See below a link to an interesting post, from www.dpreview.com, regarding the topic of travel camera reduced to the bare minimum, JUST the single focal length lens of an iPhone 4S, effective coverage equivalent to a 33 mm lens on a 35 mm camera, f2.4, etc., i.e., really not that much different than my trip to the UK in 1979, when I took only an Olympus XA, 35/2.8 lens, and about fifteen rolls of ISO 400 print film:

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/2863436371/leaving-my-dslr-at-home-iphone-experiment

As an iPhone 4S photo requires just under 3 MB of storage, equivalent to the 1979 venture would require around 1.6 GB of storage, well within the capacity of the typical 32 GB version such as mine. Beyond that, most users of digital cameras review their take as they go, and "chimp" away the obvious loser images, a luxury one never had with film. Anyway, the photos from the above post demonstrate as always that the most important part of any camera system rests in the BRAIN of the photographer.

I'm a little reluctant to do this myself as vacations are cherished and remembered and I like having great photos and video. But there were a few older Sony Ericcson camera phones that I might have considered this.

As someone who still has undeveloped film rolls from my 1985, 3 month European tour, my iPhone has proved to be the answer to taking and keeping memories. Snap it, load the successes to the Cloud, dump the failures...

What's not to love, particularly if you typically bin 9/10 shots, and almost always forgot to put the camera (Hanimex 110 succeeded by basic 3M digital, won't mention the Polaroid digital that took clear postage stamps...) in the pocket/handbag.

<<undeveloped film rolls from my 1985, 3 month European tour>>

Hopefully those rolls are in the FREEZER, as otherwise latent images on silver halide media don't last a quarter century! My brother did something similar, then lost everything when his basement flooded. Clearly a major advantage of digital is the nearly negligible cost of "developing," not to mention storage issues.

This has been on my mind for a while. I don't always travel with any camera at all. and when I do, it's not an SLR, just a fairly simple digital camera (but with zoom). Until I switched to digital I used an Olympus XA.

In my case, it would be a Samsung Galaxy 4 mp3 player, an Android device functionally similar to an iPod Touch. I've been using its camera function around town but so far I'm not doing so well -- I don't find it particularly convenient to use, and it is way too easy to shoot a movie instead of a still. But I would be more likely to have the Galaxy with me on a one-bag trip, not only because it's smaller and lighter than a camera, but also because I could load maps and guides onto it.

I considered using my phone (currently a Samsung Galaxy SII, but will probably get something newer next year) as my only camera on a trip to the UK next year. My "real" camera is a Canon Digital ELPH SD600, about six years old at this point. The camera on the SII is comparable or better in most ways, and better on video (it takes HD video, which the camera does not), except for two things: digital zoom and battery life. I know I can get a full day and then some out of a full battery charge on the Canon, and it has digital zoom, which I use frequently. So now I think I'm definitely taking a separate camera, but debating if I want to upgrade to a superzoom point and shoot.

However, I use my phone frequently to take spontaneous snapshots, and also use it for photographing craft items (using the macro setting and fiddling with exposure and speed and all that good stuff) and the photos are really, really good.

Oops--I mean the Canon has optical zoom, of course.

Thanks for the link, Alan. It really gave me something to think about. I already knew that a good quality smartphone camera coupled with some tastefully applied filters can result in very good pictures. What surprised me was reading how happy the author was with his framed prints. Clearly going mobile doesn't limit what you can do with the pictures as much as I had thought.

Annie Leibovitz talking about using the iPhone as a camera.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45314750

Something this happy snapper has been pondering. I still have a basic film camera, very basic and have thought about buying a low-end digital one. But there are added advantages to using the iPhone instead and, in preparation/expectation of buying the iPhone, I had downloaded a number of useful camera apps via my iPad as they were temporarily free. However, I'm pondering no longer - the video with Annie Leibovitz was the clincher. Just have to wait for the "queues" to die down a bit.

P.S. Forgot to add - thanks for the link Alan.