Digital nomads: Your camera has arrived at last!

I've got a common-sense list of 8 criteria for an acceptable digital nomad camera. Until this month, no camera met all requirements. But when the $400 Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 shipped this month, all criteria were suddenly met. I've bought and tested the camera, and can now recommend it highly — very highly — to all you digital nomads out there.

First, my 8 criteria:

1. High-quality picture capability
There are so many great digital cameras available now, it makes no sense to ever compromise on the quality of photographs. Digital nomads travel the world in order to see amazing sights. At the end of the day (or the end of the trip) the quality of the photographs is the most important thing.

2. Compact size
The best cameras are huge — so huge, in fact, that you can't bring them everywhere. Digital nomads need a camera that fits in a pocket, so you can bring it while out on the town, hiking volcanoes or shopping at the local market. The last thing we need is to look like a tourist all the time with some massive camera around our necks. Digital nomad cameras need to be the size of a deck of cards or smaller.

3. Rugged
It's rough out there sometimes. A camera needs to be able to withstand the pressure of being squeezed inside a backpack or dropped onto cement. It needs to survive dirt, heat and cold. Otherwise, you might end up with a dead camera right when you need it.

4. Waterproof
There are a million ways to wreck a camera, and half of them involve liquids. Rain. Rivers. Beer. Rivers of beer. You name it. A real digital nomad camera needs to be waterproof. Besides, some of the most amazing sights are underwater anyway. You want a camera that can go in the water with you.

5. Low-cost
No matter how rugged or waterproof a camera is, stuff happens. Theft. Loss. You name it. If you've got a super expensive camera, you're going to be worried about it all the time. A digital nomad camera needs to be replaceable without taking out a loan. Everyone has their own idea about what constitutes affordability. For me, $500 is the maximum.

6. Big LCD
A large LCD display built into a camera isn't just nice, it's a practical necessity for digital nomads. You may find yourself going weeks without access to a PC. In the meantime, you need to conserve space on the camera's storage. A big screen lets you get a good look at your pictures, so you can decide which to delete to make room for more. Yes, storage is cheap. But videos are huge. You need that big screen.

7. Fast performance
The most under-rated attribute a camera can have is fast performance. How long does it take to snap a picture after turning the camera on? How long between shots? How fast in burst mode? The answer to these questions determines which shots you miss, and which you won't. I've missed hundreds of amazing shots in my travels because my cameras were just too slow.

8. HD video
And finally, the piece de resistance. HD video, in my opinion, is a must-have feature now for any camera, period. Once you go HD, you can't go back. Why take crisp, clear spectacular photos, but settle for grainy, blurry, low-quality video? HD is an absolute requirement.

So here's the problem. Until the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 shipped this month, no one camera met all criteria. The core problem was that no rugged-and-waterproof compact camera supported HD video.

Because the TS1 is from Panasonic, it uses a video format called "AVCHD Lite," a format related to the one Sony uses in its prosumer camcorders. The format records very high quality 720p HD video at a resolution of 1280 x 720 and frame rate of 30 frames-per-second, but takes only about half the disc space as Motion-JPEG. When you see the video, you can't believe it was produced by a compact digital camera, let alone a rugged and waterproof one. Better still, the camera itself supports HDMI, so you can connect the camera directly to a high-def TV with a data fire hose.

The TS1 is the first compact rugged camera to do video, but there are other features that make it super great to use in any situation.

The first is its Intelligent Auto mode. Most cameras have some idiot-proof setting, but the TS1's Intelligent Auto is the best I've seen. Just set this on the dial, and the picture will be perfectly exposed and focused every time. You can get less than two inches away from your subject and it will focus perfectly, automatically kicking itself into macro mode for the shot.

Intelligent Auto has its own, simplified settings that are separate from the other modes' picture settings. I turned down the picture size from 12 megapixels to 5, and the pictures were excellent, but took up a fraction of the space.

Another great feature is speed. In my perfectly unscientific test (left had using the iPhone's Stopwatch feature and right hand operating the camera) I was able to turn on the camera and squeeze off a picture — with flash, using auto-focus — in well under three seconds!

Getting to the recording of video is fast, too. Instead of having to set your camera in video mode then pressing the shutter button to start and stop recording, the TS1 has a dedicated red video button on the back. From any mode, just press the button and you're recording. Press again to stop. It's very fast and easy. Like taking a picture, it takes well under three seconds to both turn on the camera and start filming video.

When it comes to digital cameras, it's the small things that count — or the big things. The shutter button on the camera is very large — so large that you can easily use it wearing ski gloves, while underwater or in other situations where the standard tiny button causes problems.

The camera's optics are all safely tucked away behind some kind of scratch-proof glass. The lenses offer a range equivalent to 28mm on the wide-angle end to 129mm on the telephoto. The wide-angle setting is particularly impressive.

The TS1 isn't perfect. Two bad decisions by Panasonic require you to carry extra stuff. First, the camera requires a proprietary (or very rare) USB cable standard, which is included with the camera. You're already going to be carrying a "mini" USB cable when you travel, and possibly a "micro" USB cable as well, so it would be far better to simply support one of these standards.

The second bad decision is that the camera is not rechargeable via USB. You have to use an included charger, which requires that you remove the battery — or you can buy a special charger sold separately. The charger is just one more thing to carry, one more thing to lose.

It would be great if all digital cameras would support the "mini" USB standard, and enable charging via this cable don't have to carry an extra cable and an extra charger.

Still, this camera is not only a high-quality, inexpensive, versitile, fast, easy-to-use camera for anyone, it's the only camera I can recommend to digital nomads.