Canon EOS-5DBy: Dave EtchellsSlightly smaller and lighter upgrade brings greater speed and ease of use along with higher res and lower image noise. <<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 04/02/2006 |
Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time or delay before the shutter actually fires. This corresponds to the time required for 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 rarely reported on (and even more rarely reported accurately), and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I routinely measure both shutter delay and shot to shot cycle times for all cameras I test, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Canon EOS 5D:
(secs) |
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| Power On -> First shot | Nearly instantaneous startup. |
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| Shutdown | First time is simple shutdown, second time is worst-case buffer-clearing time.* |
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| Play to Record, first shot | Really no delay at all, essentially just whatever shutter lag would be present in the AF mode you're shooting in. |
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| Record to play | First time is that required to display a large/fine file immediately after capture, second time is that needed to display a large/fine file that has already been processed and stored on the memory card. Very fast. |
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| Shutter lag, full autofocus | AF time will vary greatly, depending on the lens in use, the brightness and contrast level of the subject, and the amount of travel required of the lens optics to move to the new focus position. The number at left is essentially a best-case figure with the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens already in-focus on a target. | |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | Time to capture, after half-pressing shutter button. Pretty fast, particularly considering the big full-frame mirror that has to move out of the way. |
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| Shutter lag, manual focus | Fairly fast, but nearly twice the delay vs. prefocusing. | |
| Cycle Time, single-shot mode, JPG | 0.40 |
Times are averages. Shoots over 50 shots this fast in large/fine mode, then clears the buffer in 13 seconds.* Shoots at this rate continuously in small/basic mode, clearing the buffer after each shot, with a sufficiently fast card. |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, JPG | 0.33 (3.02 fps) |
Times are averages. Shoots 98 shots this fast in large/fine mode, then clears the buffer in 23 seconds.* Shoots at this rate continuously in small/basic mode, clearing the buffer after each shot, with a sufficiently fast card. |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, RAW / RAW+JPG | 0.33 (3.02 fps) |
Times are averages. Shoots 13 shots this fast in RAW+JPG mode, or 17 shots this fast in RAW mode. Buffer clears in 23 seconds.* |
| * Note: Buffer-clearing times were measured with a Lexar 80x CF memory card. Slower cards will produce longer clearing times. | ||
For a camera with such a high-resolution image sensor, the Canon EOS-5D is surprisingly sprightly. Its 3 frame/second continuous-mode speed is good if not exciting, but it can maintain that rate for anywhere from 25-60 large/fine JPEG frames (depending strongly on subject content and ISO speed), or 17 RAW-mode shots. With a fast memory card, the buffer clears quite quickly as well, taking as little as 23 seconds to write a full set of 17 RAW files. Note in the foregoing though, the observation about subject content and ISO: We found the JPEG buffer capacity of the 5D was much lower at ISO 1600 than at ISO 100, as well as with complex images with lots of fine detail, vs simple, softer-focused ones. This is purely a function of how well the camera can compress files into the JPEG format. Images with more noise or more fine detail compress less well than ones with less high-frequency content. The Canon EOS-5D did pretty well in terms of shutter lag, being able to determine focus with the 100mm f/2.8 Canon macro lens in just 0.149 second. (AF speed is of course highly dependent on the lens being used, and the amount of travel required of the optics to move from the previous focus point.) Prefocused, the camera delivered a very fast 78 millisecond shutter lag, impressive in light of the large mirror it needs to move out of the way before the shot can be captured. We don't test for it explicitly, but the viewfinder blackout in continuous mode did seem to be a bit on the long side, enough so that we found it a little distracting.
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