Point & Shoot with timely shutter

Is there a point and shoot with a shutter that fires when you press the button?

My Canon S95 does - provided that I have done the focussing first.

- I choose the subject, frame the picture
- Depress the shutter release half-way so that it does the focussing
- Hold it there till the moment when the subject is right
- Press the shutter release all the way
- It fires immediately

Shutter lag is by and large a problem of the past. As Charles points out, the focus is part of it, sometimes people confuse what is 'shutter lag' with other lag, like finding focus and flash recharge, to which, it may not always be immediate, even on an $8k camera body.

The Olympus XZ1 is a lot like the Canon S95, but it has an advantage with the lens, the S95 is an f/2-4.5 lens, which is nice but the XZ1 is a f/1.8-2.5 lens, making the XZ1 more capable of using available light, especially throughout the zoom range. Granted, the 1.8 to 2 difference at wide angle is mild, but the 2.5-4.5 difference at the end of the range is huge.

I think the speedy responsiveness of either the S95 or the XZ1 will be a pleasant experience for you, both are excellent and worth checking out, both easily being top dogs of the subcompact category, best of all - they shoot raw.

+1 on the Canon. I was also quite impressed with the nikon p300, which looks like a direct competitor to the canon. It isn't quite there, but as as long as RAW isn't important to you it's a nice, higher end p&s.

It depends, on the old Olympus C-3030 it you pre-focused there was not any shutter lag. The shutter lag is the time of focus plus the time the camera takes to calculate the exposure.