Thinking of the canon EOSM..

Need to be able to carry on my camelback straps and quick and easy to use, will be photographing fast moving mtb’ers and panoramic mountain vistas etc

Is there anything else to consider? as I’m not very knowledgeable on these things

Grazie

The Nikon one is the decent one with phase detect autofocus – the kind that tracks moving objects. Or the Olympus E-PL5 is very very fast autofocus so that might also work.

will be photographing fast moving mtb’ers

Pretty challenging for any camera inc DSLRs unless in very strong light.

In the long term if you think you will end up investing any significant money in a CSC system, I’d urge you to look at Olympus for lots of reasons.

-in body stabilisation
-choice of both Olympus and Panasonic lenses many of which hold their ground against fairly expensive SLR lenses
-I doubt many would argue against the best CSC body is the Olympus OM-D E-M1 .. it does cost a few bob though

If its DSLR though, I’ll talk all day about Pentax 😛

well they will be moving mtber’s not nccesarily fast.

wanted to use the hd video also in conjunction with a go pro

will look at the nikon………the olympus is too expensive unfortunately

Briefly trialed the EOSM when it first came out – nice to handle but painfully slow autofocus so possibly not the best for action shots. There’s a new one due next year I think with improvements including faster AF. No dates yet though.

Always liked Fuji.
Just hd a look inspired by your post.
This is a steal for effectively £300 from Amazon.

http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/Fujifilm/Fujifilm-X-System-Cameras/Fujifilm-X-M1-with-16-50mm-Lens

Panasonic GM1, Micro Four Thirds but tiny and light.

E-PL3s are pretty fast but cheap.

Hey Nasher, I’m using one for pretty much what you are. I have a panasonic gf1 which is fantastic. We are lucky to often have lots of light eh?! The 20mm lens means it goes in a bag on my pack strap and I don’t notice it. Lives there and rides with me every day for the last few years and its been fine. I shot all my videos with that. I have tried a few other similar cameras and the diffences are slight enough to not make a difference to me. Recently I bought a bigger camera for shooting on special occasions, the quality difference is huge and video is amazing but it can’t live on the bag strap so is pretty useless for what I use the gf1 for and what I think you are wanting. Also the gf1 has buttons for almost everything so I can use it easily with my gloves on.

So basically I’m rambling but I think any of the compact system cameras will be good for you, get a smaller one and get a lens like the 20mm pancake which is amazing and leaves the camera v small. If I had money I would replace the gf1 with the gx7, or the gx1 which you can get cheaper now. Panasonic always seem to score highly on video quality too.