2 birds, one price. Get the iPhone 4s. Excellent camera, shoots video, can directly upload both, and handle calls while doing it (if on AT&T). And you'll always have it handy due small form factor. Battery lasts days, NOT a week, but chargers are plentiful and very compact, including right off your laptop as you sync your images.
Did you just suggest an iPhone as a replacement for a D70s?... That's awesome!
Yeah, so awesome one has to pay a monthly fee to take pictures with it.
Actually for an all-in-one travel device the iPhone isn't such a daft idea; its adequate for occasional email, web, skype, etc. and backs up photos it takes to the web. I'd love a smartphone but the fact is I'm too cheap to pay the data rates (times four because the rest of the fam wouldn't accept me having one while they're stuck with SMS!). And the one day battery life would drive me nuts for living with here.
When I go on vacation I try to leave as much of my life behind as possible but I've found my original Asus EEE 4G netbook is handy for staying in touch, web and backing up pictures from the camera onto a suitably large SD card. (Although it doesn't have enough RAM to display the 7MP NEFS that the D70 takes.)
I guess it really depends what is most important to Graham. If portability, and usefulness are formost the primary features he is looking for, then ya, the X10 might fit that bill perfectly. And coming from a D70s he may actually find the image quality to be a fair bit better, especially at higher ISO's. The X10 certainly wouldn't be my first choice for shooting landscapes or portraits though, it's more of a generalist camera. For landscapes and portraits I'd want at a minimum an APS-C sized sensor, that's why I mentioned the NEX cameras. If it boils down to having just one camera for everything the NEX 5n or 7 might be a ticket.
Graham, if you're wonding what were talking about with the X10, I just bought one for my carry around camera and gave some impressions of it
here.
Every day another cool camera pops out of the woodwork!
The X10 is very appealing for a travel camera: Fast camera, fast lens, workable viewfinder, Velvia colors, looks like a polarizer can be attached, reasonable price. Hopefully the small sensor really is up to it and the raw images can be processed by iPhoto to fix the white balance, occasionally make a good picture better and even salvage the odd junker.
To clarify what I'm looking for here, I'm definitely not a serious landscape photographer and I'm not willing to devote the time to
getting up early, waiting for the right light, carrying a tripod, that all go into great landscapes as much as the composition, which I'm not too patient at either.
When I'm taking pictures I'm more opportunistic and simply try to capture the scene as best I can with whatever (usually too much or too little) light is on hand and I enjoy doing it. If I could get the same results as the D70 with a camera that is nice to use but significantly smaller I'd probably be happy. That's probably good reason enough to buy the X10.
The EP3, GH2, GX1 and NEX7 are also very tempting for bigger sensors and choice of lenses albeit with a correspondingly bigger price tag. The biggest draw here would be for a trip where I could take a longer 200mm or so lens that works with the same compact setup that gets used all the time.
(Wondering aloud whether the Nikkor MF 135mm f2.8 I have at home somewhere would be practical to focus?)
I'm also wondering what else will emerge in the next few months. There is way more choice here than I expected which is a high class problem.
Thanks for all the advice, ideas and questions, folks. Please keep them coming!