Canon PowerShot S300Canon makes a major update to their original S100 "Digital ELPH": More zoom, more controls, and better photos. Hard to beat!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 4/5/2001 |
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.
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
| Power On -> First shot |
|
A bit faster than average
|
| Shutdown |
|
Faster than average. (Fast lens retraction.)
|
| Play to Record, first shot |
|
Longer time is to switch from playback mode, shorter is to interrupt "review" display. (Latter is really just the autofocus delay.)
|
| Record to play (max/min res) |
|
Quite fast
|
| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
|
A bit slower than average. (Shorter time is for normal focus distance, longer is for macro shots.) |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
|
Blazingly fast! |
| Cycle Time, max/min res |
|
Faster than average. |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, max/min res. |
1.19/1.52 frames/sec |
Quite fast. Seven shots before buffer fills at maximum res, 64 shots before it fills at minimum res.
|
Overall, the PowerShot S300 is a speedy little camera. It starts up and shuts down quickly, and is quite fast from shot to shot, with cycle times of 2.09 seconds at maximum resolution and 1.85 seconds at minimum resolution. Shutter lag times are a bit slower than average though, 1.15 seconds for normal focusing distances, 2.2 for macro shots. The really amazing speed though, comes when you prefocus the camera by half-pressing the shutter button before the shot itself. Under that condition, we clocked the S300's shutter lag at an amazing 0.063 seconds. Thus, while the normal autofocus operation is a little sluggish, the S300 could be a great camera for action shots in those situations where you can prefocus it in anticipation of the action arriving.
Follow Imaging Resource: