'Shutter Lag' Nags Digital Photographers

Baltimore Sun ^ | 6/5/2006 | William Bulkeley

[Dallas59]

Glenn Maxwell vividly recalls the only whale-watching cruise he ever took, two years ago off Puerto Vallarta. As waves rocked the boat, he says, scores of the giant mammals leapt clear of the water.

Alas, Maxwell's memories of his Mexican adventure are better than his snapshots. Knowing a photo opportunity when he saw one, the Detroit computer programmer took dozens of pictures with his $500 Olympus digital camera. But each time he pressed the button, the camera paused, the whale flopped back in the ocean, and, Maxwell says, "I only got sky or sea."

[Dallas59]

Not mention they suk in low light.

[Lurker]

Digital cams are great for some things, and not so good for others.

I've got a digital and a traditional 35mm. Which one I use depends on the situation.

L

[Dallas59]

They were selling high end SLR's for around $300 in New York...I might go back...

[Darkwolf377]

I'm this close to buying a digital camera, and most of the shots would be night shots. Now I'm having second thoughts...

[goldstategop]

If you want to take spur of the moment photos, take a film camera along. Digital photography is great but it can't always capture life's moments with immediacy. Its comforting to know that old-fashioned technology will never be completely obsolete, especially for the photog crowd.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[goldstategop]

Digital cameras are great. For most situations they work fine and you should definitely buy one. But there in some instances you may still need to shoot with a film camera.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Darkwolf377]

I know, I have to bow to the inevitable. But seeing how the huge majority of shots I take are city night shots... Even the guy at the camera shop who has me heading for one particular model (which I've forgotten the name of, d'oh!) warned me that night shots would be tough work.

[Dallas59]

Most night shots you have to have a tripod or a really stable surface. I have an Olympus and I do "love" it. I have over a gig in cards and 5 batteries. I'm getting an SLR.

[goldstategop]

If you want an SLR, save up for the Leica M digital camera. Otherwise the new Panasonic L1 DSLR which will be on the market after the Photokina exhibition in Germany in September may be your ticket. Be warned: its going to be very pricey.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Dallas59]

Here's a low light shot from the Hancock Tower in Chicago. I had to rest the camera on the outer ledge of the Observation Deck. I used the timer. Had I held the camera, it would have been blurred.

[FreedomCalls]

How much are you willing to pay? You can get a digital SLR with no shutter lag and a large image-stabilized lens that can take sharp pictures in near darkness for two grand.

[Nathan Zachary]

You get what you pay for. Spend the money, and get a lagless digital. Spend the money, and improve your low light contrasts. If you want the $99 special, expect it to be lacking something, just as you would expect from a cheap 35mm film camera.
a GOOD digital camera will cost you.

[jennyp]

Yeah, night shots are the last refuge for film, IMO. I can't wait for - what is it, 36-bit color (12 bits per color channel instead of the 8 you get with 24-bit) is the new top-line standard? With 24-bit color you really only get 256 levels of resolution for each color channel. If you examine a muddy night shot in a graphics editor you'll see that the RGB values are all in the range of 0-5. There's just no ability to record the difference between very dark, black-velvety dark, inky dark, and absolutely dark.

The same problem occurs with the lights in the picture: All the pixels will be, say, 255/255/255 or 254/253/254. No ability to distinguish between the totally white center of a light and the subtly different areas directly around it. That's also why I bet Christmas lights look so washed out in your digital photos. (They do in mine. VERY frustrating.)

With 36-bit it would be 4096 levels of resolution. That should be good enough for nighttime shots.

[Rummenigge]

Can't have it all...


Or so it seems... actual gen. small digital cameras feature both colour and b/w noise reduction for the CCD chip - you can have a faster shutter then without looking at aquarells later on (that's a tendency though - not an absolute statement).

They do it with improved camera CPUs - these can process data faster that speeds up focusing too, so with a fast cache or memory card you can take up to 3 pictures a sec. even with a 300$ camera - that's fast enough allready.

Furhter on they have moving lens systems that counter the shake of your hands - so you can shoot with longer shutter times without having shaky images.

Another trick is combining the readins of more pixels - so you turn your 5 Mpixel camera into a more sensitve 3 Mpixel Camera that is more sensitive and so can shoot with a faster shutter.

So I think the next whale watching with a new samll digi camera is going to be successful allready.

(my new one is not bigger then a hand-held gps and got a 35 - 440 mm zoom - I can shoot 2GB of images at 2.7 shots per second - with fast focus on it feels as quick as my old nikon - it was only 306$)

[angkor]

I'm on my 4th digital, this time I went for digital SLR (Pentax istDS) which solves all of the shutter lag problems and then some. Continuous shooting 7 frames in 2 seconds, bracketing, instant power-up, etc. I've taken lots of dusk and pre-sunrise photos and they're not bad at all, much better than the point-and-shoots.

Decided to do this after an overseas trip where I lost tons of good photo opps because of the combination of slow power-up and shutter lag.

Nikon D50 and Canon Rebel are other good choice, all are in the near $1,000 range with 18-55mm lens kit.

[Dallas59]

Gulp...$2000? Two months rent, 8 car payments, 36 months of Directv, 36 tanks of gas...Maybe I'd better wait...

[Rummenigge]

TZ-1 is good enough as a pocket camera. It's fast and the zoom is a master piece - 10 years ago they would have shot it into orbit as a spy satellite.

[Dallas59]

Thanks..I got some studying to do on this!

[Rummenigge]

Don't study to long - while you study the next generation will be launched making the last look old again.

[Echo Talon]

I've taken lots of dusk and pre-sunrise photos and they're not bad at all, much better than the point-and-shoots.

Photoshop CS2 has a neat feature called "shadow highlight" that might be right up your alley... :)