Camera shopping: shutter lag?

tanman32225 wrote:
To prevent the lag try pressing the capture button half way down but not enough to fire the camera off. You will see the camera autofocus. When your satisfied then press it the remainder of the way down and that should cure the lag. I hope that helps somewhat with people having a lag problem.

This is the answer.My old Canon g2 had this feature.

It think it varies depending on the auto-focus speed of the specific camera. Remember, that it's still a mechanical operation. You can reduce the lag by doing some pre-focusing. Generally, by pressing the shutter half-way. That way, you're at least in the basic range of focus, and any minor focus adjustments prior to shutter release should be fairly quick.

I bought a Nikon Coolpix L120 and I have yet to get what you would call a decent shot. not cool at all. Part of my problem is that I am used to the viewfinder on the older cameras and these new ones just have the screen which I hate because I can't keep it still. I have tried using a tripod but that is cumbersome to carry around. I got great shots with my old HP camera with the viewfinder and the screen to look at what you shot. That Sony Cybershot might be my answer, too.

My wife carries a point and shoot camera most every where we go. She gets good shots and her camera doesn't have shutter lag.

This is similar to what she has.

Pay attention to zoom capabilities AND motion reduction capabilities, those two are key. You should be able to find something in your price range.

Dan

troll3193 wrote:

We have owned about 6-7 different point and shoot cameras over the years... And I can completely understand the shutter lag you mention.. The point and shoot camera I have been most happy with the results from has actually been my iPhone...

FWIW,

Bryan

Same here. I have searched high and low for the best point and shoot camera. Since I have gotten the newest iphone, I have found that it takes better pics than any of my former point and shoots and has the added benefit of being very compact, and it is the one thing I always have with me so rarely any missed shots. The camera in the newest iphone (and maybe other versions as well, I just haven't owned them) takes really great pictures. I would prefer more zoom, but can make the sacrifice not having it by not having to lug around a bigger camera. The zoom is good enough.

I purchased my wife a fairly expensive point and shoot camera. It had exactly what your concern is about
lag time between shots. A while back we were in a large electronics store and while looking for a water proof camera the salesman mentioned that certain SD cards help shorten the lag time. I was sceptical but
bought one of the super fast SD cards and it works. Now I'm no expert but when using her camera now
you can definitely take pictures faster. So maybe go to a good camera store and ask lots of questions.

Any of the DSLRs will have very minimal lag (depending on the lens and shooting conditions). Many point and shoots don't have much any more, especially if you prefocus if available. I would recommend you go to a store that has a good selection of point/shoots and/or DSLRs if you are interested and just try them out. See which feels best to you, has the features you want, and minimal lag. Be sure to try to take some pictures in different lighting if possible. You can sometimes get a lower light shot by focusing down on the floor in a shadowed area.

I prefer my DSLR, but also have a point and shoot for those times I just want to have a camera with me, but am not necessarily planning on taking a bunch of pictures.

Thanks for the input, everyone...I'm especially grateful for the "prefocus" tip.

My camera's too busted to try it, but another family member has one just like it and when I get a chance I'm going to see if hers works that way. It'd be typical of me to find out that something that's bugged me for so long could be so easily solved.

I should have asked this question of you folks a long time ago!

The least shutter lag I've had was my Leica M3, though Canon and Nikon rangerfinder cameras with focal plane shutters were pretty close, under 20 MS. This is about the minimum needed start firing a FP flash bulb so that it would be brightening as the shutter slit started crossing the film.

The fastest SLRs (I was using Nikon F and F2, Canon F1, Olympus Pen F, and Minolta) were about 40 ms, have to get the mirror up first, but more typically 60-80 for film SLR.

I usuually used the Leica for theater and dance, for quietness as well as minimum shutter lag. I was OK with the SLRs for most other action stuff, ball sports and auto racing, because I could anticipate action (still talkin about less than 1/10 second).

Then came autofocus. When you press the shutter, it has to find something to focus on, focus past it by whatever means, contrast or phase detection, and come back to the closest focus set point, the fire the shutter. 200 ms at best, 400-500 ms not unusual. In really hard to focus scenes, the most commonly used contrast detection focusing might hunt for a few seconds before just giving up, and either locking the camera or shooting out of focus. Camera is also calculating exposure, maybe evaluating scene for "scene mode" processing, but focusing is usually most of the delay.

Focusing time (and now face detection) is probably most of what your are experiencing as "shutter lag." Two fixes: prefocus on something static in the scene (many point and shoots can do this much) or focus manually. There can also be a gain by presetting exposure, and turning off scene evaluation.

All the point and shoots are slow, and most don't even have shutters, they just capture a still from a video stream being fed to the processor in the camera. But you can speed most of them up by doing more of the decision making yourself, taking advantage of what you can set with the shutter button at halfway, then lag to capture when you press the rest of the way will be minimized.

Francesca Knowles wrote:
I should have asked this question of you folks a long time ago!

I read it in my owner's manual. :)