TheDailyNathan recommends Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd as Best Easy Digital Camera for Travel, Children, 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.

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.

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 28mm wide-angle lens should be a must-have feature, although the restrictions of a $200 budget makes this feature a bit hard to find.

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

• 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

• 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 take a look at the recommendation for compact, lightweight travel cameras here: Compact travel recommendation. (Note: this recommendation doesn’t take low-light capability or photos of pets and children as a priority.)