, “10x”, or “12x” zoom lenses, but what you really want to focus on is the telephoto focal length. For example, a “3x zoom” camera might actually have a 35-105mm focal range, with 35mm being the widest you can zoom out, and the telephoto 105mm being the furthest you can zoom in. At least a 200mm lens (about 6x) is a good minimum (especially for portraits), but the more range the better.

A telephoto range is useful for a variety of things, including landscapes and portraits

Telephoto range

• Long battery life: One problem somewhat unique to travel photography is the risk of running out of batteries. Unlike other kinds of photography, you take your camera out for a whole day at a time without a chance to recharge, and if you’re headed out into the wilderness, you may not have a chance to recharge at all for several days! Depending on where you’re going, and how many pictures you take, battery life could be a big concern. Battery life is measured by the number of pictures per battery charge, measured according to a CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) standard. On a typical day of travel, one might shoot anywhere from 100-200 pictures, and maybe up to 400 if you’re particularly shutter-happy. While it will depend on your shooting habits, 200 pictures per charge should be a minimum, and 400-500 pictures per charge should be the target if you plan to take lots of pictures or may not be able to recharge everyday. An alternative would be to simply carry a second battery, or if the camera uses AA batteries, carry a backup pack of AA batteries with you.

• Compact size: This recommendation doesn’t take the size or weight of the camera into consideration, although it definitely should be. Do you want to carry around a half-kilogram (pound) of camera gear with you all day? Are you willing to carry around a dedicated camera bag, instead of just having a camera that slips into your pocket? If you’re unsure about these questions, you may want to search the recommendations for compact, lightweight travel cameras too.

The requirements for pictures of children and pets are fairly similar to portrait photography in general:

• Middle zoom range: In general, portraits tend to look more flattering when they’re taken “zoomed in” - this flattens perspective and gives your pictures flattering, well-proportioned features, as opposed to pictures at the wide-angle that tend to distort features. At the very least, having a larger zoom range gives you more creative options to explore different angles and perspective. A zoom which reaches into the 50-200mm range (most 6x zoom cameras) works great.

• Quality pictures at high ISO: In low light situations, one might usually use flash to illuminate the subject. Repeatedly firing the flash off at your easily frightened household pet or newborn baby is the last thing you want to do, however, so for low-light situations you’ll want a camera that produces quality pictures at high ISO sensitivities, which allows you to avoid camera shake and freeze the motion of children or pets that would otherwise be blurry. The downside of high ISO is that pictures tend to look “grainy” or “noisy”, but there are quite a few cameras on the market that can produce good high ISO results with little noise.

• Responsive shutter lag: Another attribute you should look for is a quick, responsive camera. Some non-SLR digital cameras have a significant “shutter lag” between pressing the shutter button and actually taking the picture, and this may mean the difference between getting the shot of that perfect facial expression or missing it, or having your quick-moving children or pets run outside of the frame completely.

Aside from these few attributes, there isn’t too much else needed for a camera to produce good children and pet portraits - portraits are not particularly demanding on a camera’s technology or featureset. Almost all cameras today can produce excellent results, and attributes like ‘sharpness’ or ‘color’ are more slight nuances than major differentiators between modern cameras.

For sports and action, the following features will be essential:

• High ISO: The key to freezing the motion in fast-moving subjects is a fast shutter speed, and that can be achieved in two ways: a large aperture (big lens), or a high ISO sensitivity (the ISO rating in the camera). For most cameras, a large aperture isn’t physically or financially practical, so the only way to get the fast shutter speeds needed for action is through the use of a high ISO. Higher ISOs tend to cause grainy or noisy images, but SLRs and some of the best compact cameras can produce very clean and perfectly usable high ISO output.

• Long telephoto lens: Another key for action and sports is a long telephoto lens - a lens that can “zoom in” a lot, since for most sports and action you’ll be standing far away from the actual subject, and will need to zoom in to get a close-up picture. The longer the better for sports - you should look for at least a 300mm lens, if not 400mm and above.

• Continuous shooting: Fast action happens fast. Sometimes a whole sequence of events - and a series of great photos - can flash by in a second or two. For this reason it’s useful to take a quick burst of photos all at once - this is called ‘continuous shooting’, and is measured by how many photos the camera can capture in one second. A camera the can take 3 consecutive photos in one second can be said to take photos at three frames per second, or “3fps”. The faster the continuous shooting rate, the better: good consumer cameras will have 2fps, average SLR cameras will have 3fps, and good SLR cameras will have 5fps or more. Another important factor is how many photos it can take in a row - obviously having 8fps is useless if the camera can only do two photos at a time. Generally, the camera should at least be able to take enough photos to cover 3-4 seconds of action (this may vary depending on what you want to shoot). For example, a 3fps camera should be able to take 9-12 photos (3x3 seconds or 3x4 seconds).

• Shutter lag: Many digital cameras experience a time delay known as “shutter lag” - when you press the shutter button on your camera, it doesn’t take the picture right away, but instead has a slight delay. For scenes such as fast action, that delay could mean missing or making that critical moment you want to capture. For SLR cameras, shutter lag is negligible, but it can be a problem for some non-SLR consumer cameras.

• Autofocus speed: Another essential ability of fast action cameras is the ability to autofocus quickly and accurately - if the camera’s autofocus can’t catch up with the speed of the action, you’ll likely end up with unusably blurry, out-of-focus pictures. Like shutter lag, autofocus is a difficult parameter to quantify without getting into too much technical detail - for this recommendation I’ll simply be making sweeping statements (“Camera A has one of the best autofocus in this price range!”), and for the sake of succinctness, you’ll just have to trust me.