Point and Shoot "Reaction" Time

My cousin asked me how do you know if a camera is fast to record an image after the button is pressed. I haven't researched point and shoots in a a fery long time but I do know that "lag" is a problem with point and shoots. A friend of mine took a p&s to a major boxing event with a Canon G4 (or 5?) and he said that the images were always much after the intended shot. Have the manufacturers put a number/measurement to this? I know they like to mention qick "start up" times. Does high speed memory cards help here?

How do you find a p&s with the reaction time of a DSLR?

Thanks in advance....

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Originally Posted by manacsa

My cousin asked me how do you know if a camera is fast to record an image after the button is pressed. I haven't researched point and shoots in a a fery long time but I do know that "lag" is a problem with point and shoots. A friend of mine took a p&s to a major boxing event with a Canon G4 (or 5?) and he said that the images were always much after the intended shot. Have the manufacturers put a number/measurement to this? I know they like to mention qick "start up" times. Does high speed memory cards help here?

How do you find a p&s with the reaction time of a DSLR?

Thanks in advance....

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The lag is usually caused by the AF system. If you learn to pre-focus it will work fine. After all, wonderful sports shots were taken before AF existed! I have sucessfully shot sports such as high school football and kayak racing in Golden with a Canon S400 this way.

You can get technical stuff, such as a breakdown of shutter lag, on DP Review:

www.dpreview.com

DSLRs are so fast that I really doubt they differ much between themselves in a way that photographers can see. My "old" Canon 300D, bottom of the line, is every bit as fast as my now-unused used-to-be-expensive EOS-3.

I agree with Michael. If you are prepared and prefocus, you'll get the shot you are after. I took my Panasonic P & S to a friend's daughter's tennis match. I took about 70 shots and kept 18 and emailed them to my friend. His wife insisted on getting every one printed. They were all sharp. I used the same method I used to use with my manual focus 35mm Nikons. It'll work just about everytime. However, I have read that there can be quite a difference in lag time between P & S's. I have read that there is very minimal and practically imperceptible lag time with my model camera. I've never really paid attention.

My Fuji F10 is very fast to fire, even with focussing. If I want it to be instantaneous I press the shutter button a little to prefocus then when I want to shoot I press the button all the way and it goes immediately (except if the flash is set to fire).

The Fuji F series is aimed at experts (good low-light performance). I think all the F series (F30, F30d, F40, F50) have the same characteristics. Looking for a F40 right now

There is no point-and-shoot with the reaction time of a DSLR. Current digital SLRs use very sophisticated processing to speed up all the functions involved in shutter-lag. Compact cameras don't. I am not aware of any P&S digital that can even come close to a beginner DSLR. My XTi crushes every compact I've used - and I've used a lot of point-and-shoots this year.

There is a number used to express shutter-lag. Focus is really a secondary issue. If you aren't pre-focusing you're using bad technique and making the time longer. All cameras have shutter-lag - even SLRs. Its just a matter of how long that lag is. With digital SLRs it's so minimal that you can't sense it. But it's still there. The actual time is usually measured in milliseconds. But with compacts it used to be much, much slower. I've found the current batch of compacts to be very, very quick - as long as you practice good technique and pre-focus. If you try to just point and shoot you're still going to be disappointed because the focus systems on compacts aren't good enough to achieve focus in the amount of time people expect them to.

The actual shutter-lag spec is hard to find. Most camera companies don't publish it. Sometimes I see it on spec sheets, but usually only for digital SLRs. I've seen other sites publish test numbers but I honestly don't know how they get them. How can you accurately test for a time that's measured in milliseconds when you have to physically push a button with your finger? I've tried to do this kind of test and I don't trust them. I think it's probably only possible in a lab with a hacked camera that allows you to trigger the shutter and a timer and measure the reaction time with some sort of automatic electronically timing device.

I am going to start asking for shutter-lag specs now, though. I want them for our reviews because I think it's important. And I know the manufacturers have them.