Camera quandary

My vacations this Fall include my second Caribbean cruise and my first trip to Paris, France. Last year I lugged around my Canon EOS Rebel T3i, not wanting to miss a good shot. But I’m not sure if I want to carry such a large DSLR around, or invest in a small pocket camera.

On one hand, I shoot mostly on automatic/modes with acceptable (to me) results. The pace of vacation doesn’t really lend itself to composing a shot and futzing over settings.

On the other hand, I’ve become to0 reliant on auto modes and am losing what little I learned in photography class.

Side note… I was disheartened when my photography instructor, near the end of the three-weekend course, said that she shoots in auto modes. “What? After you put us through the pain of understanding these settings?” I screamed. Of course, she was right to put us through those exercises. We should know how to compose the shot manually, if for no other reason than to tweak things with auto mode isn’t delivering quite the shot.  I digress.

The other real concern is the possible damage to the camera. I use the camera for work as well, so it gets quite a workout. And I’ve had pretty bad luck with damage to three previous cameras.

So that’s the quandary. Take the EOS or invest in a smaller, easier to carry camera? But it’s Paris!? How do you not take your best camera to Paris? Decisions, decisions. Plenty of time to ponder.