Taking photos faster

Taking photos faster

Everything about a digital SLR seems to work more quickly and responsively.

You may find that speed important when you want to make a grab shot on

the spur of the moment or expect the camera to take an action photo right

now when you press the shutter release at the peak moment. Many pointand-

shoot digital cameras are downright sluggardly compared to dSLRs when

it comes to performance (although some vendors have worked very hard

to close the gap). You can find improved speed in three key areas, which I

explain in the following sections.

Wake-up time

You can have a relatively fast non-SLR digicam powered up and ready to snap

its first photo in as little as two seconds. Many of these cameras take three

to four seconds to emerge from their slumber. Worse, because they consume

so much power (thanks to the rear-panel LCD), these cameras may go into

stand-by mode or shut off completely if you don’t take a picture for 30 to

60 seconds.

When you flip the power switch of a dSLR, the camera is usually ready to

take the picture before you can move the viewfinder up to your eye. Some

dSLRs are ready to go in 0.2 of a second! Digital SLRs don’t need to go to

sleep, either, because they consume so little power when not in active use.

I’ve left dSLRs switched on for days at a time with little perceptible draining

of the battery (but not in Live View mode, of course). Certainly, the autofocus

and auto-exposure mechanisms go on standby a few seconds after you move

your finger from the shutter release, but you can have them available again

instantly by giving a quick tap to the button.

Shot-to-shot time

Conventional digital cameras have limits on how quickly you can take pictures

in succession. Unless you’re using the motor-drive-like burst mode, one

shot every second or two is about all you can expect. Even in burst mode,

you’re lucky to get much more than one to three frames per second for 5 to

11 shots, max. Some point-and-shoot cameras do allow you to fire off shots

continuously for longer periods (in some cases, until the memory card is

full!), but you don’t find such speediness in the average entry-level digital

snapshot camera.

But all digital SLRs have relatively large amounts of built-in memory that

temporarily store each photo that you snap before the camera transfers it to

your memory card at high speed. You can probably take pictures in singleshot

mode as quickly as you can press the shutter release, and for at least

eight to ten shots before a slight pause kicks in. If you use a fast dSLR that

has some quality level settings, you can often keep taking pictures for as long

as your finger (or memory card) holds out.

A dSLR’s burst mode can typically capture three to nine frames per second

for 12 to 30 shots, depending on the speed of the camera and the quality

level you choose — low quality (high compression) settings produce smaller

images that the camera can write to the memory card quickly .

No common point-and-shoot camera comes anywhere close to that level of

performance at full resolution, even though a few can shoot at sustained frame

rates that allow you to produce movie-like effects with your still images.

Shutter lag

When I’ve spoken before groups promoting my other books, such as Digital

Photography All-in-One For Dummies, 4th Edition (Wiley Publishing, Inc.),

here’s the number one question I get from new digital photographers —

“What can I do about shutter lag!?!” Digicam owners seem to really dislike

their camera’s shutter lag — the pause between the moment you click the

shutter button and the moment the sensor captures a slightly different

image. Some snapshot cameras are worse than others, of course, but you can

still find many models available that produce an annoying lag between pressing

the button and taking the picture.

Digital SLRs also experience shutter lag, but it’s likely so brief — on the order

of 0.1 to 0.2 of a second — that you never notice it. Of course, dSLRs have

little shutter lag only most of the time. Point your lens at a difficult-to-focus

subject, such as the sky, or try to take a photo under low light, and your

speedy autofocus lens might hunt back and forth while you gnash your

teeth in frustration. 

 Article From : Digital SLR Cameras and Photography For Dummies 3rd Ed. (Book)