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I ended up at Best Buy yesterday afternoon, and was snapping photos of my one year old with a sony cybershot dsc w290, which was priced at 250.00. Focusing first, made a huge difference in getting what I wanted, as far as, "capturing the moment," and the camera was simple to use. Read some very positive reviews, including a shutter lag time of .4 secs. on cnet.com. My last camera was a cybershot and the picture quality was great, and even though it was a p&s the controls/menu function was confusing. Sony has definitely improved the ease of use, but most of the negative comments pertained to the lack of control. I guess you must sacrifice one for the other.
Prefocusing does generally cut the shutter lag in more than half because the majority of shutter lag is caused by the camera trying to focus. The trouble is, the subject may move out of the focus zone before you can take the picture. That said, 0.4 is pretty good for a compact. But also keep in mind that most cameras have a longer shutter lag when you're zoomed in and/or in lower light. From googling it, it appears the w290 has more of a 0.7 sec shutter lag in lower light.
I was going to offer a Nikon alternative too but there aren't too many shutter lag reviews for Nikon and those that do exist show horribly slow results. Sorry Nikon users but it's true.
Prefocusing does generally cut the shutter lag in more than half because the majority of shutter lag is caused by the camera trying to focus. The trouble is, the subject may move out of the focus zone before you can take the picture. That said, 0.4 is pretty good for a compact. But also keep in mind that most cameras have a longer shutter lag when you're zoomed in and/or in lower light.
That's likely due to smaller aperture (hence less light) and more time required to focus. Chances are, the image stabilization also becomes more intrusive with zoom and adds to it.
As for pre-focus with a moving subject, choosing continuous focus setting should help.
The shutter speed is how long the shutter is open for the expoure, shutter lag is the delay between the time you press the shutter and the shutter actually opens. Some PS are actually pretty good on shutter lag where a SLR/DSLR has to flip a mirror out of the way. Canon made a few models of SLRs that used a semi-silvered mirror so the camera didn't move the mirror
to take a picture, I think the shutter lag on my Canon EOS RT is 8ms.
Miss typed... Shutter speed is 15 - 1/4000 and the lag time is .08 on the Canon Sx10is.....
That's likely due to smaller aperture (hence less light) and more time required to focus. Chances are, the image stabilization also becomes more intrusive with zoom and adds to it.
As for pre-focus with a moving subject, choosing continuous focus setting should help.
I wasn't aware compacts had continuous focus - but even so, the camera will still have to refocus as the subject moves and unless the focusing system is as good as a DSLR, there will still be a noticable delay as it tries to refocus. There's no getting around the fact that compact/bridge cameras have inferior focusing systems to DSLRs - that's one of the reasons why, since entry level DSLRs are so affordable now, so many people are opting for a DSLR, even if they only plan to use it as a point and shoot.
Does the point and shoot have an "action" or "sports" pre-set on its dial? If so, use that and set the camera on "burst" and just hold the button down. You'll probably get 3 in a row. Some have "unlimited" burst as well.
Does the point and shoot have an "action" or "sports" pre-set on its dial? If so, use that and set the camera on "burst" and just hold the button down. You'll probably get 3 in a row. Some have "unlimited" burst as well.
My Canon Sx10is does.. has sport mode. I can do up to 10 consecutive shots. If I remember correct 1-3-10 shots. Plus video
The only problem with shooting in the sport mode is that the camera chooses the aperture and exposure. I tried using it the other day when shooting photos at my granddaughters' swim meet, but it let in way too much light. I would have definitely had to use exposure compensation but instead switched to a mode I felt more comfortable with.
Okay, I was bored and annoyed that the shutter lag chart from cameras.co.uk appears very inaccurate - and since shutter lag is one of the biggest complaints among consumers, you'd think there would an accurate be a chart or search feature out there for lag times. So here it is, with lag times from dpreview and imaging-resource:
OMG, you rock, was set on the sony, but I now have to take a second look at casio.
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