Well since you are using Mac OSX, when you plug in your phone you can do the following to back up your pictures OUTSIDE of iTunes.
Step 1
Open up Preview with your phone plugged in. Go to File > Import Image. You will see it populate all your photos/videos. Save them in a separate folder (maybe somewhere on your desktop), then delete them all from your phone.
If you are concerned about mass deleting these files, you can just do it with SSH. This is after you've imported all your images through preview.
From Terminal on your desktop type
ssh root@your-iphones-ip-address-here
Will prompt you with a PW, chances are if you haven't changed it it's alpine or Alpine. Change directories via the following command:
cd /var/mobile/Media/DCIM
Depending on the amount of images/videos you have you will see 100APPLE/ and maybe 101APPLE/. In the directory type this to remove ALL images and movies in one command
rm -r 100APPLE/
rm -r 101APPLE/
Backup in iTunes now and you have a fresh backup with just numbers/apps/whatever else. You can then import the pictures/videos back if you want after you restore it.
Not all versions of iOS can back up from backups made using more recent versions (i.e. the backups are not necessarily forwards-compatible). Confusingly, rather than show these unusable backups in some way (e.g. disabled with an error message available on tap) they simply don't show up at all (at least with iOS 5.0.1).
A new-from-the-box iPhone isn't necessarily running the latest version of iOS; it's running what was latest (or close) when it was boxed. If the version on the phone is older than the version that was used to make the backup (which is actually quite likely now that iOS updates can be done over-the-air).
Thankfully, there is a simple fix: choose to set up the phone as a new phone, rather than from a backup. Skip the step where you are asked for an Apple ID, since you won't actually be using the phone like this.
Once the initial setup is done, plug the phone in to iTunes and choose "Restore" (you can skip the backup of the clean-state phone). This will download the latest version of iOS and install that first, and then offer to restore (either from backups on the computer or iCloud).
Best Answer
The panel is still there and hasn't moved.
Select your iPhone in the toolbar.
The latest backup times and locations are shown under Latest Backup.
The version of iTunes is independent of the version of OS X. Image Capture has by no means replaced Photos and was part of OS X long before iPhoto (the predecessor to Photos.app).