Photofocus

Courtesy Wikipedia

This begins a series of tips I’m going to publish for new photographers. For those of you who already know this stuff, I promise to keep the more advanced posts coming for you.

I received a question from Daniel Wilson in Los Angeles. “I keep hearing about shutter lag. Excuse my newbie status, but what the heck is that?

“Shutter lag,” that interminable span of time between the moment in time you press the shutter and the moment in time the camera actually captures the image. Shutter lag is commonly slow in consumer-level point and shoot cameras, but virtually instantaneous and non-existent in DSLR cameras. If your goal is to capture spur of the moment special and candid moments, you’ll have far greater success with the DSLR. This is especially important in wedding, sports and wildlife photography. Having access to that instant response in the shutter release is an absolutely essential must in such cases.

In cases where you are photographing landscapes, still life, architecture, portraits, etc., shutter lag is far less a concern.

All cameras sold after 2009 (even compact cameras) have relatively good performance in this area, but some are slower than others. You may want to try to test the shutter lag of any camera before you buy if you are concerned about such things.

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