Spec me a camera for my next eclipse trip

[Quartz]

I'm just back from seeing the eclipse in Indonesia and my camera - a Pentax WG-1 - was wholly inadequate not only for the eclipse itself but for the rest of the tour. I knew it was going to be inadequate for the eclipse itself but was expecting it to be good for the rest.

So I need a better camera for next year's eclipse tour. Unfortunately, I was last into cameras over 20 years ago, and I know that I really don't know cameras these days.

It absolutely must be able to take a solar filter for photos pre- and post-eclipse. It must be fast to start up (a real problem when photographing butterflies). Good battery life. A good big viewer on the back. Must be mountable on a tripod and have a remote shutter control. Must cope with dust / desert conditions / trekking (Grand Canyon, Atacama Desert, etc). Must be easily portable. Must be able to take multiple photos rapidly, for wildlife / Diamond Ring as well as long exposures to capture the corona during the eclipse itself. Should have a decent optical zoom. Big sensor. Changeable rechargeable batteries. And I'm sure there's more I need - you tell me!

Fancy gewgaws are nice, but for most things, I really just want to point, compose, zoom, and shoot.

I would note that out of 17 people on the trip, four had Canon cameras that failed.

 

[Quartz]

How much do you have to spend?

How much do I need to spend?

Do you want an DSLR? A Mirrorless system? Compact? Bridge Camera?

Why should I care about any of those? What are their advantages and disadvantages with respect to my requirements?

 

[Quartz]

Why should you care about DLSR etc? Again we could recommend kit from any of those types of systems that would fulfil your requirements.

Indeed, but the manner in which the camera takes the photos isn't particularly important to me. Unless you convince me otherwise.

Do you want interchangeable lenses?

Not especially. I'd prefer that the camera do everything itself. I'm not even an amateur photographer, I just want something that will take the photos I want to take.

To me this seems more like finding a camera with those features first then figuring out if you can afford it.

Well put.

When you say a number of canons 'failed' on your trip, what models?

Sorry, I didn't make note of that.

Something else: a number of the others' cameras had real problems going from air-conditioned hotels and busses to the humid outdoors. They steamed up inside.