Small P&S Shutter Lag Times ?

I have been asked to help buy a compact digital camera, and am currently,
with the intended purchaser, making our shortlist of models to look at based
on published spec.s and reviews. But as we all know, published spec.s very
rarely say anything about shutter lag...

She wants a camera that can go with her all the time, so it needs to be
small. Main interests are landscape and - the impetus for buying the thing
in the first place - a new kitten. So a lens that goes reasonably wide
(insofar as they do) would be good, and a bit of reach at the other end
would also help. Something of, say, five or six MP up would be enough.
And, obviously, for the kitten, minimal shutter lag is absolutely critical.

I'm sure this has been discussed at regular intervals, but I couldn't see a
recent thread on it, and anything older is likely to exclude many more
recent models, so thought I'd ask the question 'afresh'.

Any comments or experience on models fitting the above criteria that have
either particularly short (good) or long (bad) shutter lag would be very
much appreciated. I suppose long start-up time would also be a bad thing,
so any experience there would be useful as well.

(Models she's shortlisted so far include Ricoh Caplios, various Pentaxes, a
Samsung, Olympus, and Fujis, but other suggestions welcome.)

Very many thanks (and Happy New Year),


Peter
--
http://www.bard-hill.co.uk

In article , Bandicoot
wrote:

I have been asked to help buy a compact digital camera, and am currently,
with the intended purchaser, making our shortlist of models to look at based
on published spec.s and reviews. But as we all know, published spec.s very
rarely say anything about shutter lag...

She wants a camera that can go with her all the time, so it needs to be
small. Main interests are landscape and - the impetus for buying the thing
in the first place - a new kitten. So a lens that goes reasonably wide
(insofar as they do) would be good, and a bit of reach at the other end
would also help. Something of, say, five or six MP up would be enough.
And, obviously, for the kitten, minimal shutter lag is absolutely critical.

I'm sure this has been discussed at regular intervals, but I couldn't see a
recent thread on it, and anything older is likely to exclude many more
recent models, so thought I'd ask the question 'afresh'.

Any comments or experience on models fitting the above criteria that have
either particularly short (good) or long (bad) shutter lag would be very
much appreciated. I suppose long start-up time would also be a bad thing,
so any experience there would be useful as well.

(Models she's shortlisted so far include Ricoh Caplios, various Pentaxes, a
Samsung, Olympus, and Fujis, but other suggestions welcome.)

Very many thanks (and Happy New Year),


Peter

The only real effective way to account for shutter lag in a P&S is
technique. Pre-squeezing to set focus and exposure... then waiting
for the shot. Release of the shutter from this point is instantaneous.
Can be problematic if the lighting of the composition changes (kitten
runs from shaddow to sun) or the subject changes distance. But the
second one is not so bad with many P&Ss because they have decent DoF
with the wide angle and relatively slow lens.

On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:34:59 -0600, Steve Cutchen wrote:

In article , Bandicoot
wrote:

I have been asked to help buy a compact digital camera, and am currently,
with the intended purchaser, making our shortlist of models to look at based
on published spec.s and reviews. But as we all know, published spec.s very
rarely say anything about shutter lag...

She wants a camera that can go with her all the time, so it needs to be
small. Main interests are landscape and - the impetus for buying the thing
in the first place - a new kitten. So a lens that goes reasonably wide
(insofar as they do) would be good, and a bit of reach at the other end
would also help. Something of, say, five or six MP up would be enough.
And, obviously, for the kitten, minimal shutter lag is absolutely critical.

I'm sure this has been discussed at regular intervals, but I couldn't see a
recent thread on it, and anything older is likely to exclude many more
recent models, so thought I'd ask the question 'afresh'.

Any comments or experience on models fitting the above criteria that have
either particularly short (good) or long (bad) shutter lag would be very
much appreciated. I suppose long start-up time would also be a bad thing,
so any experience there would be useful as well.

(Models she's shortlisted so far include Ricoh Caplios, various Pentaxes, a
Samsung, Olympus, and Fujis, but other suggestions welcome.)

Very many thanks (and Happy New Year),


Peter

The only real effective way to account for shutter lag in a P&S is
technique. Pre-squeezing to set focus and exposure... then waiting
for the shot. Release of the shutter from this point is instantaneous.
Can be problematic if the lighting of the composition changes (kitten
runs from shaddow to sun) or the subject changes distance. But the
second one is not so bad with many P&Ss because they have decent DoF
with the wide angle and relatively slow lens.

Many of them have a "sport mode" that is intended to minimize lag.

I keep hearing about these P&S cameras with "relatively slow lens" but all
the ones that I find "interesting" have f/2.8 lenses, which as zooms go
are quite fast.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article , J. Clarke
wrote:

On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:34:59 -0600, Steve Cutchen wrote:

In article , Bandicoot
wrote:

I have been asked to help buy a compact digital camera, and am currently,
with the intended purchaser, making our shortlist of models to look at
based
on published spec.s and reviews. But as we all know, published spec.s very
rarely say anything about shutter lag...

She wants a camera that can go with her all the time, so it needs to be
small. Main interests are landscape and - the impetus for buying the thing
in the first place - a new kitten. So a lens that goes reasonably wide
(insofar as they do) would be good, and a bit of reach at the other end
would also help. Something of, say, five or six MP up would be enough.
And, obviously, for the kitten, minimal shutter lag is absolutely critical.

I'm sure this has been discussed at regular intervals, but I couldn't see a
recent thread on it, and anything older is likely to exclude many more
recent models, so thought I'd ask the question 'afresh'.

Any comments or experience on models fitting the above criteria that have
either particularly short (good) or long (bad) shutter lag would be very
much appreciated. I suppose long start-up time would also be a bad thing,
so any experience there would be useful as well.

(Models she's shortlisted so far include Ricoh Caplios, various Pentaxes, a
Samsung, Olympus, and Fujis, but other suggestions welcome.)

Very many thanks (and Happy New Year),


Peter

The only real effective way to account for shutter lag in a P&S is
technique. Pre-squeezing to set focus and exposure... then waiting
for the shot. Release of the shutter from this point is instantaneous.
Can be problematic if the lighting of the composition changes (kitten
runs from shaddow to sun) or the subject changes distance. But the
second one is not so bad with many P&Ss because they have decent DoF
with the wide angle and relatively slow lens.

Many of them have a "sport mode" that is intended to minimize lag.

I keep hearing about these P&S cameras with "relatively slow lens" but all
the ones that I find "interesting" have f/2.8 lenses, which as zooms go
are quite fast.

2.8 at wide angle... 5.4 or so zoomed out.

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutte...omparisons.cfm

Steve Cutchen wrote:
In article , J. Clarke
wrote:
[]
Many of them have a "sport mode" that is intended to minimize lag.

I keep hearing about these P&S cameras with "relatively slow lens"
but all the ones that I find "interesting" have f/2.8 lenses, which
as zooms go are quite fast.

2.8 at wide angle... 5.4 or so zoomed out.

Here's one which is f/2.8 all the way out to 432mm eq. focal length.....

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...ic_dmcfz20.asp

David

In article , David J
Taylor
wrote:

Steve Cutchen wrote:
In article , J. Clarke
wrote:
[]
Many of them have a "sport mode" that is intended to minimize lag.

I keep hearing about these P&S cameras with "relatively slow lens"
but all the ones that I find "interesting" have f/2.8 lenses, which
as zooms go are quite fast.

2.8 at wide angle... 5.4 or so zoomed out.

Here's one which is f/2.8 all the way out to 432mm eq. focal length.....

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...ic_dmcfz20.asp

David

That's not really a P&S... it's more of a zlr or whatever they are
calling them these days.

The OP said:

I have been asked to help buy a compact digital camera,

and

She wants a camera that can go with her all the time, so it needs to be
small.

So I'm thinking a traditional P&S.

I looked into lens speed quite a bit back in the day, 'cause I shoot
volleyball, and was using an OLY 2020Z when I first started. It was
pretty good, going from F2 to F2.8, and I was looking to replace it.

The current version of this camera is the C-7070, which is F2.8-4.8

This is more typical of today's compact ammeras... the Canon SD900 is
F2.8 - F4.9.. The A640 is F2.8 - F4.1

And these are with a max ISO of 400.

Slow when off wide angle.

My F5.4 guess at full zoom was a bit off, though.

wrote in message
...
http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutte...omparisons.cfm

They have an interesting definition of shutter lag.
"The Shutter Lag Comparison Table shows the amount of time it takes each
camera to record one shot and five shots"

It is supposed to be the time taken from pressing the release until the
shutter operates and has /nothing/ to do with how long it takes to record
the image.

The table appears to be meaningless as far as shutter lag goes.


Anyway most cameras can operate faster if you turn off automatic white
balance.
It certainly slows mine down.
The same is true of auto exposure but its more difficult to live without.

David J Taylor wrote:
Steve Cutchen wrote:
In article , J. Clarke
wrote:
[]
Many of them have a "sport mode" that is intended to minimize lag.

I keep hearing about these P&S cameras with "relatively slow lens"
but all the ones that I find "interesting" have f/2.8 lenses, which
as zooms go are quite fast.

2.8 at wide angle... 5.4 or so zoomed out.

Here's one which is f/2.8 all the way out to 432mm eq. focal length.....

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...ic_dmcfz20.asp

David

Olympus had C-series cams with f1.8 lenses. Too bad that line went to
s---.

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutte...omparisons.cfm

They have an interesting definition of shutter lag.
"The Shutter Lag Comparison Table shows the amount of time it takes each
camera to record one shot and five shots"

It is supposed to be the time taken from pressing the release until the
shutter operates and has /nothing/ to do with how long it takes to record
the image.

The sites use of the word record is misleading. Shutter lag times
show ARE for the time taken from pressing the release until the
shutter operates. If you'd include the record time also then the
times would be much slower than the fast times stated.

The table appears to be meaningless as far as shutter lag goes.

Not so. The table can be arranged by brand, category of camera,
five shot, or one shot lag times. Not electronic record times as you
believe.

Anyway most cameras can operate faster if you turn off automatic white
balance.
It certainly slows mine down.
The same is true of auto exposure but its more difficult to live without.