Konica Minolta Dynax Maxxum 7DAt long last, Minolta SLR owners have a *very* worthy body to use with their lens collections!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 11/27/2004, Updated: 02/01/2005 |
Shutter Lag/Cycle Times
When you press the shutter release on a digital camera, there's a delay or lag time before the shutter actually fires. This time allows the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms to do their work and can amount to a significant delay in some situations. Likewise, the delay from shot to shot can vary greatly, and is also important to the picture-taking experience. Since these numbers are rarely reported by manufacturers or reviewers (and even more rarely, reported accurately), I routinely measure both shutter lag and cycle times using an electronic test setup I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled timing, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the 7D:
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| |
(secs) |
|
| Power On -> First shot | |
Lens AF
syncs, card is accessed. Fairly fast, not amazingly so for a digital
SLR though. |
| Shutdown | |
Card access LED takes its
time on shutdown. Longest time corresponds to clearing nine RAW-mode
files from the buffer memory. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Very fast. |
| Record to play | |
First time is that required
to display a large/fine file immediately after capture, second time
is that needed to display a large/fine file that has already been processed
and stored on the memory card. Both times are fairly fast. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus | |
First time is at full wide-angle, second is full telephoto. Quite fast. |
| Shutter lag, continuous autofocus | |
Little or no benefit to
continuous AF with stationary subjects, but no penalty either. |
| Shutter lag, manual focus | |
Not especially fast for
a digital SLR. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | |
Time to capture, after half-pressing
shutter button. Fairly comparable speed to its competition. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution | 0.61 |
Shoots at about the same rate for large/fine images or "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. In large/fine mode, shoots 14 frames this fast, then slows to about 4.5 seconds per shot. In TV mode, maintains this rate indefinitely. Buffer clears in 46 seconds in large/fine mode, but only 2 seconds in TV mode. Average speed for a digital SLR of its class, good buffer capacity. (Times measured with a Lexar 80x CF card.) |
| Cycle Time, RAW | 0.68 |
Times are averages. Shoots 9 frames this fast, then slows to about 7.3 seconds per shot. Buffer clears in 60 seconds. Average speed for this level d-SLR, rather slow buffer-clearing time. (Times measured with a Lexar 80x CF card.) |
| Cycle Time, continuous mode, max/min resolution | 0.36 (2.75 fps) |
Shoots at about the same rate for large/fine images or "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. In large/fine mode, shoots 15 frames this fast, then slows to about 3.1 seconds per shot. In TV mode, shoots 65 shots this fast, then slows only slightly. Buffer clears in 47 seconds in large/fine mode, 11 seconds in TV mode. Again, average speed for its class. (Times measured with Lexar 80x CF card.) |
| Cycle Time, continuous RAW |
0.36 |
Times are averages. Shoots 9 frames this fast, then slows to about 7.4 seconds per shot. Buffer clears in 85 seconds. Average speed for its class. |
The word that comes to mind when thinking about the Maxxum 7D's speed is "average." - But that's not a bad thing, given the field it's playing in. Full-autofocus shutter lag is actually faster than most d-SLRs, at about 0.27 second, although its manual focus lag is only slightly better. At 0.61 second, shot to shot cycle times are decent and its 14-shot JPEG buffer capacity should be enough for most users. At 2.75 frames/second, continuous-mode shooting speed is also right on par with its primary competitors. Overall, a very workmanlike performance.
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