digital card designing

What non-Digital SLR has the shortest shutter lag time when the flash is off?

I have an older HP digital camera, and am looking to upgrade it. I just want a point and shoot, nothing particularly fancy. My biggest issue with my current camera is that it takes sooooooo long to take a picture when I turn the flash off, that the picture ends up distorted! From what I have read on here, it has to do with shutter lag, but I am not sure. I don’t know much about photography.

The other features I am looking for are:
-uses SD card memory
-rechargeable battery
-image stabilization
-slim design

I do not want an SLR, so please don’t suggest it, I know they are are more capable, but they are not what I am looking for. I just want a camera to carry in my purse for spontaneous photo opportunities!

Thank you.

Shutter lag is a common annoyance. There is also a commonly little-known, simple but important thing you need to know to best deal with it. If you read through the document sited by “fhotoace”, it is buried in there. But let’s keep it simple…

When you take a picture, you should press down on the shutter button half-way and hold it there. When you do that the camera does it’s auto focus, the part that sometimes takes sooooo long. Keep holding the button half way down, then when you get the smile or pose you want, then push down the remaining half way down. That second push down will take the picture almost immediately, very little lag, even with flash. Try it, even with your slooooooow old HP.

Shutter lag is the sum of two parts. The first part is the “auto focus lag”, and takes almost all the total lag time, the focusing starts to happen when you hit the half-way down part of the shutter button. This “auto focus lag” is the part that is so much faster on a SLR type of camera. The second part is the “shutter release lag”, the part that physically triggers the shutter and starts recording the image. This second lag part of the total shutter lag is relatively fast for most modern so called “point and shoot” cameras.

I’ve also included my source which I think more directly deals with the specific problem. This is an excellent but very technical site.

I’m with you about not wanting to pay for and carry around a SLR all the time. Some people (I’ve meet them) buy a SLR after being so frustrated with their simple “point and shoot” camera and still don’t know what difference holding down the shutter half way can make. I find this out when taking pictures of people side by side and can see I can take the picture exactly when I want, even pictures where the action (window of opportunity) is fast.

If you have had distorted pictures before maybe it is because the focusing and shutter time took so long that you didn’t hold the camera steady long enough.

As far as which camera I like Panasonic, especially for their value and they do list there “shutter release lag” time in their specifications, plus they are fast, relative to other cameras in their class. They all have image stabilization (the first company to make that standard on all the models) they use SD cards and most have rechargeable battery and many are slim design. It comes down do how good a camera you want and how small you want to go.

Good luck.

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