Sony MVC-CD500Sony further expands its CD-equipped camera line, adding a five megapixel CCD and a host of other features to last year's top-of-the-line CD Mavica model.<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 06/09/2003 |
Shutter Lag/Cycle Times
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a delay or lag
time before the shutter actually fires. This allows 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, I now routinely measure it using a custom
test system I designed and built for the purpose.
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.
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| Power On -> First shot | |
Startup time depends on state of disc. If the camera has seen the disc before and it has few files on it, time is about 5 seconds. If disc if full and/or camera back has been opened since last power-up, time can be 21 seconds or longer. |
| Shutdown | |
Times shown are to write a large/fine file, or to retract lens if the camera isn't currently writing. If writing TIFF file, could take up to 51 seconds to be ready to remove disc. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Very fast. |
| Record to play (max/min res) | 3.18 - 5.7 |
Top numbers JPEG large/fine, bottom set JPEG small/normal. First number of each set is for switch after camera done processing an image. Second number is for immediate switch to play after snapping the shutter. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus (wide/tele) |
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First number for telephoto, second for wide angle. Very fast, among the fastest cameras on the market. |
| Shutter lag, manual focus | |
A bit faster than average. (Average is about 0.5 seconds.) |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | |
A good bit faster than average. (Average is around 0.3 seconds.) |
| Cycle Time | (~28 sec to clear buffer) 1.7/2.5 S/N |
Excellent cycle times(!) Buffer holds 6-8 frames in large/fine resolution mode, depending on subject, then cycle time stretches to about 7.4 secs. Buffer clears completely in about 28 seconds. Small/normal resolution cycles in about 1.7 seconds, buffer still seemed to fill after about 10 shots. |
| Cycle Time, TIFF | |
Extremely slow. Camera controls locked out during TIFF disc writes. |
| Cycle time, continuous mode | |
Bursts limited to 3 frames, but quite fast, at a bit over 2 frames/second.(Seemed to alternate between 0.4 and 0.5 seconds between shots.) (Why only 3 shots though? There's a 9-shot buffer!) |
| Frame rate, multi-burst | |
Small (320-240) sub-pictures stored in single 1280x960 image as a mosaic. Frame rates are very high, my measurements match Sony's claims of 7.5, 15, 30 fps. |
Thanks to a huge buffer memory, the CD500 is quite fast from shot to shot. Startup can be very long though, particularly if the CD is nearly full, with multiple sessions (finalize/initialize) on it. Unfortunately, there's no option for adjusting the power-saving automatic shutdown interval. (The camera shuts itself off automatically after 3 minutes of inactivity.) If you tend to shoot on and off over a long period of time, you may need to train yourself to periodically switch the camera into play and back again, or half-press the shutter button, to keep it from going to sleep on you.
Happily, Sony has dramatically improved the CD500's shutter lag over that of the CD400. With a shutter lag (the delay between pressing the shutter button and the actual firing of the shutter) of only 0.65-0.66 seconds, the CD500 is one of the fastest-focusing cameras on the market. Combined with very good cycle times (at least until the buffer memory fills), the CD500 would make an excellent camera for amateur sports shooting. One of the biggest mysteries of the CD500's design though, is why Sony chose to limit continuous-mode shooting to only 3 frames in a series. The camera clearly has 8 or 9 frames of buffer memory, so why not make all of it available for continuous-mode shooting? I suspect the answer has to do with keeping the "Burst 3" mode a consistent feature across their entire camera lineup, but that seems like an absurd limitation to place on a camera, particularly in light of the CD500's other advanced features.
Overall, apart from the possibly long startup times, and the incomprehensible 3-shot limitation of its continuous-shooting mode, the CD500 is one of the fastest and most responsive digicams on the market.
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