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HP PhotoSmart 912 HP and Pentax team up to make a true SLR digicam with Pentax lens, HP color wizardry, and ample features. Select a topic Reference: Datasheet PhotoSmart 912 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 PhotoSmart 912 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: 3/26/2001

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 Imaging Resource proprietary testing.

Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart 912 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	4.85	About average.
Shutdown	~0.0	No lens to retract, so no delay before you can put it away.
Play to Record, first shot	1.32 - 0.58	Time until first shot is captured, from Playback mode. Time varied somewhat from test to test, but overall is quite fast.
Record to play (max/min resolution)	1.9 (9.1) 1.4 (3.9)	Pretty fast. (Times shown are for first view (low-res) and full-res view.
Shutter lag, full autofocus	0.55	Quite fast! (Pentax knowhow in the lens design?)
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.53	About average. (Surprisingly, not much faster than autofocus.)
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.16	A fair bit faster than average.
Cycle Time, max/min resolution	2.2/2.2 (11-20)	Fairly quick for the first 2-3 exposures (buffer memory), then variable and rather slow for subsequent shots.

Overall, the PhotoSmart 912 was a fairly responsive camera, with excellent shutter lag characteristics (noticeably better than most of the competition). Interestingly, shutter delay with manual focus was no faster than with full autofocus, resulting in average speed for manual focus operation and very fast for autofocus. When prefocused with a half-press of the shutter button, lag time was also faster than average, at only 0.15 seconds.

Cycle times were a bit more problematic. An internal buffer memory kept the cycle time to only 2.2 seconds for the first three shots in any resolution mode, but occasionally, we measured only two shots at high resolution. After that, cycle time varied radically, ranging from 11 to 20 seconds between shots. We found that if you wait for the buffer to clear (on the order of 20 seconds if you've just captured three shots in rapid succession), you'll be able to capture three more shots in rapid succession. We'd like to see the buffer clear a little more quickly, but the roughly 2.2-second cycle time, when buffer space is available, is faster than average for this class of camera.

In Continuous shooting mode, the camera snaps three pictures with an interval of just 1.8 seconds between them. Interestingly, cycle times for low-resolution files are actually a little slower than for high-resolution. Apparently, the 912 captures images at the full sensor resolution all the time, and downsamples them in the camera if the lower resolution option is selected. This produces high-quality low-res files, but at the cost of additional processing time.