I’ve heard a lot from some fellow travelers lately that seem to believe that bringing only their cell phone for pictures is adequate for them.  Nothing against this thinking except I find it wrong and they should feel bad.

Cell phones are adequate for simple shots like food or casual candid shots at a bar or walking around but they are woefully inadequate(so far) on getting really good close up shots, night shots, or really anything that takes any amount of effort.  My first case in point:

Look at this thing, it’s awesome!  It’s also the size of a quarter and would scurry away whenever you got close.  I had to stand back with my Canon Powershoot and zoom in which would not be very possible with a cell phone.  The zooms from my experience on those are iffy and would at the very least take some extra work to clear up.   The same argument can be said for the title image of this post, I mean look at that sexy tongue!

Second case in point is from back when I had a solid underwater camera with, you guessed it, zoom. 

You think these would have been possible without a zoom? Methinks not.  Also look at this adorable guy we couldn’t get close to.

You can also get strange and somewhat uncommon shots like this one of some creepy flamingo eyes…seriously their eyes are so creepy…

I also got to zoom in on this guy in some bushes, I’d show you my fiance’s attempt at this same photo with her cellphone but it would offend you…

You’ll notice a lot of animal photos, and likely that’s because those are my favorite kinds of photos that lends themselves to looking the best when really close up.  However I find it really good for scenery as well.  Look at this glacier…

And here’s a shot of the same glacier from how far out we were.

Take your travel photos to the next level, get zoom.  Also I am drinking tequila in case my arguments don’t make sense that is what I will blame.  Good talk.

Anyway this was just a short rant that it is absolutely worth getting a decent handheld at the very least to capture photos.  You can disagree and be all “Hrumph my cell phone is just fine.”  But I’ll likely just think you are being a lazy traveler.  Photos are a part of travel, they may not seem to have immediate value but when I look back at trips I took and didn’t take many photos I feel regret.  Photos help trigger my memories and relive the times I had and I have a hard time imagining someone that feels they took too many of them on a vacation.

My current one is a Canon Powershot Mark II if you are at all curious what I used in a lot of the above photos.  I haven’t graduated to a nicer one since I had an incident with my underwater camera that also took some of the above shots…that’s a whole different story though.