Digicam with low shutter lag?

[michelle_cox]

I'm used to my Canon 10D and the painfully slow shutter lag on my 5 year old

digicam that I use for a purse camera makes me leave it at home. So I'm in the

market for a new one. I know no digicam will be as fast as an SLR, but I'd like

to get the most responsive one I can get. Other criteria are that it needs to be

compact and let me easily set aperture and shutter priority. Beyond that, I'm

not too picky because this will just be for snapshots on the go and I'll still

use my 10D for planned shoots.

 

I've tried searching dpreview, but it doesn't let you put shutter lag as a

criteria. :( Does anyone have any suggested cameras? I can do more research from

there, but I don't even know where to start looking for responsive ones.

 

Thanks,

 

Michelle

[phule]

There have been a lot of improvements in digital point and shoots regarding shutter lag since you purchased yours. I'd recommend heading to a store and testing a few out, I'm sure you'll be surprised.

[michelle_cox]

Going to a store to test isn't easy with a toddler. I need to do my research online first. I've been going brand by brand and looking at the newest offerings and hardly any of them offer AV/TV control. How strange. My 5 year old digicam has that on it. I'm beginning to think that criteria is going to be harder than the shutter lag one. I'd hate to get a camera with no manual control even though I mainly want it for snapshots. Even with snapshots, I'd like to be able to throw the background out of focus somewhat or make sure I have enough of a shutter speed to stop motion...

 

Wow, shopping for a digicam is even harder than shopping for a DSLR. So many cameras, none do what I want. LOL!

 

Any more ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Michelle

[anders_carlsson]

Fujifilm F30/F31 is, I'd say, a responsive and truly pocketable digital P&S. I got one when my Canon Ixus 500 died and noticed a substantial difference. Shutter lag is minimal and it has all the manual control that you want. On top of that you get very decent high ISO performance and a great screen. It's cheap, too. Out of stock at B&H right now which doesn't surprise me.

[thakurdalipsingh]

Casio claimsvery little lag. pl try that

[don_e]

I think dpreview has a comment on shutter lag, usually in the Conclusion section of a review. I've seen only a few this past year that are out of a common range. Most lag seems to be focus hunt and write times.

 

And you are correct, contemporary p&s are feature poor compared to models from two or three years ago. You can't buy anything like a Canon G3 these days. The reason why? Look at a Nikon D40.

 

A safe bet is the Canon A6xx line. I own an A620, a very nice p&s. It looks like the A630 and A640 are similar. Except for a few top end models, which usually aren't small, it's auto-all and frame with the LCD. If you wanted a superzoom, it would be a different story.

 

I gave up and bought an OlympusXA for a carry-around. My wife uses the A620.

[jimstrutz]

dpreview doesn't let you search by shutter lag as a criteria, but if you look through their reviews, it's always stated.

 

But most new digicams have very short shutter lag times. Some are faster than DSLR's. Shutter lag isn't the problem anymore, it's AF time. If you pre-focus and hold, shutter lag almost never holds you up. The other issue is LCD lag. If you're timing your shot looking at an EVF or LCD, you're seeing things after the fact. the key is to get a camera that has an optical viewfinder, or get used to timing by keeping the other eye open and watching for the action.

 

There's lot of choices. Panasonic's are fast.

[michelle_cox]

Just got home from camera club. I'll take a look at the Fujifilm and Casio ones. I was looking at the A630 earlier and put it on my maybe list. The 640 is more mpix, but more money, too, so I don't know that it's worth it.

 

I ran into this while looking and am intrigued. It doesn't really fit my criteria above, but I like the idea of being able to take decent video with it since my main focus with this camera would be my toddler.

 

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022203canontx1.asp

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll do some more investigating in the morning.

 

Michelle

[michelle_cox]

Jim - We posted at the same time last night. Yeah, I know it's in the reviews, but it's hard when you don't even have a starting place to just look at every review.

 

Sounds like I don't need to be worried so much about shutter lag as other features, though, if they've all gotten faster. I know with my Oly D40, the half press didn't help. It still takes several seconds to actually take the picture. :( But that's 5-6 year old technology, so I guess there's been improvements.

 

I'm going to go take a look at suggestions here as well as watch what comes out of PMA. I'm hoping to buy in April, so I have a bit of time to research.

 

Thanks all,

 

Michelle

[phule]

<<I've been going brand by brand and looking at the newest offerings and hardly any of them offer AV/TV control.>>

 

I'm not sure which cameras you've been looking at but the Canon G7, A710, A640, A630, and A540 all offer full Av/Tv/M control. The A530 offers P and M only.

[jcuknz]

My current Panasonic FZ focuses as quickly as I would manually but for child photography I would pre-set focus and rely on the greater Depth of Field that the digicam has compared to the DSLR. Download time is almost immediate when working in jpg at 5Mp, almost so at 8Mp. The FZ is not a compact of course :-) Some digicams HAVE improved, when I compare my Canon s20 and Nikon 5700 with the FZs :-)

[davek57]

Kodak Z612. Very fast startup, 12X zoom, and no shutter lag! Image stabilization, too. Not exactly pocketable, but half the size of a DSLR -- and available ~$200.

[alyson]

for a compact, i'm happy with the shutter 'lag' on the panasonic lx1.

the only digicam i've owned, but coming directly from film slr, I was braced for the worst and

I haven't given shutter lag a thought - and i'm primarily shooting people documentary style.

[michelle_cox]

The Kodak looks nice, but it's a lot heavier than I'd like. The Panasonic looks really nice, and even got a review on Luminous Landscape, so it got my interest... Until I saw the price. I was hoping to keep this around $300 or less.

 

My current top contenders are:

Canon Powershot A710IS - Overall nice camera but maybe a little big

 

Fujiflm Finepix 30/31 - If this had a viewfinder, it would be my #1

 

Fujiflm Finepix E900 - Older camera but looks interesting

 

Canon Powershot A570IS - This one is new and not a lot of info yet

 

Canon Powershot TX1 - Neat hybrid but way more than I wanted to spend

 

 

Thanks,

 

Michelle

[john_chambers]

Hi Michelle,

 

I think what you really want to look for is a digicam that allows 1.) aperture priority AE, 2.) manual focus, and 3.) the ability to save all of the cameras settings and recall them when wanted.

 

The Olympus C7070WZ and many other Olympus models do this. The current SP-550UZ probably does, but I don't care much for the uber zoom. Olympus calls this "My Mode." Goofy name but it's a great feature.

 

With these capabilities, you set the camera's zoom setting to say a 35mm equivalent, set to aperture priority AE, and set the focus to the hyper-focal distance. As has been said above, most of the shutter lag is actually time spent in adjusting focus, so if you eliminate that, your shutter lag is quite short. If you want to see some photos made this way with the C7070WZ, look

 

<a href ="http://www.pbase.com/johnchambers/c7070wz">here.</a>

 

Good luck on your search.

[john_chambers]

Sorry, forgot to specify HTML..

 

<a href ="http://www.pbase.com/johnchambers/c7070wz">Try this.</a>

[jcuknz]

My reaction to manual focusing with a digicam is that it is useless, but the other side of the coin is that Panasonic cameras have 'focus lock' in their FZ7 which is a fairly compact camera. One uses AF to find focus and lock it.

 

Before I found Panasonic I used a form of it with my basic Canon P&S by pre-focusing by taking 'half-trigger' pointing the camera at where the action would take place, and then holding HT until the 'action' arrived, or in your case the smile or cute behavious :-)

[john_chambers]

I can see how one would think manual focusing with a digicam would be useless. After all there is no good way to "see" what you're focusing on.

 

But what I'm talking about is something different. e.g. presetting an aperture in aperture priority mode, then presetting the focus at the hyperfocal distance for that aperture. It DOES work. And it DOES cut shutter lag to a small fraction of what it would be otherwise.

 

Too bad more digicams don't allow you to save settings like the Olympus "My Mode" does. Somebody please correct me if Canon, Nikon have this feature.

[michael s.]

Several of the Canon point-and-shoot digital cameras allow this as well, John (and JC). I've used it on the S2 IS. And it works. <p>

 

But don't just take John's word for it, or mine. Have a look at <a href=http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6468-7844>this article</a>, which describes how Magnum photojournalist Alex Majoli makes use of this technique (also using prior models of Olympus p & s cameras) ... with award-winning results.<p>

 

On cameras that permit this, presetting focus (and turning *off* the instant shot review, if you're feeling bold, or lucky) allows you to zip right along. <p>

 

It is also true, as Rob and Jim and others have pointed out, that shutter lag has improved markedly in the last 5 years on many if not all models. Having said that, I still believe the dslr is most responsive. And when Michelle speaks of taking photos of a fast-moving toddler and throwing the bkgrnd out of focus, my mind turns to the dslr (such as Michelle's 10D, or perhaps a smaller, lighter one if that's too much of a tank for carry-around purposes), and mounting a 50/1.8 (typically a great value in prime lenses) or 35/2 or 28/2.8 AF lens. <p>

 

There's just not a p & s camera on this planet that I'm aware of that will match it.

[michelle_cox]

Sorry, didn't realize there were more responses here. To be honest, I'm not concerned about having manual focus. I don't manual focus a lot on my DSLR and I really don't see me doing it with a P&S. I have manual focus on my Oly D40 and it's a total PITA.

 

Basically, I just want something fast and small to have with me for impromptu photos. For fancier ones, I'll bring my 10D.

 

Thanks for all the advice,

 

Michelle

[john_chambers]

..Sigh..

[michelle_cox]

Sigh? Huh? What on Earth are you sighing about? That I don't want to manually focus? I hardly think it's sigh-worthy that I don't want to take the time to manually focus on a fast moving toddler. My auto focus can barely keep up with him. LOL

 

Michelle

[john_chambers]

It appears that I have upset you. I apologize; that was not my intention.

 

The "sigh" comes from frustration on my part. Because I wanted to help you and I was not able to. Partly because you didn't "get it" but mostly because I was not able to adequately explain. So, let me try once more.

 

First, let's not use the words "manual focus." Instead let's call this "pre-focus." I believe you can try this on your Olympus D40 without spending any money. I was able to download a PDF version of the manual for the D40 from the Olympus website. If you will look at the top of page 31 it tells you how to set "manual focus." Sorry, they use the term, not my choice, but it's really describing how you can "pre-set" the focus to a certain distance. I recommend setting at 6 feet or 2 meters for shooting a toddler. You set it and shoot away shot after shot. The camera doesn't spend any time focusing, so you cut all that time from the so-called shutter lag (which is really auto-focus lag.) Don't worry about the exact distance because with a small sensor and the correspondingly short focal length of the lens, you will have a huge depth of field. Just set the zoom to wide (35mm equiv.) and you'll be fine.

 

Try it. I'm CERTAIN it will work. I use this technique myself.

 

BTW, I also see in the manual that the D40 also has the "MyMode" feature. So you could save all these types of settings once and recall them later at any time.

 

I hope this helps.

 

John

[michelle_cox]

Sorry to keep replying to this days later. I keep forgetting to check back here. Anyway, I wasn't upset... More annoyed to come back and see you simply post a sigh with no explanation. I had this image of you rolling your eyes at me because I didn't agree with your advice. :)

 

I actually did go and look up that hyperfocal distance when I first read your post and it talked about having a huge depth of field for landscapes, which is exactly what I _don't_ want. I know it's a PITA to get shallow DOF with a digicam, but not completely impossible. I managed it now and then with my D40 and I didn't even have a clue what I was doing back then. I want to get one with AV mode so I can set the aperture as wide as it goes to get the shallowest DOF I can. I'm hoping that it's at least shallow enough that setting the distance to 6 feet when I'm a foot away from him _will_ matter. If the DOF is really going to be that huge that it doesn't matter, I guess Michael is right that a P&S just isn't going to cut it.

 

Thanks,

 

Michelle

[jimstrutz]

Michelle, there is a vast difference in sensor sizes between the Nikon D40 and a point & shoot digicam, and that size difference determines the DOF (in a round about sort of way, that is). It's not hard to get very little DOF with a D40, but not so easy with a small sensor point & shoot.

 

But the way to do it is to use a long zoom setting, wide aperture and shoot close to what you want sharp. This should make the background blur out. Once you get your subject past 10 feet, your background is going to start looking sharp. The cameras with a longer zoom makes it easier.