Olympus C-7000 Wide ZoomSeven megapixels, 5x zoom, great pictures, a ton of features, and great build quality - A real winner!<<Exposure & Flash :(Previous) | (Next): Operation & User Interface>> Page 7:Shutter Lag & Cycle Time TestsReview First Posted: 11/26/04 |
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, I now routinely measure it with a custom test system I constructed for the purpose. (With crystal-controlled timing, accurate to 0.01% and with a timing resolution of 1 millisecond.) Here's the full set of timing numbers I measured for the Olympus C-7000 Zoom:
| |
||
| |
(secs) |
|
| Power On -> First shot | |
LCD turns
on and lens extends forward. Fairly fast. |
| Shutdown | |
First time is time to retract
lens, second time is worst-case buffer-clearing time. First number is
fast, second slow, but note that it corresponds to clearing the buffer
after 100+ small/basic shots in continuous mode. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Time until
first shot is captured. Quite 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 a little on the slow side
by current standards. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus | |
First time is at full wide-angle, second is full telephoto. Very fast, and interestingly little variation between wide and telephoto lens settings. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | |
Time to capture, after half-pressing
shutter button. Quite fast. |
| Cycle Time, TIFF | 11.05 | Times is an average, no buffering. Slow, but not for a 7-megapixel TIFF image. |
| Cycle Time, RAW | |
Times is an average, no
buffering. Slow, but not for a 7-megapixel RAW image. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution | 2.01 / |
First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. In large/fine mode, shoots 4 images this fast, then slows to an irregular pace of about one every 5 seconds, and takes 10 seconds to clear the buffer. In TV mode, continues at this rate indefinitely, clearing the buffer after each shot. Not blazing speed, but not at all bad for a 7-megapixel camera. |
| Cycle Time, continuous High mode, max/min resolution | 0.34 (3.33 fps) |
Whether in large/fine mode or "TV" mode, shoots two shots at this rate. Times are averages. Buffer clears in 8 seconds for large/fine images, 3.5 seconds for TV size images. Very fast, but more buffer capacity would be very nice. |
| Cycle Time, continuous Low mode, max/min resolution | 0.97 / 0.85 (1.03 / 1.18 fps) |
First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for small/basic images. Times are averages. Shoots 4 images this fast in large/fine mode, or more than 100 images with smallest file size. Buffer clears in 13 seconds for large/fine shots, in 22 seconds for "TV" sized images. Decent speed. Buffer capacity for large/fine images is better than for high-speed continuous mode, but still not dramatic. (Note though, that buffer capacity is much greater, if you just drop down to "HQ" mode from "SHQ".) |
The Olympus C-7000 is a surprisingly fast camera for such a compact, high-megapixel model. It's very responsive to the shutter, with full-autofocus lag times of 0.53-0.54 second. (The delay is essentially the same regardless of lens zoom setting.) While not the fastest I've seen, the 0.157 second shutter lag when the camera is "prefocused" by pressing and holding down the shutter button before the shot itself is also very good. Cycle times in single-shot mode are quite good, if not startlingly so, at roughly 2 seconds/shot. High-speed continuous mode lets you shoot at just over 3 frames/second, but for only two shots in a row, before you have to wait for the memory card to catch up. This is an excellent frame rate, but the tiny buffer memory is rather limiting. Low-speed continuous mode allows for longer sequences of shots, but at the much slower rate of just over one frame/second. Overall though, the Olympus C-7000 is very responsive little camera.
Follow Imaging Resource: