Best Travel-Friendly Cameras

Sun, sea and holiday snaps: we’ve picked the best mirrorless cameras that have big features in a small body, perfect for travel.

- Ben Andrews

I can be tempting to save some luggage space and rely on your phone as a super-portable travel camera, but with it already taking care of directions, travel tips and translation, packing a dedicated camera is a smart idea. While top-end phones now boast image quality and processing far beyond what a traditional compact camera is capable of, they’re still no match for the performance of an interchangeable lens camera. These pack significantly larger image sensors that capture more detail. Built-in Wi-Fi enables you to send snaps to your phone and share them, and you can expect high bitrate 4K video and cutting-edge autofocus systems.

To find the ultimate travel camera, we’ve picked a trio of mirrorless models that are all compact and easily portable, yet don’t sacrifice anything when it comes to performance and tech. Each has a host of manual control options if you want to get serious, but also a fully automatic setting and filter effects to ease the transition from phone photography.

You can buy any of our options just as a camera body, with no lens. But a much better bet if you’re starting out is to opt for a bundle deal that gets you the camera and a basic zoom lens for much less money than if you were buying both individually. If you need more zoom reach, a telephoto lens can be added for a reasonable price, but all our featured brands also offer superzoom optics ideal for travel.

What’s on test…

1 Fujifilm X-T30

At the cutting edge of mirrorless camera tech, the X-T30 sports a highly advanced image sensor and autofocus system, as well as top-spec 4K video, all wrapped up in an exquisite body that makes this camera a real pleasure to use. £899 (with XC 15-45mm lens), fujifilm.com

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