Convince me that I should take the compact instead......

[trampslady]

I'm off to WDW with my husband, mother, father, and grandmother (yes, the whole clan!!) tomorrow. And, although we visit two-three times a year, I so want to take my d50 with the 18-200VR lens. It's so darn heavy, and hubby is begging me to take the little, teeny weeny, Nikon L4 that I bought as a quick shot camera.

Someone please convince me that I'll still be able to capture great family moments with the little guy!

 

[garris3404]

I'm off to WDW with my husband, mother, father, and grandmother (yes, the whole clan!!) tomorrow. And, although we visit two-three times a year, I so want to take my d50 with the 18-200VR lens. It's so darn heavy, and hubby is begging me to take the little, teeny weeny, Nikon L4 that I bought as a quick shot camera.

Someone please convince me that I'll still be able to capture great family moments with the little guy!

I'd take the D50 with the 18-200VR lens (that's the same setup as I have)! 1 priceless picture is worth the effort!

 

[fitzperry]

I'm off to WDW with my husband, mother, father, and grandmother (yes, the whole clan!!) tomorrow. And, although we visit two-three times a year, I so want to take my d50 with the 18-200VR lens. It's so darn heavy, and hubby is begging me to take the little, teeny weeny, Nikon L4 that I bought as a quick shot camera.

Someone please convince me that I'll still be able to capture great family moments with the little guy!

I doubt you'll get much support for that here! I suppose it depends on the type of pictures you want to take. I'm happy to lug my D70 around most of the time, but I'm always thinking that some award winning image is just around the corner. If what you're after is some great snapshots of your family, the L4 will do quite nicely. We bought the L4 for our 7yo for her birthday, and it's a fun little camera. Dd loves all the different scene modes--she's really learning to think about the best way to capture a scene. If I were you, I'd take both cameras and just leave the D50 in the room on the days you want to travel a bit lighter.

Have a great trip!

 

[Master Mason]

I would vote with fitzperry... take both. You decided to get the d50 for certain reasons I am sure, and if you don't have it with you, then you won't be able to use it if you need it.

 

[mecllap]

I agree with taking both, and leaving the big one in the room or in a locker when you don't want to haul it around -- plan for a day or two when you want to concentrate more on taking those special photos and use it then. For great family shots, with all or some of you, use PhotoPass at the scenic spots, as well as with characters -- if you do a lot of Photopass stops and ham it up, it's worth the $99 for the CD.
If you take just the small one, be sure you have lots of storage media and take 2-3 times as many as you might think you will -- shoot everything.

 

[boBQuincy]

I'm off to WDW...
Someone please convince me that I'll still be able to capture great family moments with the little guy!

You'll get no such advice from me!
Sure, you would get many great family photos with the little camera, but you may well miss some *really* great ones due to shutter delays, flash, lighting, etc.

Take the big one, you know you want to!

 

[Groucho]

Ha! That's nothing. I've managed to convince myself to (in addition to the wife's compact camera) bring my DSLR and my 35mm SLR! In addition to a handful of lenses, monopod, a couple tripods, clamperpod, filters, etc. I'm going to gather it all together for a picture before I leave, I'll probably post it here. The 35mm will only come out a couple times - really just for fisheye lens pictures. (I love my new Zenitar but the effect is pretty mild on a DSLR and I don't feel like dropping $500 on a 180' DSLR lens.)

Seriously - if you don't take a DSLR on a trip like to WDW, why have one?

 

[handicap18]

As a fellow D50 user and photo buff,,, if your not going to take the D50 with that most excellent lens, then you might as well sell me the lens at a good price and put the D50 on ebay. Get what you can for it. Disney is one of THE best places for a photo buff to have at it. If your not going to bring it and use it there, then send it back.

Seriously though, take the D50, you'll be much happer in the end with the results. Put that lens to really good use and photograph the he!! out of Disney. Enjoy it!! To heck with DH.

 

[MICKEY88]

in february I went to WDW, left my 35mm slrs at home because I only wanted to shoot digital, I was using a minolta A2, the closest you'll get to a digital slr without actually having one, I got some great shots, but I know I missed some even better ones, in may I bought my dslr...I will NEVER go to WDW without an slr again

 

[safetymom]

Take the D50.

 

[kmadams]

The last time we went to Disney I took both my Nikon D70 and my smaller Canon point and shoot digital. For the most part I carried my Nikon everywhere. I kept the camera out and ready to go, my son carried the bag. It helped split up the weight and I tend to take a lot more pictures when the camera is right by me.

Also, something to consider is a good camera strap. I use the Op-tech, and I remember seeing a link about them here a couple of days ago. It makes a big difference carrying the camera around.

Oh- if you don't don't want to carry that 18-200 lens, you can give it to me, it's on my wish list, and I'd be very happy to carry it!!

 

[Marinerbaby]

Take the big one! Let Dh carry the little one if he likes. I carried my 5D and L lens everywhere for 8 days and I'm so glad I did. Dh had a little point and shoot and it was really worth carrying the big camera around.

 

[Groucho]

Also, something to consider is a good camera strap. I use the Op-tech, and I remember seeing a link about them here a couple of days ago. It makes a big difference carrying the camera around.

Yes, I picked up an Op-Tech Pro Strap a week ago or so and while I haven't used it for any extended period of time, first impressions are that it makes the camera feel MUCH lighter. It was $20 at the local college camera shop.

I also have a holster camera bag on its way from Amnova (all of 25 cents plus $8 shipping - versus about $35-40 for the Tamrac equivalent) and am planning on hand-holding the camera a fair amount, sticking it in the holster when not in use (rather than around the neck.) The strap has quick-release buckles so it can easily be removed. The only problem with the holster is what to do with the lenses - I picked up one belt-holder for a lens but I'm not sure how I feel about it. As always, I'm trying to minimize the "dorky look" factor and a belt full of a holster AND 2-3 lens bags is probably over the line. I will probably keep all but one extra lens in a backpack (along with monopod, etc) but I'm not sure yet the best way to protect them... except maybe in other lens bags.

 

[mister.toad]

I say bring both. I have done that and on certain days took the DSLR with the intention of taking photos that day. The other days I took the pocket cam so I could still take photos but not make that my day's focus.