Canon PowerShot A10Canon introduces a "value priced, full featured" 1.3 megapixel with 3x zoom lens and great image quality!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 5/16/2001 |
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, we now routinely measure it using Imaging Resource proprietary testing. reported on, and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, we now routinely measure it.
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| Power On -> First shot |
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Faster than average for cameras with telescoping lenses.
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| Shutdown |
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Shorter time is for lens retraction, longer is for max time after a shot until you can remove the card. Faster than average overall.
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| Play to Record, first shot |
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A bit faster than average.
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| Record to play, max/min resolution |
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About average.
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| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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About average for a low- to midrange camera |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
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Amazingly (!) fast.
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| Cycle Time, max/min resolution |
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First 11 shots at max. res. at intervals of 2.06 seconds, 3.10 after 11 shots, due to the full buffer. Min. res. 1.67 seconds all the time (we shot 12 frames, buffer never filled). (NO benefit from high-speed CF cards though.) |
Like its higher resolution sibling the A20, the PowerShot A10 was a surprisingly fast little camera, with good shutter lag in full autofocus mode, and absolutely astonishing speed when prefocused by half-pressing and holding the shutter button before the exposure. Cycle times are very good as well, as the camera apparently has about 11 frames of buffer memory, providing cycle times of just over two seconds for that many shots at the highest resolution/quality setting. (Shutter lag and cycle times were both just slightly slower than those of the A20, but not dramatically so: We'd expected them to be identical, as we thought the two cameras would have the same processor in them, but this may not be the case.) Startup and shutdown times are both faster than average. Overall, a surprisingly nimble camera, particularly for its price point.
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