I do a lot of mountain biking. What kind of camera should I look for to get some decent photos?

A: It's no fun lugging a heavy camera around when your out and about. You should look for a fairly lightweight model. Something with single-handed operation (all the vital functions accessible to one hand) could also be useful for photos on the move.

Look for a camera with at least a 3x zoom lens so you can close in on subjects a little distance away. Buy a decent sized memory card as the ones supplied with cameras usually have a puny amount of memory. If you're out and about for several days (nowhere near a PC to download your pictures), get the biggest memory card you can afford or invest in a portable storage device like the FotoChute which will store 20Gb of downloaded images.

Compact cameras are now in the 5 Megapixel range, so go look for a camera with 4-5 megapixel resolution for top-notch shots. Also, get a good camera pouch that's belt-mounted and sits on your hip when riding. Anything around your neck will just swing about and annoy you. If you want to stray into SLR territory, the Canon EOS 300D is very light as SLRs go (it's made of plastic rather than metal) and offers 6 megapixel resolution.

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