I saw someone's list of essentials on another thread, and it included a camera. So that got me thinking: what kind of camera do we need, and what do we expect to use it for?

For EDC I have a point & shoot camera in case I get into an accident or need to document something. Sometimes inspiration strikes at unexpected times, and I don't have my SLR with me. These are not survival uses obviously. What survival uses can we put the camera to?

What are the features we want in a "survival" camera? Do we want:

- Small & light?
- Waterproof/water-resistant?
- Shock-resistant?
- Macro capability? (If so, what do we envision taking pictures of?)
- Telephoto?
- Wide-angle capability?
- Works on commonly available batteries rather than propriety rechargeable batteries?
- Low-light capability? (I haven't seen a low-light capable camera that's not an SLR.)
- Video capability?
- I'm assuming we want digital.

It seems that connectivity would be very useful. So that would mean a cell phone camera. If the cell service is still up and you can get a signal, you can send images and videos to tell people where you are, to share information, etc. But then cell phone cameras tend not to be of good quality.

Modern cell phone cameras are just as good as ~$100 point and shoot cameras. For example this is my latest trip, see if you can (without looking at the EXIF data) tell which images were taken with a cell phone and which were taken with a standalone camera.

So we use our phones as our primary cameras.

Secondary I keep a small point and shoot in my pack. Primary features for choosing it were:
1. AA battery powered so I can leave a pair of eneloops in it for months rather than having to have a lithiumoin and dedicated charger.
2. I went with canon because all the point and shoot nikons were storing videos in quicktime format.
3. Image stabilization, The canon models with the IS suffix have a good optical image stabilizer, I have taken non blury pictures while riding on a bicycle.

I carry a camera when out hiking sometimes but for local stuff I usually just have my cell phone.

One useful thing a camera can do is to take a picture of an area of your body that you cannot see. It might help you figure out how to treat an injury.

David Enoch

"Survival camera" is an oymoron - hardly anywhere near being a critical element. On the other hand, I du use my cell phone camera daily to document work involved situations and it is perfectly adequate for that purpose. Since the cell phone has more direct survival loses (witness the recent SAR in Trabuco Canyon) you do indeed have a camera with you so you could photo your surroundings, extent of injuries, etc as an aid to rescuers. But a camera is in no way a critical item.

Agreed for the most part. But it comes in extremely handy for documenting road accidents and other incidents.

The camera was not on a list of essentials, it was in a list of extras, from which I chose things that I would include in a BOB. I can find no practical survival use for a camera. If you are already carrying it, then yes, there are things you can use it for, but it is not something I would consider an essential.

I keep a small $99 14 MP point and shoot in my car (actually RC go bag) to document traffic accidents, fire scenes / damage etc. Its a LiIon battery because the latest P&S seem too slim for AA batts - and that's fine, because the P&S has only been charged once in 2 years of ownership. Get a larger microSD or SD card than you'll ever need, and you're not exceeding some limit on documentation. I also travel with the same camera, and having a USB output cable or wireless out means you can download and send off pix as soon as you take them, even porting them over to your phone for fast emailing. I don't cart the lion charger around but I could easily, and charge from the car. Picture quality and detail are also better than my smartphone camera - important if you're documenting loss after a disaster or trying to communicate to someone else your damage assessment (combining word art + camera photos). And the video options are important too - you can take pictures, but equally important may be taking a video of the other driver, with their slurred speech, angry or aggressive attitudes etc. Always good for a laugh when appearing on Judge Judy!

Smartphone camera is pretty good but smartphone power is less than 10 hours. Like I said my dedicated P&S hasn't run out of power on me yet.

Use it a lot actually. Nice to have but not an essential.

Agree with both hikermor and Montanero. A camera is not a survival essential, but as long as it's bundled into a cellphone, there's no reason to not take it along.

The only possible use I can think of would be to document where you've been by taking a picture of your back-trail so you can more easily recognize where you need to go and keep from straying. I can think of other items that would fill that role better.

Not every item that you take camping needs to have a survival role. Someone is just rationalizing a purchase they don't really need.

I don't take pictures. DW does. And I'm not about to let her take her very nice, rather expensive camera camping. That's why they make disposable cameras.

As to a camera being a survival tool. Not so much. Unless you want to take a self portrait so when they find your body parts after you have been attacked by carniverous chipmunks they have something to place on the coffin.

OK, so no sale on a survival camera...Would you believe a "tactical camera"? It would have a black, non-glare finish...etc.etc. You get the picture


Somewhat seriously, there was a WWII era "Combat Graphic" - 4x5 sheet film, and wood components. Mostly it was cheap and expendable. I actually used one during the 60s.

Could one use a camera to take picktures of their back trail while on a hike.Then follow the picture sequence back.Just a thought.....

BOATMAN
John

Isn't that what cellphone cameras are for? You can disguise the photos as being those of your traveling companions, if that makes things easier for you.

While not a survival essential, there can be survival uses for cameras (or at least their flashes). The most interesting story I recall was a German tourist who got lost on the ice of the North Sea and fired off his flash hoping someone would see him & help out. It turns out a woman watching a webcam for the area saw the flashes and contacted police who ended up saving the man.

Here's another case of a lost hiker using a flash as a signalling tool: Lost hiker uses camera flash to signal location

I am unsure about the idea of a "survival camera," and that's why I started this thread. It does seem the the applications in wilderness are few and marginal. I wonder whether there might not be more uses for a camera/camcorder in an urban survival setting (e.g., after a flood or earthquake), but all the uses I can think of involve being able to share the pictures over internet (e.g., this is where we are, and there is no exact street address because everything got washed away/knocked down; Avoid this intersection! I've got a nasty cut that looks like this, how can I patch it up? Should I worry about this gas tank with a weird symbol on it?). Of course, the internet will probably be down in your location during a disaster.

As for cell phone vs. a real camera, I do think there is a difference between the average cell phone and the better P&S. But since you're not creating art, it probably wouldn't matter at all except in low-light situations. The P&S wouldn't be good in that as well, but the cell phone would be worse.

To Hikermor: don't laugh -- there *are* tactical cameras if you just google.

How about:
Regular camera advantage is taking pictures without the temptation to share right away
Spare batteries for GPS.
If you can take the extra weight a prosumer/super zoom is nice to have. This does give better than cell phone camera pictures and the 12-20x zoom is like having binoculars. Ours is a Canon S3 IS.

I also like to have some redundancy in complex gear. So my cellphone has a gps and camera and I have a spare battery for it, I also have a standalone camera and gps. I prefer to keep the cellphone padded safely inside and thee standalone devices out and in use, so if I drop one in I don't loose my phone.

I agree with the comments re cell phone photos. Creative Continuum in Fullerton, CA does put out a book on "iphonetography". An interesting book that might improve cell phone picture taking.

I am not employed by CC and get no reward from them, but I do know the company.

The cheap point and shoots can be torn apart by hand when the film has been exposed and is safely in it/s cannister. You could start a fire with the lenses, there's an alkiline AA batteryery and various springs in there as well. That's survival use. Also you can document injuries and take nifty pics of your survival camp and terrain to post on ETS when you make it back.

There is a difference between using taking artistic pictures under ideal, sometimes even controllable conditions, possibly with post-processing, and taking sharp, clear pictures that may push the limitations of the lens, in less-than-ideal, possibly low-light circumstances. If you go to camera company websites, you will find many excellent examples of photography done with their worst cameras. How? They had experts milking every drop out of the camera in an optimized situation, so the 100% point-and-shoot looks as good as the $3,000 SLR. But the base performance is not that.

@Eugene: I know the Canon S3. That size is pretty balky, though it does many of the things one could want -- macro as well as telephoto, many manual controls, AA batteries, you can sort of do long exposure. You can even get lenses. The manual focusing is terrible. There are other mega zooms like it, but at that size you're almost carrying a little SLR.

I guess weather spotters can take a picture of the coming tornado before they turn and run for shelter...

I'm not sure what macro would be good for except: "This is a close up of my mystery bug bite. Am I gong to die?"

No, guys, I'm not looking for an excuse to buy a camera "for survival." The next camera I want is a Contax G2. Being an amateur photographer, I just started thinking about what one might look for in a camera if one were to include one in the kit.

As a survival use, some may take a picture of themselves or their shoes and leave the camera in their car before a wilderness trip. That gives what they are wearing. Others might take pics of their kids before an outing even to the mall in case of child abduction.

I usually take my point and shoot out with me, and do keep an extra set of batteries for it in my kits (2 x AA), but I don't consider it a survival aid. I could use the batteries and lens for fire starting, and could probably use the plastic housing to collect a little water, but my only thought real thought when packing it is to take pictures for the family photo album.

My son and I often use the pictures as post-trip conversation starters about survival skills, resources and tools, so I suppose we could could consider the camera a survival aid in that it helps better prepare the brain? That's the most important piece of survival gear we have, right?

As far as features go, I have 2 primary cameras:

A Canon Rebel DSLR. Love this thing! I can use it as a point and shoot or get more technical using macros, etc, and the pictures always turn out frameable. It's big and heavy though, so gets left at home more often than not. It's great on car camping trips and short hikes,when weight isn't an issue and I want to spend more time smelling the roses on a trip. Sadly, it's about 10 years old and the power plant seems to be dying. We can't afford a new camera right now so I'm hoping that we just need a new battery or charger.

A Canon A800 PowerShot. Closer to the bottom end than the top as far as point and shoots go, but it fit our budget and works OK. It takes stills and video, takes 10.0 mega pixel shots and has 3.3X optical zoom. This one's high speed, low drag. It's small, light and a set of batteries can last entire weekend. It takes decent pictures in daylight but the flash sucks so nighttime shots can be frustrating.

When it's time to upgrade, I'll be looking for something that fits in a jacket pocket and that I can take a good midnight campfire shot with. Not very technical, I know, but I'm a simple girl and like my cameras that way too.

I'm beginning to think of a camera as a bit of EDC carry, like my SAK. Last year I splurged and got a low end "smartphone", which has a simple (no flash) camera. At the time, I thought it would be useless (camera, not phone).

Instead, I found several occasions when I wanted to document something good (e.g. geese on a local pond) or bad (some neighborhood vandalism) that I stumbled on by accident. I used the camera on the phone and got reasonable results.

Carrying a separate camera, even a pocket camera, has no attraction for me--but having a decent camera as a part of my phone (thus part of my EDC) does have value (but I'm not sure I would call it, strictly speaking, a "survival" item). The phone itself I do think of as a high priority survival EDC.

I love when things multi-task.

Good midnight campfire shots? I don't think the Rebel has big enough of a sensor to do that. You'll need a full-frame camera like the Canon 5D or the Nikon 800, plus a fast lens, and maybe a few flashes. That's some big (& deep) pocket you've got!

You might want to try the Canon G15, for a chunky and capable pocketable camera.

the current in-production list of "proof" cameras (somewhat water/dirt/drop/shock-proof) run $200-400 and include:

Sony TF1 $200
Fuji XP60 $200
Pentax WG-3 $300
Nikon AW100 $350
Olympus TG-2 $375
Panasonic TS5 $400

of that group i like the panasonic best but if just for carrying as a back-up in daybag or jockey box for pixs now and then, the TF1 would probably do fine (although it uses a somewhat unique harder-to-find memory card than most other cameras).

me? as a pro-photog for 45 years and having owned hundreds and hundreds of cameras, i now just carry older "used" standard digital P&S (point and shoot) cameras in every vehicle, for "emergencies". once a camera is a few years old, even "better" models are only generally worth $30-50, so even if one gets wet or lost, no big deal.

on the other hand, when i don't want to haul around my heavy pro nikon kit (D800 with 1.4 lenses, like bingley mentioned) but still want something handy that can produce really excellent photos, i pack the very-smallest highest-IQ (image quality) camera i know of, the Sony RX100 (but to get the most out of it, one really needs a solid understanding of photo techniques).

Has anybody here used one of those binoculars with the camera built in? What did you think of it? Just curious.

didn't know they still made those bino-cameras. the older ones were pretty low resolution units, not worth fooling with. they didn't work as good binoculars, nor were they good cameras.


edit: i just googled these combo-units to what's still available. all i saw were junk. i'd call them "cheap junk" but every single one is overpriced so that phrase doesn't work here.

save your money. instead buy a good binox and a good camera, seperately!

Good to know. Thanks.

Where oh where have you found a point-n-shoot that uses film not a media card, and has a lens bigger than a pencil eraser in the last decade and a half?

I have never tried this, but if you had film, wouldn't it make good tinder, especially if you batoned it into itty bitty pieces? Younger members - ask your grandparents to describe "film" - they might even have some around

Why would you need to baton it? It's already a thin sheet.

Because you can. I'm being just a little facetious. However, you might slice it up to form smaller, more flammable particles. I'm not at all sure how readily celluloid film would burn - nitrate film is entirely a different matter. It's highly flammable.

Check out the Nikon Coolpix AW-100. It is a good camera and is equipped with a GPS and basic mapping. I have actually used it (as an experiment) to navigate with. It is also very water resistant, shock resistant and cold resistant. I will vouch for its durability. Again I don't think of a camera as a survival tool, but this one comes the closest that I have seen.

"Disposable" water-proof cameras still use film. I agree their lens is probably too small to be useful for fire-starting.

Another example is after getting bitten by a snake or other animal, having a photo of it to help identify what antidote you need. (Killing the snake is even better, but not always convenient.) This could be useful even if there's no signal where you are, provided you get rescued quickly enough.