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Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS An impressive update to the PowerShot "Pro" line, with a 10x optically stabilized zoom lens and 2.6 megapixel CCD! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet PowerShot Pro 90 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, & Hardware 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on PowerShot Pro 90 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: 2/6/2001

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 proprietary Imaging Resource test equipment.

 

Pro90 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	5.77	About average
Shutdown	< 1.0	Fast, because no lens retraction.
Play to Record, first shot	2.0	Fairly fast
Record to play (max/min res)	4.19/2.87	Average to moderately fast
Shutter lag, full autofocus	0.95	A bit slower than average.
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.55	About average.
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.10	Quite fast.
Cycle Time, max/min res	4.0/2.8	A bit slow, compared to other top models.
Cycle Time, continuous mode	0.74 sec, 1.35 frames/sec	Fairly fast. A minimum of 6 shots in succession before the buffer fills, more for lower resolution/quality.

 

Overall, the Pro90 was about average in its speed performance, faster than some cameras in it's range, but noticeably slower than others. Shutter lag consistently came out around 0.95 seconds in full autofocus, while competing models tend to be closer to 0.8 seconds on average. (It's possible that the long zoom lens affected focusing time, as the manual focus shutter lag of 0.55 seconds was about average, and the 0.1 second prefocus lag time was very fast.)

We found the shot-to-shot speed most puzzling, as it didn't seem that the Pro90 was using any buffer memory, but rather waiting to write the file to the memory card after every shot. As noted, a four-second cycle time isn't bad, but it's a notch below the performance we'd have expected for a camera with such excellent capabilities otherwise.