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Sony Mavica CD200 Sony expands its CD-equipped camera line, adding erasability, buffer memory, and a more compact case! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet CD200 Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on CD200 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests Review First Posted: 3/9/2001

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 an Imaging Resource proprietary test system.

 

Sony MVC-CD200 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	20.9/3.6	Slower than average. The longer time is for a new disc, the shorter one if the disc hasn't been changed since the camera was last turned on.
Shutdown	~0	(Essentially zero shutdown time, since the lens doesn't retract.)
Play to Record, first shot	1.3/0.9	Time until first shot is captured, from "instant review" mode or normal playback mode. Quite fast. (Shorter time is for manual focus.)
Record to play (max/min res)	9.71/10.81 2.71/3.85	Images appear quickly as a low res version, then "fill-in" within a few seconds. Quite a bit slower than average, due to the relatively slow CD data rate. (Oddly, high res images don't appear very quickly, even in low res mode.)
Shutter lag, full autofocus	0.83	About average.
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.50	About average.
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.19	A little better than average
Cycle Time, max/min resolution	2.1/4.3 2.1-3.7 (range)	A bit faster than average for first two shots, then slower than average. Top numbers are for large/fine files, bottom for small/normal. Cycle time varies greatly for small files.
Cycle time, continuous mode	n/a	(No "Burst3" mode on CD200?)

 

Shutter lag on the MVC-CD200 is about average among cameras we've tested, at 0.83 seconds for full autofocus, or 0.19 seconds when the camera is prefocused. Manual focus is about average, a little faster than the CD300, at 0.50 seconds. Like its big brother the CD300, the CD200 also seems to incorporate some buffer memory to speed shot to shot time, although it only seems to affect the first two shots. After the first shot, you can snap another in just over 2 seconds, but then have to wait an average of 4.3 seconds between subsequent shots. As with the CD300, we found low resolution cycle times to be much faster, but with an odd variability. Cycle time when shooting low-resolution files ranged from 2.1 to 4.4 seconds. We think this could be caused by the buffer memory filling and emptying as you continue shooting: Only occasionally does it fill nearly all the way, resulting in the 4.4 second figure: On average, it's ready for the next low-resolution shot in 3.0 seconds.

Like other models in the Mavica series, the CD200 starts up from power-off fairly slowly, because the camera has to check the disc to see how much space is left, and where the next image should be stored. The camera obviously has a trick or two up its sleeve in this area though: If you load a new disc (or just open and shut the back door with the power off), the camera somehow knows it has to scan the entire disc to determine space and where the next picture will go. This takes 20.9 seconds. If you just shut the CD200 down without removing the disc though, the next time it starts up, it seems to recognized the disc, and startup time is reduced to only 3.6 seconds. (We suspect both times could vary greatly depending on the state of the CD's directory structure. We didn't have time to test extensively for this though.) Shutdown time is effectively zero, since there's no lens to retract.

Other than the long startup and record-to-playback times, we found the CD200 to be a pretty responsive camera: We actually were very surprised to find that it only had a one image buffer memory, since we almost never ran up against buffer memory limitations in our (admittedly leisurely) shooting with it.