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Nikon CoolPix 5700

Nikon expands their 5 megapixel offerings, with a long zoom, a new body, but the same legendary Nikon feature set!

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Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests
Review First Posted: 5/29/2002

Shutter Lag/Cycle Times
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time before the shutter actually fires. This time is to allow the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations. Since this number is almost never reported on, and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I now routinely measure it with a special electronic test setup I constructed for the purpose. Here's the full set of timing numbers I measured for the Coolpix 5700:

Nikon Coolpix 5700 Timings

Operation Time (secs)
Normal Card Notes

Power On -> First shot 5.38
A little slow but faster than the 5000: Takes quite a while for the lens to telescope out and the camera to get ready to shoot.

Shutdown 2.96/whatever
It takes 2.96 seconds for the lens to retract if the camera is otherwise unoccupied, but could take a hundred seconds or more if you've just filled the buffer memory with a large batch of files. - The lens doesn't retract until the camera has finished saving data to the memory card.

Play to Record, first shot 1.78/2.59
About average for a high-end prosumer camera. First time is from Quick Review, second is from actual playback mode.

Record to play 1.4/10.5
Pretty quick to display images, using the "quick review" button, but camera makes you wait if it's writing to the card.

Shutter lag, full autofocus 0.90 - 1.03 This is about average for high-end consumer cameras, but a tad faster than the 5000. (But still too slow IMHO - shutter lag is the number one parameter needing attention by the digicam mfrs, as far as I'm concerned.) The first number is for wide angle focal lengths, the second is for telephoto.

Shutter lag, manual focus 0.66 These numbers are rather slow - the average delay in manual focus mode for high-end consumer models is about 0.5 seconds. (Again, even 0.5 seconds is too slow, IMHO.)

Shutter lag, "Quick Response" The 5700 has an option for "Quick shutter response." This only works when preview display is enabled (explaining why it's on the "monitor" options setup menu). When enabled, if you hit the shutter button while the previous shot is still being previewed on the display, the camera will snap the shot with the same exposure/focus settings as the shot before it. This produces pretty fast shutter response, handy for multiple shots of rapidly moving subjects.

Shutter lag, prefocus 0.094 Faster than average, albeit not quite up to Nikon's claimed 0.07 seconds. NOTE that I got highly variable times here: The 0.09 second figure is the average of the best times I got. A few shots showed lag times as high as 0.2 seconds. The fastest lag time I saw was 0.079. (One shot only.) I don't think the variation is due to my timing setup, because I can measure very consistent, very short lag times on cameras like the pro SLRs by Nikon and other manufacturers.

Cycle time, large/fine files 2.24/5.5 Pretty fast. Shorter time is for first 8 shots, then need to wait for the buffer to "drain" before next shot. The full-buffer cycle time of 5.5 seconds (with a fast memory card) is better than average.

Cycle time, small/basic files 2.09 Pretty quick. LOTS of shots before the buffer filled.

Cycle time, TIFF files 19 - 21 TIFF mode files are huge, take longer to write to write. Surprisingly little variation between fast and slow memory cards when writing TIFFs, only about 2 seconds in my measurements. NOTE though, that the buffer memory plays no role when you're writing TIFFs - You have to wait this long before you can take the next shot.

Cycle time, TIFF files 17 - 62 (?!) This was really bizarre. I'd think that NEF files would take less time to write than TIFFs, since they're smaller. And they did (a little) on a fast card (a Lexar 12x). On another fairly fast card though (a SimpleTech 320 MB), the time stetched to 58 seconds(!), only a little slower than the 62 seconds a really slow Kingston card took. This is really strange: Why should writing a NEF file take vastly longer on some cards than others, and much longer than writing a TIFF?

Continuous mode (High Speed), large files 0.37 2.68 frames per second for 3 frames, then a wait of 20 seconds or more before it will snap the next set of 3 frames. (Nikon's spec is 3 fps, I'm not sure why my test showed slower. I repeated several times with two different units, with the same results.)

Continuous mode (Low Speed), large files 0.77/67.5 Snaps up to 10 frames at the roughly 1.15 frame/second rate. (Nikon's spec is 1.5 fps.)

Multi-Shot 16 0.32 Divides full-sized frame into a 4x4 matrix of sub-pictures. 0.32 seconds between shots (3.17 frames/second) for 16 low-res images

Ultra High Speed 0.033 WOW, this is fast! Great for time/motion studies (golf/tennis swings?), but there's a fair amount of "jitter" between frames (the inter-frame interval varies between 28 and 39 milliseconds, so you can't use it for scientific applications). Captures up to 100 images at 320x240 resolution, "normal" JPEG quality. Shot to shot interval is only 0.033 seconds, or 29.9 frames/second. - This is actually faster than the 5700's movie mode, but you can only capture about 3 seconds of action, and the action is in individual files.

Movie Mode ~15 frames/second, with sound. Movie mode will record up to 60 seconds of 320x240 "QVGA" resolution action with sound.

Overall, the 5700 is a fairly fast camera, with good shot to shot cycle times. (Thanks in part to a roomy 9-frame buffer memory.) The prototype I first saw showed rather slow shutter response, but the production model happily did much better. Cycle times and buffer clearing times were virtually identical from prototype to production. Overall, the 5700's shutter lag with full autofocus is about average among high-end consumer digicams, but at least no worse than that, and prefocus lag time is quite a bit faster than average, albeit not quite as fast as Nikon claims. (At least not in my measurements of it.) For repeated shots of rapidly moving subjects, the "Quick Release" shutter mode improves lag time to better than average levels, about 0.35 seconds. Quick Release works by using the same exposure and focus settings for each shot as for the one before it. NOTE though, that the Quick Release mode requires that you run the camera in "preview" mode, and only produces the fast lag times for shots snapped while the previous shot is still being displayed on the monitor. It thus won't work well for subjects that you need to track continously in the viewfinder. Its various "high speed" modes provide a useful range of options, trading off various parameters against speed in different ways. Its Continuous (High Speed) mode captures bursts of up to three frames, at a rate of 2.7 frames per second, while the Continuous (Low Speed) mode captures up to 10 frames at 1.15 frames per second. (Note that these figures are based on my own measurements: Nikon claims 3 and 1.5 frames per second respectively for these modes.) Being the "measurement nut" that I am, I found the "Ultra High Speed" mode the most interesting. - It lets you capture up to 100 frames at 320x240 resolution, at an incredible 30 frames per second. - This would be great for things like analyzing golf or tennis swings, or possibly monitoring industrial processes, etc. Do note though, that I found quite a bit of "jitter" in the inter-frame interval in this mode, which would limit its usefulness in scientific applications. Still great for golf swings though!

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Nikon Coolpix 5700 Timings
Operation	Time (secs) Normal Card	Notes
Power On -> First shot	5.38	A little slow but faster than the 5000: Takes quite a while for the lens to telescope out and the camera to get ready to shoot.
Shutdown	2.96/whatever	It takes 2.96 seconds for the lens to retract if the camera is otherwise unoccupied, but could take a hundred seconds or more if you've just filled the buffer memory with a large batch of files. - The lens doesn't retract until the camera has finished saving data to the memory card.
Play to Record, first shot	1.78/2.59	About average for a high-end prosumer camera. First time is from Quick Review, second is from actual playback mode.
Record to play	1.4/10.5	Pretty quick to display images, using the "quick review" button, but camera makes you wait if it's writing to the card.
Shutter lag, full autofocus	0.90 - 1.03	This is about average for high-end consumer cameras, but a tad faster than the 5000. (But still too slow IMHO - shutter lag is the number one parameter needing attention by the digicam mfrs, as far as I'm concerned.) The first number is for wide angle focal lengths, the second is for telephoto.
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.66	These numbers are rather slow - the average delay in manual focus mode for high-end consumer models is about 0.5 seconds. (Again, even 0.5 seconds is too slow, IMHO.)
Shutter lag, "Quick Response"		The 5700 has an option for "Quick shutter response." This only works when preview display is enabled (explaining why it's on the "monitor" options setup menu). When enabled, if you hit the shutter button while the previous shot is still being previewed on the display, the camera will snap the shot with the same exposure/focus settings as the shot before it. This produces pretty fast shutter response, handy for multiple shots of rapidly moving subjects.
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.094	Faster than average, albeit not quite up to Nikon's claimed 0.07 seconds. NOTE that I got highly variable times here: The 0.09 second figure is the average of the best times I got. A few shots showed lag times as high as 0.2 seconds. The fastest lag time I saw was 0.079. (One shot only.) I don't think the variation is due to my timing setup, because I can measure very consistent, very short lag times on cameras like the pro SLRs by Nikon and other manufacturers.
Cycle time, large/fine files	2.24/5.5	Pretty fast. Shorter time is for first 8 shots, then need to wait for the buffer to "drain" before next shot. The full-buffer cycle time of 5.5 seconds (with a fast memory card) is better than average.
Cycle time, small/basic files	2.09	Pretty quick. LOTS of shots before the buffer filled.
Cycle time, TIFF files	19 - 21	TIFF mode files are huge, take longer to write to write. Surprisingly little variation between fast and slow memory cards when writing TIFFs, only about 2 seconds in my measurements. NOTE though, that the buffer memory plays no role when you're writing TIFFs - You have to wait this long before you can take the next shot.
Cycle time, TIFF files	17 - 62 (?!)	This was really bizarre. I'd think that NEF files would take less time to write than TIFFs, since they're smaller. And they did (a little) on a fast card (a Lexar 12x). On another fairly fast card though (a SimpleTech 320 MB), the time stetched to 58 seconds(!), only a little slower than the 62 seconds a really slow Kingston card took. This is really strange: Why should writing a NEF file take vastly longer on some cards than others, and much longer than writing a TIFF?
Continuous mode (High Speed), large files	0.37	2.68 frames per second for 3 frames, then a wait of 20 seconds or more before it will snap the next set of 3 frames. (Nikon's spec is 3 fps, I'm not sure why my test showed slower. I repeated several times with two different units, with the same results.)
Continuous mode (Low Speed), large files	0.77/67.5	Snaps up to 10 frames at the roughly 1.15 frame/second rate. (Nikon's spec is 1.5 fps.)
Multi-Shot 16	0.32	Divides full-sized frame into a 4x4 matrix of sub-pictures. 0.32 seconds between shots (3.17 frames/second) for 16 low-res images
Ultra High Speed	0.033	WOW, this is fast! Great for time/motion studies (golf/tennis swings?), but there's a fair amount of "jitter" between frames (the inter-frame interval varies between 28 and 39 milliseconds, so you can't use it for scientific applications). Captures up to 100 images at 320x240 resolution, "normal" JPEG quality. Shot to shot interval is only 0.033 seconds, or 29.9 frames/second. - This is actually faster than the 5700's movie mode, but you can only capture about 3 seconds of action, and the action is in individual files.
Movie Mode	~15 frames/second, with sound.	Movie mode will record up to 60 seconds of 320x240 "QVGA" resolution action with sound.