I refuse to even consider buying a camera with any "lag" between making the click and capturing the image and I wish more people would get on my bandwagon to force manufacturers to stop this genuinely absurd invention. This is not photography; it is lottery! Why would anyone put up with it for any normal photography that involves "decisive moments" and the talent for capturing them. Anyway...I just read an exhaustive, excellent and exhausting review of the new Toshiba digital camera at this site which covered seemingly everything except this one all-important (to me) consideration of lag. Does anyone know if the PDR-MD1 (or some such ridiculous name) has this lag problem? By the way, I am developing an "Avoid-at-all-cost" and "Save-yourself-the-time-of-readidng-about" list of digital cameras which have this hateful feature. In my research, I have so far come up it with the following cameras that are good to photograph only dead objects: Canon A-5, Agfa 1280, Kodak DC260, Fuji MX-700. Please note that all of these are highly acclaimed cameras- which is even more depressive if they are signaling a new trend. At any rate I would like to save some of my own time and maybe that of others. I would greatly appreciate in hearing from others who know of additional "dead meat" cameras. In fact I will change the subject line of this message to use that descriptive, disparaging monicker: DEAD MEAT CAMERAS! Let's make up a complete, easy-to-find list of the stinkers. Thanks for your help. PS: I also hate digital zooms- another very bad joke in photography. But at least that info is easy to find in any list of a camera's specs!

-- Robert Ostrowski (robertphoto@hotmail.com), September 02, 1998

Answers

Robert -

Excellent point (if not stated rather emphatically ;-). We sometimes note this behavior in our reviews, but haven't consistently tested for it. I don't recall how the PDR-M1 responds in this respect (just checked our review, didn't see any mention of it). Most digital cameras will have some delay after the shutter is pressed, for the autofocus, autoexposure, etc to happen, but you're right, there's quite a range of variation. In most cases, you can trigger the autoexposure, etc early by half-pressing the shutter button. Then, when you finally push it down all the way, the shutter fires almost immediately. This obviously won't help for the entirely unanticipated exposure, but if you're shooting sports, etc, you can often anticipate where the action is going to happen, and get ready for it. The improvement in response can be pretty astonishing - In working with the HP C20 recently, we found that the delay was as much as 2 seconds with autofocus engaged, 1 second without it, but if we pre-set the exposure & focus with the half-press first, the shutter would then fire almost instantly when we pushed the button the rest of the way. Don't know if this will help with your problem, but give it a try.

Thanks to your comment, we're going to begin timing and reporting on shutter delay explicitly in future tests!

PS: Aside from the unknown shutter timing, the PDR-M1 is an excellent camera. It does have a digital zoom feature though, but at its low price, it's still a great deal, even if you just view it as a fixed focal-length camera with 1.5 megapixel resolution.

Good Luck!

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), September 02, 1998.

I think this touches on an important aspect of live action photography. Is the camera ready when you are? Or is it "processing" or has it just automatically powered down (perhaps even early because of low batteries)?

There are some shooting situations for which the digital camera will simply never be appropriate. I don't know about digital backs for real SLRs, but I suspect all are succeptable, like any other computer, to "hourglass syndrome."

The right tools for the right job.

RB

-- Ralph Bentley (rbentley@kittelson.com), January 08, 1999.

My Nikon Coolpix 950 in manual mode, flash turned off and manual focus applied shoots with less shutter lag than any of my Regular Nikon cameras and with a lot less noise. With the autofocus on, the shutter lag is acceptable for a point and shoot camera. Shutter lag was a problem with early single Lens Reflex designs also. In those cameras the mirror was slow getting outof the way. (and some mirrors did not return untill you wound the film) All these problems have been fixed and News photograpers now shoot bursts of pictures to get what they want. The new Nikon D1 looks like it has a burst mode for 20 or more pictures at very high (for a digicam)resolution. Good photographers can anticipate a shot but some do not have the luxury to say "I missed it". Burst modes, like full fledged motor drives, are PRO features with a PRO price. Burst modes in inexpensive cameras are more like The add-on winders. They do much the same but on a limited scale. Motor drives are now build in so give it some time and they will fix that problem with the digicams too. Did I forget to mention that camera magazines measured shutter delay and camera vibrations as part of their camera tests? Rinus Borgsteede

-- Rinus Borgsteede (RinusPhoto@cadvision.com), June 22, 1999.