Olympus C-2100 ZoomWow! A superb 10X, optically stabilized zoom lens on a high-quality 2 megapixel camera!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 10/18/2000 |
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 allows the autofocus and autoexposure
mechanisms time to do their work, and it can amount to a fairly long delay in
some situations. Since this lag time is rarely reported by manufacturers or
reviewers, and because it can significantly affect the picture taking experience,
we routinely measure it using a custom electronic test setup.
NOTE: My qualitative characterizations of camera performance below (that is, "reasonably fast," "about average," etc.) are meant to be relative to other cameras of similar price and general capabilities. Thus, the same shutter lag that's "very fast" for a low-end consumer camera might be characterized as "quite slow" if I encountered it on a professional model. The comments are also intended as only a quick reference: If performance specs are critical for you, rely on the absolute numbers to compare cameras, rather than my purely qualitative comments.
| C-2100 Ultra Zoom Timings | ||
| Operation | Time (secs) | Notes |
| Power On -> First shot | 4.05 |
Time is delay until first shot captured.
|
| Shutdown | 1.59 |
Time until lens is retracted, camera
is powered down. (No pending image processing though.)
|
| Play to Record, first shot | 2.61 |
Time is delay until first shot captured.
|
| Record to play (max/min res) | 20.45/2.0 |
Slower for max res TIFF images
|
| Shutter lag, full autofocus | 0.9 |
About average
|
| Shutter lag, continuous autofocus | 0.75 |
Not a significant speed increase
|
| Shutter lag, manual focus | 0.40 | A bit faster than average |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | 0.149 | Very fast (Prefocus means half-pressed shutter before shot.) |
| Cycle Time, Max/Min resolution | 1.35/1.35 | Quite fast. For max res, 5 shots until buffer full, for min res, shoot until memory card is full |
| Cycle time, continuous mode | 0.57/0.44 |
Quite fast. Times are for max/min resolution
settings
|
Overall, the C-2100 Ultra Zoom is a pretty fast camera. Autofocus time is about average among cameras we've tested, while prefocus shutter delay (when the shutter button has been half-pressed prior to the exposure itself) was very fast. Cycle times from shot to shot are quite fast as well, thanks to good use of internal buffer memory. An operating feature we particularly appreciated was the way we could simply press and hold the shutter button immediately after an exposure was taken, to get the next shot as quickly as possible: For some reason, many digicams "penalize" this behavior, refusing to fire if you've pressed the shutter button again too soon after taking the previous shot, unless you release the button and press it a second time. This behavior is annoying to no end, but the C-2100 Ultra Zoom avoids it completely.
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