Marilyn,
A student who owns two digital cameras says when he pushes the shutter
release it takes the camera seconds to respond and he sometimes misses the
shot (I think I read something about this on PF). Does something need
setting on the camera? Is this normal for a digital camera? One of his
cameras is a Kodak, I forgot what the other is.
This is quite normal for "point-and-shoot" digital cameras. There is not much
that you can do about it although some of the cameras when set-up so that they
don't have to do a lot of computations before the picture is made are better in
this "time parallax" (I think that is what Norman Goldberg of Pop Photo many
moons ago called it) characteristic than others. In any case, the simpler the
better or more responsive the camera. I have an original QuickTake and it
seemed to respond very quickly (it had no auto exposure, no flash, no
auto-focus, and no LCD viewfinder). On the other hand, a Nikon 950,
significantly more expensive, took a significant time to actually make the
photograph after it was requested to do so!
I recall trying to make quick grab shots on Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras time
with a 950. Total disaster. Only got one good photograph out of maybe 50 or so
attempts. My friends with even something as rudimentary as a single use Kodak
or Fuji film camera with flash on the other hand ended up with many fun images.
Now that I have a DSLR the situation is much better. The response seems to be
about as good as with film cameras - best response is with autofocus turned
off of course.
andy
