Olympus C-3040 ZoomOlympus updates its top-of-the-line 3-megapixel model with a "faster" lens and increased movie capabilities.<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 4/14/2001 |
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.
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| Power On -> First shot |
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About average for cameras with telescoping lenses.
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| Shutdown |
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About average
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| Play to Record, first shot |
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Time until first shot is captured, from "Instant Review" mode. A bit better than average.
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| Record to play (max/min res) |
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Longest time shown is for immediate switch to play after shutter release in highest res mode. Shorter times are for switch to play mode after image is saved to memory card.
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| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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A bit slower than average, oddly, noticeably slower than the C-2040 Zoom. |
| Shutter lag, continuous autofocus |
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A bit faster than average for full autofocus. |
| Shutter lag, manual focus |
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About average |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
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Quite a bit faster than average.
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| Cycle Time, max/min resolution |
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Faster than average. Max res gives this speed for 10(!) shots, then about 5-8 seconds per shot. Min res lets you shoot this fast until the card is full. |
| Cycle time, continuous mode |
(3.36- 3.61 fps) |
Very fast, bursts of 5 frames, high or low resolution. |
Overall, the C-3040 Zoom is a pretty fast camera. Its autofocus speed is a bit below average, but this is more than compensated for by the shorter than average shutter lag in the Continuous Autofocus mode. (Autofocus speed overall seems to be considerably improved over that of the earlier C-3030 Zoom model.) Manual focus lag time is about average, but the shutter delay when you prefocus the camera (by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button prior to taking the shot) is much faster than average. Cycle times are faster than average, about the same as we found in the earlier C-3030 Zoom. Sequential Shooting mode is blazingly fast, and the camera can grab up to five frames at a time before having to pause to write the images to the memory card. (Curiously, it has to pause after five frames, even when you're in low-resolution mode. Low-resolution mode does let you grab additional three-frame bursts about every five seconds though, rather than dropping all the way down to one frame every five seconds, as in high-resolution continuous mode.)
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