Olympus C-5000 Zoom(none)<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 11/04/2003 |
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 rarely reported on, and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I routinely measure it using a test setup I designed and built for the purpose. (The test system has a resolution of 01 second, and is crystal-controlled for long-term accuracy.) The results of my tests are listed in the following chart.
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 | 4.83 |
Lens extends before shooting. About average. |
| Shutdown |
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Lens retracts. Fairly typical time. Could take longer before you remove card, if the camera is emptying its buffer memory, up to 94 seconds or so for TIFF-mode files. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Time until first shot is captured, from playback mode. First number is for switch from Playback mode, second is for Quick Review mode. |
| Record to play (max/min res) |
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First number for large/fine images, second for small/normal. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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First number is for lens at wide-angle setting, second is for telephoto. On the slow side of average (average runs from 0.8-1.0 seconds), but interesting in that tele time is shorter than wide-angle: Usually, the opposite is the case. |
| Shutter lag, manual focus |
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Slower than average. (Most competing cameras range between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds.) |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
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Fairly fast. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution |
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First number is for large/fine (SHQ) files, second is for lowest resolution/quality. There does appear to be a buffer memory (as witness the results in TIFF mode), but in practice, single-shot shooting never seems to fill it. - Hence, all shots happen at the same speed, regardless of how many have been captured. |
| Cycle Time, TIFF mode | 2.57/94 | First number is interval between shots for first four captured. After that, 94 seconds before buffer empties. |
| Cycle time, continuous mode |
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First number is for large/fine (SHQ) files, second is for smallest/lowest quality setting. In large/fine mode, buffer holds 5-7 shots before the shot interval slows to about 3.8 seconds. (Note though, that once the buffer fills, you have to release and press the shutter button again to capture the next images.) The buffer takes about 14 seconds to clear. In low size/quality, buffer holds 100+ images before forcing you to wait. |
Shutter lag is one of the few areas where I found the C-5000 disappointing,
as its lag time range from 1.01 to 1.14 seconds is on the slow side
of average. (The shutter lags of most digicams in this price/function
category fall somewhere between 0.8 and 1.0 seconds.) Cycle time was
good if not spectacular, at 2.46 seconds between shots in the highest-quality
mode. Interestingly, while the camera obviously has a buffer memory,
it never seemed to fill in normal single-frame shooting: The cycle time
never lengthened beyond the roughly 2.5 seconds/frame required for the
first frames, regardless of how many shots were captured in sequence.
Overall, the C-5000 is decently fast from shot to shot, but the merely-average
shutter lag would argue against its use for sports and other action
shooting.
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