Olympus Brio D-100Olympus uses tricky optics to build a sleekly compact 1.3 megapixel digicam with excellent image quality!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 5/6/2001 |
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.
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| Power On -> First shot |
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About average for cameras without telescoping lenses.
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| Shutdown |
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No need to wait to close lens cover. 1.9 seconds is max time until camera finishes writing, and you can remove the memory card.
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| Play to Record, first shot |
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Faster time is from normal playback mode, slower is from "instant review". Both times are quite fast.
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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 time (zero!) is for "instant review" mode.
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| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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Slower than average across all cameras, about average among competing (lower-end) models. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
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Somewhat faster than average.
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| Cycle Time, max/min resolution |
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Max res cycle time seems to vary between 2.7 and 4.4 seconds, with an average of 3.29 seconds. At low res, the cycle time is a very consistent 3.18 seconds. |
| Cycle time, continuous mode |
(1.84 fps) |
Pretty fast, for four frames, then a wait of four seconds to empty buffer to memory card. |
Olympus bills the D-100 as an "Ultra Fast Point & Shoot" camera. While the camera is pretty quick from shot to shot, we're not sure that we'd call it "Ultra Fast". Its cycle times are faster than average among entry-level cameras, don't approach anything we'd consider deserving of the "ultra" label. The almost 2 frames/second continuous mode is unusual on a camera at this price point, so perhaps that's where Olympus is looking when they reach for the superlative adjectives.
Actually, to be fair, we're perhaps reacting to elevated expectations, having seen the "ultra fast" appellation used on the packaging: If we hadn't seen that, we'd probably have concluded that the D-100 is faster than average for an entry level camera, and left it at that. Overall, quite responsive for an inexpensive digicam.
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