Recently someone asked about traveling with both photography equipment and children. Since I have done quite a lot of that, I thought I would share my experiences.
We have two boys – ages four and five and we usually take one international vacation each year and fly domestically twice each year. Our domestic flights are usually either to New York City (which is an easy direct flight from Seattle) or to Rochester, NY – which is more difficult because we have to change planes and the aircraft are smaller.
So far we have taken our kids to Rome, Singapore, Thailand, Israel, and Mexico on separate trips. Our five year old has been to ten countries already and both are very used to aircraft and are seasoned travelers.
In every trip since I bought my DSLR three years ago, I have brought the majority of my equipment. The equipment has varied as I accumulate more of it but it started out as a fully loaded Tamrac Expedition 5 and now I use an Airport Accelerator from ThinkTankPhoto. The following are my recommendations for traveling safe and sane with both.
Recently I answered a question about the best camera for a young child, and since my kids have owned the two most popular models on the market today, I thought I would give our experiences with both of them for those who are interested.
The two primary cameras for young children today are the following. Please note that by ordering through these links you are helping to support this site.
Note that these are really just two cameras. Each camera comes in either pink or blue. Both cameras have been updated recently – but the update is strictly to add more megapixels to the existing cameras. Everything else about them hasn’t changed.
We gave the Fisher Price camera to our older son when he was three years old. He used that until losing it in Jerusalem, after which we replaced it with the VTech.
The Fisher Price is a more basic camera, but we felt that it took more high quality pictures. Here is a shot that Eitan took with it while in Thailand.
The pictures are of a decent quality and generally it exposes quite well. Here’s a shot he took indoors of his brother.
The camera is really no frills. It does not have a zoom, the flash cannot be turned off, and obviously the exposure cannot be overridden. However, for a young child it is extremely easy to use. It is also practically indestructible as it did go flying on several occasions.
Eitan absolutely loved the camera and was heartbroken when he lost it. Rather than buying the same camera, I decided to buy the VTech due to the higher megapixel count and the fact that it has video.
The VTech isn’t as good when it comes to pictures. Although it has more megapixels than the Fisher Price, the optical quality isn’t as good and the exposure is often wrong – particularly when the flash fires.
Here’s an example shot from the VTech. In general we have noticed far fewer ‘keepers’ from this camera.
You can see that the quality isn’t nearly as good as the Fisher Price, despite the fact that it has a higher number of megapixels.
The VTech does have the advantage that it supports video and has games on it. For awhile Eitan played these games a lot. In fact, I think he has used it more for the games than for pictures or video.
For video though, it can be quite funny seeing what happens when a hyperactive kid takes it out for a spin. He took this video when we weren’t watching. (Note: if for some reason the video does not appear here you can also view it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirispupis/2993531665/)
He played around with the video for a bit, but no longer uses it.
Recently, Eitan has stopped using the camera completely because it doesn’t zoom. Currently I help him take pictures with my camera, which he loves to do. I have been eyeing buying him the Olympus SW1030, which is rugged enough for his age but is a bit high for our budget right now.
However, between the Fisher Price and the VTech kids cameras, in my opinion (and Eitan’s) the Fisher Price is the clear winner. The VTech has more features and a higher resolution, but the Fisher Price is much easier to use and takes better quality shots.
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 1:13 pm. 2 comments
