Sony MVC-FD95Sony takes the Mavica line to 2.1 megapixels, and 12-bit digitization!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 7/13/2000 |
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 with an electronic test setup. Likewise, we measure and report on
how quickly the camera can take sequential exposures in various capture modes.
The table below summarizes our measurements of the FD95:
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| Power On -> First shot |
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Time is delay until first shot captured.
(Camera needs to check floppy first, to see if there's space
available.) |
| Shutdown |
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No lens retraction to wait for, meaning zero
shutdown normally. Max time is time until floppy may be removed if
Text-mode image is being processed. |
| Play to Record, first shot |
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Time is delay until first shot captured.
Shorter time is with manual focus, longer is for autofocus.
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| Record to play (max/min res) |
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Shortest time is for image already processed
to floppy. Longer is for high res JPEG image just captured. Longest is for
text-mode image just captured. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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Typical to slightly slower than
average. |
| Shutter lag, manual focus |
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About average. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
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Fairly typical for cameras we've tested.
(Prefocus means half-pressed shutter before shot.)
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Overall, the FD95 is fairly typical of digicams we've tested, slightly slower
than average in its shutter lag timing in full autofocus mode (0.9 vs roughly
0.8 on average), and about average when prefocused or manually focused. As noted
in the "Exposure" section earlier, the FD95 does have an annoying characteristic
in that the viewfinder display freezes momentarily whenever the shutter button
is half-pressed. We did find though, that holding the shutter half-pressed (possibly
in conjunction with manual focus operation) provided a potential workaround.
From shot to shot, the FD95 is slower than some digicams, but surprisingly quick,
given that it depends on a floppy drive to store its data. The drive in the
FD95 is no ordinary floppy though, as it reads and writes four times faster
than the drive in your computer. The net result is a slow but manageable 8 second
cycle time for maximum-resolution images saved to floppy. Minimum-resolution
images can be captured as fast as every 5.5 seconds. We were surprised though,
to find that the Memory Stick/Floppy Adapter storage combination actually took
nearly twice as long to save images as did floppies. With this memory device,
cycle time for maximum-resolution images was a leisurely 15.4 seconds, rather
slow by current digicam standards.
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(secs) |
(frames/sec) |
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| Maximum resolution |
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Shorter time is with floppy disk, longer time with Memory Stick & adapter. | |
| Minimum Resolution |
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Shorter time is with floppy disk, longer time
with Memory Stick & adapter. | |
| Movie Mode |
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Frame rate for MPEG movies is 15 fps.
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