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Toshiba PDR-M81

Toshiba steps into the 4-megapixel arena with a value-priced, full-featured model.

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Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests
Review First Posted: 08/24/2001

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 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, we now routinely measure it using an Imaging Resource proprietary test system.

Toshiba PDR-M81 Timings

Operation Time (secs) Notes

Power On -> First shot 4.0 About average for cameras with telescoping lenses.

Shutdown 3.2 Time until lens retracted and ready to put away. A bit faster than average.

Play to Record, first shot 1.37 Time until first shot is captured, from playback mode. Quite a bit faster than average.

Record to play (max res) 1.1 Quite a bit faster than average.

Shutter lag, full autofocus 1.13 / 0.99 Somewhat slower than average. (Higher number is for telephoto lens setting, lower is for wide angle.)

Shutter lag, manual focus 0.69 Slower than average

Shutter lag, prefocus 0.27 A little faster than average.

Cycle Time, max/min resolution 1.5-6.2
1.4-1.9 Highly variable (prototype issue?). Camera doesn't appear to use a buffer memory to speed image capture.

Cycle time, continuous mode 0.51sec
(1.97 fps) Pretty fast for a 4-megapixel camera. Bursts range from 3 frames at max res / quality to more than 60 frames in lowest res / quality mode.

Our PDR-M81 test unit was a bit of a mixed bag in the speed category. It started up and shut down quickly, but both shutter lag and cycle times were on the long side. It's possible that some of this was due to the evaluation unit's being a prototype camera. We'll re-test with a production model if / as / when we get one, and if the numbers are significantly different, we'll update this report.

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Toshiba PDR-M81 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	4.0	About average for cameras with telescoping lenses.
Shutdown	3.2	Time until lens retracted and ready to put away. A bit faster than average.
Play to Record, first shot	1.37	Time until first shot is captured, from playback mode. Quite a bit faster than average.
Record to play (max res)	1.1	Quite a bit faster than average.
Shutter lag, full autofocus	1.13 / 0.99	Somewhat slower than average. (Higher number is for telephoto lens setting, lower is for wide angle.)
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.69	Slower than average
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.27	A little faster than average.
Cycle Time, max/min resolution	1.5-6.2 1.4-1.9	Highly variable (prototype issue?). Camera doesn't appear to use a buffer memory to speed image capture.
Cycle time, continuous mode	0.51sec (1.97 fps)	Pretty fast for a 4-megapixel camera. Bursts range from 3 frames at max res / quality to more than 60 frames in lowest res / quality mode.