Imagine you are holidaying with your friends and family, and on a crisp sunny day, you are enjoying https://spin.city/en/casino/type/live on your mobile, and just then, your cousin does the perfect backflip in the water! A totally Insta-worthy moment, you’d so wish to get the perfect shot, but you cannot leave the game midway! Tough call? These are some of the moments that make you think, “It would have been better if you got that action camera for all the holiday photography!”
To help you decide if you need an action camera or should stay with your smartphone for the finest holiday photographs, here are some things to think about.
What Is an Action Camera?
Action cameras are portable and sturdy digital cameras specially designed for filming activity and immersive action shots. Despite being smaller than conventional point-and-shoot cameras or digital SLR models, action cams can make ideal travel cameras for their flexibility of use.
Action cameras may be installed anywhere and utilized to take HD films and photographs, including underwater and high-impact movements. Action camera models like the GoPro line have a tough build and are waterproof up to 33 feet right out of the box, so they can endure almost any adventure you can imagine.
Holiday Photography Essentials: What Can an Action Camera Do That a Smartphone Cannot?
You’d love to bring back the best memories from your dream holiday, and the best ones are captured in candid shots rather than posed and staged ones.
If you don’t have the right camera, it can be difficult to snap pictures of those wacky, hilarious, candid moments from your vacation as they happen. This is especially true of outdoor pursuits like swimming, sailing, and paragliding.
Using a smartphone, you cannot practically shoot someone in the sea, doing backflips. But you can do that with an action camera. Below are the best features of an action camera that can surpass smartphones.
- The ability to shoot in the water with the waterproof outer body.
- High-speed autofocus and optical zoom.
- Better low-light photography.
- Better lenses and optical sensors result in better clarity and reduced pixels.
- Preserve storage and battery life on your smartphone.
- Greater resistance: Action cameras can withstand dust, freezing, crush, and shock. Minor bumps and falls don’t usually result in damage.
Nowadays, smartphone cameras have so many built-in features that purchasing a separate camera for sporadic personal photos seems unnecessary. However, action cameras are made to record the excitement of outdoor activities and sports with more compatibility and resilience compared to the delicateness of smartphones.
Advantages of Smartphones Over Action Cameras
Before we reach this conclusion, we should not assume that smartphones are useless for taking pictures of vacations. And at some point, smartphones will have a higher advantage for the Instagrammers and YouTubers out there who’d like to go live while shooting an experience. Below are some of the features that prove the point:
- Smartphones are the handiest because you only have one device in your hand.
- Smartphones let you travel light—no need to worry about multiple devices.
- Multipurpose use: shooting, editing, and sharing made simple and quick.
- The best device for going live on Instagram and YouTube.
- Sharing photos is super easy with a smartphone.
- Cloud backup sync means you don’t lose your photos too easily.
- Smartphones can make it easier and less expensive to enter public places that charge a fee for camera entry.
- Smartphones are the selfie experts. Period.
The core limitations of smartphones are in terms of technical aspects. While many smartphones come with optical zoom nowadays, they are highly expensive, and the standard-priced models have to work with digital zoom.
Low-light shooting can be a problem with smartphones. And even if you have a decent phone, such as the latest iPhone or anything similar, you wouldn’t want to mess with it to take a shot while mountaineering or paragliding. So they are not as adventure-friendly as action cameras. However, for the reasons mentioned above, it is highly considerate that smartphones make more sense in particular situations.
Drawing a Conclusion: Choose Your Device According to the Type of Your Holiday
So practically, to jot down all the advantages of an action camera over a smartphone, they are compatibility with speed photography, adventure, resilience, and the capacity to handle different environments.
Action cameras are primarily made to record the action, so if you are going on an adventure trip, say a beach holiday, a safari, or mountaineering and hiking, it makes more sense. Action cameras, however, can be quite expensive too. As of 2022, the GoPro Hero10 is priced at $449. If money is a factor for you, you must rethink whether the investment is worth it for your needs.
Not all vacations are meant for the outdoors; some are more about peace and relaxation. If you are having a staycation or a vacation with little to no action, your smartphone will more than suffice to take attractive pictures and videos.