looking for a digicam with little shutter lag

I'm lookin for a digicam that meets these qualities:
o more than 4 Mpixel
o very little shutter lag (with anti red-eye flash off)

would prefer 6 Mpixel or more but that isn't the biggest thing. I
want the shutter to trip when I push the button and not 10 minutes
later.

Michael

 

Most somewhat recent digital cameras will have that except for the very
cheapest throw-away plastic.

Any dSLR

jue

 

And most P&S IFF you can pre focus.

BugBear

 

Well as pointed out a DSLR will have the best response rate but I
assume you are talking P&S.

I was in the same boat. I have to P&S digitals that I can recommend
as being pretty quick in response time - not as quick as a dSLR but
overall quite responsive.

My first purchase was a Canon S80 which I really like. It's a bit
bulky but gives you incredible control - Auto, Programmed Auto,
aperature priority, shutter priority, full manual etc... It is an 8
MP camera and quite responsive. Built like a tank. Only two problems
- one - it is a bit bulky so was not "pocket friendly" and two - my
wife likes it and will not let me use it I bought a second dP&S
for travel - the Canon SD700IS. It is much more compact but still
very well built. You loose the Av and Tv modes sadly and a bit of
resolution (6MP rather than 8MP), but gain a longer zoom (4x vs 3x), a
higher ISO capability (for what it is worth) and a very nice optical
IS feature which works very well. Shutter lag is very low. It takes
very nice pictures - I'm very happy with it.

Both worth taking a look at.

Bates.....

 

Oh...by the way dpreview.com does actually give response times for all
their reviews too which should help you find what you want. Look on
the performance page.

For example:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonSD700IS/page10.asp

Bates.....

 

DSLRs give the fastest response rate. Other digital cameras are slowed
by the time it takes to process the image to the LCD and the time it
takes to switch the sensor from displaying an image on the LCD and to
taking a picture. With a DSLR the sensor is always in picture-taking
mode and a mechanical shutter determines when the picture is taken.

This is not to say that the delay of other digital cameras is very
long, but it can make a huge difference in your pictures. If you look
at the LCD while you move your hand in front of the camera, you will
see a noticeable delay before the movement shows up on the LCD. If you
are using the LCD to frame your picture your hand may have moved out of
the picture entirely before you take the shot. It is often the
difference between getting a picture of a bird and a picture of a twig.

The other delay introduced by digital cameras is the delay between the
time you press the shutter release and when it actually takes the
picture. There have been improvements and sometimes the delay is very
short, but digital technology is going to have progress a lot further
before it can beat a mechanical system such as in a DSLR. In general,
you pay for speed with weight and size -- more speed means more battery
power and more complex circuitry.

Cameras with electric zoom lenses also slow down your photography quite
a lot. They don't have a delay like the shutter release delay, but
waiting for the lens to slowly zoom in and out can be a real pain.
Manual zooms are much faster and more accurate. Almost all DSLRs use
manual zoom and so do some other digital cameras.

If speed is important to you then it should be obvious that you should
be looking at a DSLR, which means, of course, that you can say good-by
to the lightweight shirt pocket cameras.

 

A very good table of cameras documenting their shutter lag is
available at http://tinyurl.com/fa6nx.

The recent Sonys are excellent choices but have no (or crummy) image
stabilization. The Canon SD800 IS does have it, and has a pretty short
shutter lag of 0.28 sec... The A710 has a similar shutter lag and
takes better pictures but is a bulkier (but still compact) camera.

So it's up to you to do the research to find what features you want in
combination with a satisfactory shutter lag.

KS

 

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-lag-comparisons.cfm

 

I remember finally getting a Sony DSC-P93 to get some nice photos of
my dog going over jumps, having retired my Leica model F many years ago.

Was I surprised by the shutter lag! I thought I'd never get used to it.
My finely-tuned shutter reflexes from the Leica are all wrong.

In a couple of weeks I had it down. You just have to anticipate
differently, but it's not harder than before.

Now I got an even cheaper DSC-S700, and it has an amazingly long
shutter delay. I'm not sure that even I can adjust to this one.
It's almost self-timer territory.

 

What a shame that idiots still refer people to that comparison list. It was
obviously written by someone who doesn't know the first thing about how to use a
camera properly. I can easily fire off 5 individual frames in single-shot mode
on my P&S camera in under 2 seconds (much much faster in high-speed burst mode),
yet the author of that page lists my camera as taking 8 seconds for 5 shots!
What kind of total moron put that list together? Was he busy eating bonbons
between shots? And even more importantly, what kinds of total morons keep
referring that to that list as some kind of accurate reference?

You people really need to get your shit together. NONE of you have a clue if
this is the kind of untested and unquestioned references that you take as
gospel.

 

Ron Hardin wrote:
[]

A good small-sensor camera should have an almost negligible shutter delay,
providing you use the initial-half-press to establish focus and exposure.
Whether cheaper equals better is, perhaps, dubious.

David

 

Not to worry. X-Man is one of a small number of sock puppet
trolls that recently started infesting the newsgroup. Trying to
argue or reason with them is *always* a waste of time. To more
easily recognize them, here is the latest, up-to-date copy of the :

 

Contact the author. He will explain how the numbers were generated.
You are just mad because your camera is not so well rated.

 

Mad? More like doubled with laughter that you people are using that as any kind
of valid reference whatsoever when his figures are that far off. Get a clue
idiot. I have checked his rates against 5 different cameras, they'll ALL wrong.
5 out of 5 that I tested are completely wrong. How many others on that list are
completely wrong. Going by my sampling rate I would have to assume that 100% of
them on that list are totally wrong.

And yet you, and more fools just like you, parade that list around like it's
some valid source of information for newcomers when making an important decision
in buying their expensive cameras. I hope that the next person that is advised
to use that list takes it out on you or anyone that refers them to that web-page
for giving them 100% wrong information when they too find out that that list is
nothing but a comedy of errors supported by useless internet clowns.

 

So, which camera is that?

 

Snip

Give us your testing method. Be specific. Let us know how you measure
in hundredths of a second. I am sure by your persistence that you have
a much more accurate lab like method. Maybe you should write to the
below link and let them in on how you test for shutter lag so that
they can put your camera on top.

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-lag-comparisons.cfm

 

Remember that it's not just shutter lag, it's the total lag that's
really important.

A non-DSLR with about 0.25-0.35s total lag is pretty much the best you
can do--some of the non-DSLRs are more than 1 second which is very
annoying, while a lot of cameras are in the 0.5-1 sec range for total lag.

Unfortunately, the total lag times are not necessarily getting faster.

Look at the Sony DSC-W7. At full wide-angle, with auto-focus, the delay
is 0.34 seconds, with manual focus it's 0.21 seconds. The 5 megapixel
version, the DSC-W5 is a bit faster still. Unfortunately neither is
still available.

I wish that there were a camera review site with a search engine that
included shutter lag/autofocus lag as one of the parameters. The current
search engines at sites like dpreview are not very good. Even if the
actual review includes shutter lag, you have to look at every review to
find it out.

You may just want to get a low end digital SLR kit, such as the Olympus
E500 kit for about $550.

Steve

 

Imaging - resource has these specs. They are not searchable. Here's
one example:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/H1/H1DATA.HTM

 

Measure your own shutter lag. Go to
http://www.shooting-digital.com/columns/schwartz/shutter_release_test/default.asp
(http://tinyurl.com/abe9p)

KS

 

Right, what I'd like is something similar to phonescoop.com, but for
digital cameras. The dpreview "Features Search" is not very good. You
often end up with either no cameras that match the criteria, or way too
many. They leave out so many important parameters in their search engine.