Olympus EVOLT E-500By: Shawn Barnett and Dave Etchells8.0 megapixels, ZUIKO DIGITAL lens mount, digital SLR design, and loads of features! <<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 9:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 09/25/2005, Updated: 12/05/2005 |
Shutter Lag/Cycle Times
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 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 Olympus E-500:
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(secs) |
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| Power On -> First shot | |
On the slow side, but camera performs "Supersonic Wave Filter" dust reduction as part of startup. |
| Shutdown | |
First time is simple shutdown, second time is worst-case buffer-clearing time. Not bad - Worst-case time corresponds to clearing 4 TIFF format (uncompressed) files from the buffer. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Time until first shot is captured. Quite fast. |
| 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. Also pretty fast. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus | |
First time is at full wide-angle, second is full telephoto. About average for a digital SLR. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | |
Time to capture, after half-pressing shutter button. Very fast. |
| Shutter lag, continuous autofocus | 0.43 |
As usual, no benefit to continuous AF for static subjects. (And we have no way to meaningfully measure AF performance with moving subjects.) |
| Shutter lag, manual focus | 0.32 |
A little slow for a digital SLR. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution | 0.90 / |
First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. Shoots 6 frames this fast in large/fine mode, then slows* to about 1.9 seconds per shot, and clears the buffer* in 8 seconds. Shoots at this rate continuously in TV mode, clearing the buffer after each shot. Not too bad, but not as fast as much of its competition, and buffer capacity is rather limited. |
| Cycle Time, RAW and TIFF, max resolution | 0.88 |
Times are averages. Shoots 4 frames this fast in RAW mode, then slows* to about 2.4 seconds per shot, and clears the buffer* in 9 seconds. Shoots 4 frames this fast in TIFF mode, then slows* to about 4.5 seconds per shot, and clears the buffer* in 17 seconds. A bit slower than average performance, and limited buffer capacity. |
| Cycle Time, Flash exposures | 5 | (Flash at maximum power output) |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, max/min resolution | 0.39 / 0.38 (2.58 / 2.62 fps) |
First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for "TV" size images. Times are averages. Shoots 4 frames this fast in large/fine mode, then stops, and clears the buffer* in 7 seconds. Shoots at this rate continuously in TV mode, clearing the buffer after each shot. Good speed, but limited buffer capacity. |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, RAW and TIFF, max resolution | 0.38 (2.65 fps) |
Times are averages. Shoots 4 frames this fast in RAW or TIFF mode, then stops. Buffer clears in 9 seconds* in RAW mode, 17 seconds* in TIFF mode. Good speed, but limited buffer capacity. |
| *NOTE - buffer clearing times and post-buffer shot to shot cycle times will be strongly affected by the speed of the memory card used. The numbers above were measured with a Kingston 50x CF memory card. Slower cards would produce correspondingly longer clearing times and slower cycle times after the buffer has filled. | ||
The Olympus E-500 EVOLT is average to a bit slower than average, relative to other d-SLRs in its class. Full-autofocus shutter lag isn't too bad at about 0.37 second with the kit lens, and prefocus lag is good at 0.095 second, but the shutter response in manual focus mode is surprisingly slow, with a delay of 0.32 second (almost the same as for full-AF mode). Cycle times are quite modest by current SLR standards, at just under a second, for JPEG, RAW, or TIFF images. (Slow for JPEG and RAW images, fast for TIFFs.) Buffer capacity is also limited but probably adequate for a prosumer dSLR, at four RAW or TIFF images, or six large/fine JPEGs.
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