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Minolta DiMAGE F100 Minolta builds a compact, stylish 4 Megapixel model with sophisticated autofocus. Select a topic Reference: Datasheet DiMAGE F100 Photo Gallery! DiMAGE F100 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 DiMAGE F100 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: 04/18/2002, Updated: 05/29/2003

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.

 

Minolta Dimage F100 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	5.9	Rather a long time, even for a camera with a telescoping lens. - The F100's lens is a little leisurely in its movements.
Shutdown	6.9	Time required to retract lens, even slower than when its extending. If you've just snapped a shot being saved as a TIFF file though, shutdown could take as long as ~40 seconds.
Play to Record, first shot	1.82	Pretty fast.
Record to play (max/min res)	1.4 - 4.6 0.8 - 2.5	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. Pretty fast overall.
Shutter lag, full autofocus (wide/tele)	1.161/1.17	First number for telephoto, second for wide angle. Rather slow at wide angle - normal range is about 0.8-1.0 for wide angle, 1.0 - 1.3 for telephoto. (Frankly, all digicams are way too slow on shutter lag!)
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.77	A bit slower than average. (Average is about 0.5 seconds.)
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.12	A good bit faster than average. (Average is around 0.3 seconds.)
Cycle Time	2.09/5.75 L/F (~16 sec to clear buffer) 1.95 S/B	Very good cycle times. Buffer holds ~4 frames in large/fine resolution mode, depending on subject, ~150 in small/basic. After buffer full, large/fine cycle time extends to 5.57 seconds. Buffer clears completely in about 16 seconds.
Cycle Time, TIFF (Uncompressed format)	37.6	Rather slow. Camera controls locked out during TIFF memory writes.
Cycle time, continuous mode	0.65 - 0.88	~4 frame burst in large/fine, 150 frames in small/basic. For some reason, delay between first and second shot is longer than subsequent ones. (That's the 0.88 figure.)

 

The F100 was generally a pretty responsive camera, with very good cycle times, at least when it was writing to its buffer memory. The autofocus speed was a little disappointing, particularly when the lens was at its wide angle setting, where most cameras are generally faster. The F100 showed nearly identical shutter lag at wide angle as at telephoto, both numbers being about 1.16 seconds. (This is about an average lag time for telephoto mode shots, but the average is still way too long IMHO.) Prefocus shutter delay was very good though, at only 0.12 seconds. If you remember the trick of half-pressing and holding the shutter button before critical exposures, you should have no trouble catching the action with the F100.