Admittedly, I'm talking through my hat because I don't care enough about pictures to rig up something, but I think the analogy to drinking water is dead-on here. We take it for granted that water drinking is ok because we have rigged our bikes in such a way as to make it easy to get the bottle, drink from it, and return it to storage without dividing our attention much. Even so, there are situations where one would probably be an idiot to take a drink--super bumpy road, really complicated traffic pattern, that sort of thing. You also might be an idiot if your water bottle has a twist-off cap and is buried in your backpack.


If you've rigged your camera for easy access and you don't have to look through a viewfinder or stare at a screen, it doesn't strike me that it does take any more attention than drinking from the water bottle. I wouldn't recommend trying it while negotiating a left hand turn at a Boston 5-way intersection, but I wouldn't pull my water bottle out at that place either unless I was waiting out a long light.