Fast shutter speed plus point and shoot? (Canon EOS, DSLR, Sony)

[cuff822]

Is there a point and shoot out there with fast shutter speed? I want to take pics of my children now, not a 1/100 of a second from now. I am a extreme novice so this question may not even make sense, be kind.

[EscapeCalifornia]

You're asking about shutter lag, not shutter speed. That's the big problem with P&S cameras and one of the big reasons I got a DSLR. P&S cameras just take a while to do everything they need to do before taking the shot.

[cuff822]

Thanks for the info, learned something already. My intention was not to spend the DSLR money, not to mention the loss of the "ease of use" that accompanies a P&S.

[kdog]

Shutter lag times are all over the map for P&S cameras. Fortunately, folks have gone to the effort of documenting the lag times for many of them. Enjoy: Digital Camera Shutter Lag Comparison Table

[cuff822]

Just what I was searching for....thanks.

[PhotogGal]

I know just what you're talking about. My stepson had the same complaint. Then I taught him to put his p&s in continuous shooting mode. The camera just keeps shooting as you hold down the shutter. He takes more pics than he needs but usually he gets a good one or two out of the bunch. The way kids move around, make faces, etc. this has proven to be a Godsend more than once.

Best of luck to you.

[Tinman313]

Canon SX10is Shutter Speed .... 15-1/3200

[Wayneb]

Originally Posted by Tinman313

Canon SX10is Shutter Speed .... 15-1/3200

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.

[EinsteinsGhost]

While having a camera with faster shutter response will always help, you could still do a few things to reduce the lag with simple measures.
1- If you don't need flash (sunny outdoors), turn it off. Don't leave it in auto mode either, even though you know it won't go off. The reason being, unless it is "off", the camera may still try to evaluate whether flash is needed or not. If you need flash, a good idea will be to reconsider the need for red-eye reduction mode. You can always tweak the red eye later using a software.
2- If possible, keep the focus locked on the subject by keeping the shutter button partially pressed. This will, perhaps, show the most gain in response.
3- Same as above (#2) but if your camera has a setting for continuous focus, use it if the subject keeps moving. You'd still need to lock the focus by partially pressing the button but this time camera will adjust the focus continuously and depress the button fully to take the shot at the opportune time.

Besides turning off the flash (whenever possible), and keeping the focus locked (by partially depressing the button and just being ready to take picture), there are a few additional things that might help.
- Turn off image stabilization if you don't see it being used.
- Setting white balance (as opposed to leaving it in "auto") would eliminate the time camera would otherwise spend to figure out the white balance setting.
- If your camera allows for it, use aperture priority mode (or shutter speed mode) as it would have camera spend time to compute only one or the other value, as opposed to both.
- Reduce resolution (3-5 MP would be just fine for most prints anyway) unless you're planning huge prints or major cropping.

The most helpful of all should be #2 (and #3 if you can), to reduce the lag.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by kdog

Shutter lag times are all over the map for P&S cameras. Fortunately, folks have gone to the effort of documenting the lag times for many of them. Enjoy: Digital Camera Shutter Lag Comparison Table

That's a strange chart. It claims the camera with the fastest lag is the Sony H10 with 0.15 sec but if you look here:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H10 Review: 3. Performance: Digital Photography Review
You'll see the full press lag (no prefocusing) is actually 0.6 sec.

Likewise, the second fastest on this list is Sony's H50 at 0.17 sec
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 Digital Camera - Review - The Imaging Resource!
This says Full Autofocus (no prefocusing) is 0.52 sec at it's fastest.

I know we're talking fractions of seconds but it matters.

I would take it with a grain of salt, I'm not familiar with this website but I know dpreview.com and imaging-resource are reliable review websites. They usually yield similar results to one another whereas this cameras.co.uk sounds way off. I hope the OP reads more reviews on each camera before going with one on this chart.