Mountain Biking - Mountain biking - Camera suggestion

Hi. I am wondering what kind of camera you all bring along to take pictures while mountain biking. I do have a nice digital camera, but I wouldn't want to bring it along; it was about 500 bucks and I'd hate to wreck it. Thanks!

I have exactly teh same question but I searched for some helmet camera but they always need a recording device... i have a camcorder but I don't want to bring my 1200 buck camera ino the trails ...

For scenery shots, go back to film. The Yashica T4 Super is an amazing portable 35mm. It is rugged, pretty water resistant, and has a very sharp lense by Carl Zeiss. It looks like it is worth $50, but the shots will hold up when shooting slide film. Film cameras are an incredible bargain right now. I bought my son an Olympus OM10 for $6.00 on Ebay. I mostly shoot with Nikon FA's, FE's, but I have run lots of film through the Yashica. Buy it on Ebay. It won't be as cheap as the others, but you will be the only person buying a film camera.

I've carried up to $1800 worth of camera gear mountain biking, backpacking and wilderness canoing many times. The gear is pretty rugged. You can wrap it with neoprene foam to mitigate shock. I've fallen hard enough a few times in Moab to give my GPS a concussion: It lost all the stored data, including my stored track. Had a map + compass as back-up. The camera and two lenses did fine every time

At the present I carry a much cheaper ($500?) Canon G6 digital. Much smaller and lighter and easier to pad if one finds it necessary. It's in the wilderness areas where I get my best pictures, so I don't want to skimp on the gear I need.

Al

Full load.

http://www.paradigmhosting.net/images/zoom.jpg

More typically I bring the body, 28-70mm, 16mm fisheye, two strobes, and video camera.

Buy a disposable camera, it's cheap and you don't lose much if you brake it

Buy a disposable camera, it's cheap and you don't lose much if you brake it

Or if you break it. The pictures are fantastic as well.

A friend of mine brings his $3000 camera along. He just puts alot of padding around it and puts it into his bag and he has had it for 2 years.

oh, just get your girlfriend to hike out to a good picture spot & take the snaps!

I used to take my Canon powershot A40 with me places. But i traded it for a bike.

My new (old) commuter -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/F14K/commuter_20060522_0002.jpg

Crappy camera i never used for a solid bike. Fair trade i think :D

i carry my canon powershot SD200 in a small camera case that I strap to the stem. The camera is really small so it fits perfectly in its bag up on the bottom side of the stem, it stays out of the way and is easy to access when you stop for pictures.

Yeah Canon Powershot, A60 or something is the one im thinking of I think. Uses 4AAs, CF cards, small, reasonably tough, good aftermarket.

i have Hewlett Packard digital I do most of it with, but for high quality i use my Sigma 35mm SLR

Full load.

http://www.paradigmhosting.net/images/zoom.jpg

More typically I bring the body, 28-70mm, 16mm fisheye, two strobes, and video camera.

You bring that bike riding?

Buy a disposable camera, it's cheap and you don't lose much if you brake it

I guess this would actually be a very good option if you were planning on doing rough riding, or when you dont want to be worry about an expensive piece of equipment being broken. They are also quite light.

You can get a slim digi-cam with 5+ megapixels for around $150 now. I bring mine along all the time and have never run into a problem crashing.

The problem with disposables and other cheaper cameras, for me at least is the lack of focal length options and slow lenses. A decent zoom lens allows good composition for a variety of scenes and a fast lens gets good detail in lower light levels and/or eliminates blur or loss of detail due to camera (or subject) motion.

The G6 digital I mentioned before has a 35 to 140mm F2 zoom (35 mm equivalents) lens. In 35 mm film I carry a 28 to 140mm F4 zoom a 200 mm F4 and a 24 mm.

I love scenery and animal shots. So far I've got several pics of Moose, Deer, Woodland Caribou (rare), Otter, Bear, Gators, Eagles, Loons and Elk; all in the woods vice the more tame varieties. If I did night infra-red film stuff, I could have gotten Wolf. You can't get these kind of shots with a cheepo.

Al

You bring that bike riding?

no, he takes his bike on photography outings

I use a Pentax Optio S. The camera fits inside an Altiods tin. Then the tin goes in a small pouch which hangs from my sternum strap on my Camelbak. That makes the camera easily available, which is most important to me. It takes great pictures unless the lighting is dark. I have found that if I have to take my pack off to dig out a camera to take a picture, the camera does not get used much.

You bring that bike riding?

No, I posted that picture because that's what I go swimming with.

No, I posted that picture because that's what I go swimming with.

:p +1

no, he takes his bike on photography outings

Thats better put.