I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person who has photographed, I mean tried to, photograph a child or an action scene with a point and shoot digital camera and NOT captured the photo that I wanted? Am I alone in this quest? Shutter delay for point and shoot digital cameras can be a problem when you go to photograph action photography. Whether it's photographing children for photographing wildlife, having a shutter that doesn't capture the photograph when you want it to can be a huge difference. There are two ways to get around this:
What to look for with a new camera if you want a faster shutter delay: Here are some of the most common specs of how fast the shutter delay is with a common point and shoot digital camera:
Shutter Lag, Full Autofocus | 0.656 - 0.754 sec |
Shutter Lag, Prefocused | 0.076 sec |
You can see an amazing difference between the shutter lag when the shutter has been pressed half way down. Because the camera is already focus at this point, there is basically no shutter delay. A tip on how to capture a moving subject with such restrictions is to pick out a location where the moving subject is going to move into and then press the shutter half way down. Then when the subject crosses into the pre-focused path, you can press the shutter down fully. This will really help making sure that you can capture the image that you want. Noticed the shutter lag time when the camera needs to fully autofocus... The delay ranges from 0.656 - 0.754. Almost 3/4 of a second. This is an eternity when you are trying to capture a moving child or something amazing that will only last for a second and you still have to pull the camera out it's case!
When purchasing a point-and-shoot digital camera, this should be the number one static that is viewed. Reason: Because it won't matter how many mega / giga pixels that your camera can record if you never capture the photograph!