Short Shutter lag - QV-R40, S400, S5R, others?

[j spear]

I am looking for a min. 4 megapixel compact camera with as short a

shutter lag as possible. I've read relevant posts on this site,

dpreview, steve's digicam, and a few other review sites, and have

identified the Casio QV-R40, the Canon S400 and the Kyocera S5R as

strong contenders. (There may be others as well, but I haven't come

across anything touted as having a short shutter lag). I've been

stymied in my efforts to actually try any of these cameras - I can't

find the Kyocera anywhere, the Canon's charge cords and/or batteries

are always missing at Best Buy or Circuit City, and the one Casio I

found at wal-Mart appeared to be broken.

 

Does anyone have any comparative sense of which of these cameras has

the least amount of lag?

 

I am leaning heavily toward the Casio - it's cheap, it's small, it

takes AA rechargeables, and it specifically claims to have a .01

second lag - once focus is locked and the shutter half-depressed. By

contrast, Steve's-digicam measured the S5R at .07 (but who can say

whether the parameters are the same?) The S400 is described as fast,

but I couldn't find any posted numbers.

 

Thanks.

 

For reference, I have (and will probably be getting rid of) a Sony

707, which has quite an annoyingly long shutter lag, and is too big

to be a spontaneous, be everywhere camera.

[Troll]

The hook is "once the focus is locked." My Minolta Xt and Olympus E-20 are virtually instantaneous at that point, but are not even close to SLR (particularly Canon) standards of autofocus.

[halkar]

Minolta G400

[steve_chan5]

My Casio qv-r40 came in today and I've been monkeying around with it. The lag after AF is negligible. Autofocus speed is good for a P&S, but still takes around a second in indoor lighting. I remember it being faster outdoors in good light. This is as the long end, at the wide end the focus speed is very fast - I'd hazard an estimate of comparable to a consumer grade SLR lens AF speed.

 

So far, it seems to be very handy and relatively fast handling. I haven't any chance to compare it to the others - the Casio cost me $200 with BIN, so I figured it was worth the gamble.

 

So far, within the limitations of what it is, I'm quite happy. It slips into my pocket easily, takes easy to find rechargeable batteries - and at the wide end, has very little lag. So if you are used to shooting with a wide-normal lens on 35mm, this little Casio could be viable if you are "lag-averse".

 

Here's a shot I took while testing it out in the back yard. It basically points out the limitations of 8-bit jpegs. The flowers in the foreground are blown out, but my cat is properly exposed.<div></div>