> Posted by Ian Craigie
> Can I clarify the difference between any form of "lag" that a digital
> camera might have, and the time it takes for that image to be
> processed and stored (ie, moved from buffer to storage card)?
>
> I have a small Pentax digital Espio (330 I think...). When I go to
> take some shots with it, there is a definite lag between depressing
> the "shutter" release, and the capturing of the image. It may well
> have a form of "rapid serial image capture" (or "motor-drive" mode in
> analog lingo), but there is a definite delay between my seeing an
> image, tripping the release, and the camera's capture of that image. I
> have found this quite frustrating, and while I haven't used it to take
> too many wildlife shots, a child's smile may be just as fleeting!
It looks to be a 2001 high-end consumer camera, a broad step below the CP990 I started with. And yes, I am well aware of that lag. It would likely be far worse in your camera.
Speed shows up at each step. At exposure, how long does it take between the moment you put your finger on the shutter button to the time of making the exposure? How many shots can you take before having to pause while the camera writes to the card? How quickly does it write to the card?
Comparing your camera to the cameras under discussion would be the difference between a moderate-speed 2001 web-browsing home-computer and the high-power 2005 multi-media content-creation workstation I just had built.
Cameras like yours are set up to protect the consumer from himself. In most cases the shutter will not trip until the camera is fully in focus, for ex&le. Switching to “Continuous Focus†with the Coolpix cameras both sped up the process and allowed one to trip the shutter even if the camera itself was not satisfied with its focus.
By the time the CP5000 came on the market, one could turn all the protection off, and there were a few other things that could be done to make the response MUCH quicker. I found no problems whatever shooting “decisive moment†street shots and sports action, nailing the peak of action every time. See a number of ex&les – high-powered rocketry, volleyball and street. The lead shots were done with the old CP990.
http://www.larry-bolch.com/ephemeral/
Just like shooting action with a medium format SLR camera, one anticipates the mechanical lag while the large mirror is swung up, between the lens shutter closes and then opens again. A wee bit of practice and it becomes natural. Now with the CP8400, shutter lag is no more noticeable than with the Nikon F3. Gordon Moore’s Law at work. Realize that all cameras have lag. If you are accustomed to nailing the peak with an F3 and switch to a Leica, you will be ahead of the peak until you learn to cut your anticipation time rather substantially.
> Perhaps this is one of THE major differences between the smaller
> digital cameras, and larger, more expensive/sophisticated models such
> as the CP models or digital SLRs.
Two big factors – it is nearly three generations of digital technology since your camera was designed, and we are talking about higher end cameras. I expect that if you were to spend time with the current Pentax Optio 50, you would be amazed at how much better it is.
Theoretically, a Coolpix could be somewhat quicker than a SLR, since it has minimal mechanical parts. There is a lot of mechanical contraption that has to get its exercise when you push the button on an SLR. Still they present no problem for the extreme precision in timing that sports shooting demands.
I don’t expect super-fast Coolpix cameras soon. The old-line camera makers' 35mm cameras have long since paid for the machines and lines upon which dSLRs are made. Other than the digital components, I expect that they offer a very nice margin, and no company with any wisdom will compete with its own major profit centre.
> Again, I am trying to learn here, so
> am keen to read what you and others have to say. If a reviewer (Thom
> Hogan) suggests the S3 write speed " ...must be improved by at least
> 2x, preferably 3x. Once that's done, the buffer size needs to be
> re-evaluated, most notably for raw images...",
He may well be thinking of something like the D2H in comparison. Unless you know a reviewer’s biases, such statements can be quite misleading.
Every camera design involves a set of well defined compromises – whether for film or digital use. A mid-range, general purpose digital camera like the S3 will not have the picture quality of a 1Ds, nor the speed of a D2H. In fact a 1Ds does not have the speed of a D2H and a D2H has only a quarter of the pixels of a 1Ds.
Just as it is unfair to compare the interior of a race-car to a luxury sedan or the handling of a luxury sedan to a race car, it is equally unfair to compare a good family car to either. There are no absolutes, and the review is only meaningful when the full context is known.
At 16MP in CMOS and $8,000US for the body, one would expect the 1Ds to have an edge in picture quality. For an extra thousand or so above the Fuji, you get fast shooting beyond the needs of 99.99% of photographers on earth, but with only 4MP resolution. I expect the Fuji probably has a decent balance of economy, utility and picture quality. Like a mid-range family car, it may not have any extreme features, but serves the purpose very well. I know some S2 users who were well pleased by their cameras and have not heard any complaints from them.
>does that mean that a
> single shot will be captured instantly with tripping the shutter
> release, but it takes a little while for that information to be stored
> on the CF card, or does it mean there is an inherent delay in the time
> taken for the camera to actually capture the image, and so you get an
> image taken slightly AFTER you had intended? From your comment, Larry,
> I guess it is the former, but would appreciate correction if this
> understanding is incorrect.
To clarify. Once the exposure is made, there are two stages in storing the image file. Upon capture it is first written to the camera’s buffer, then written at leisure from the buffer to the card.
The buffer is very expensive, built-in high-speed RAM that instantly grabs the image from the processor which reads it from the sensor when you trip the shutter.
In your little Pentax, there is sufficient buffer to hold a maximum of two images at full quality JPEG. The upcoming D2Hs has enough buffer to capture some 50 frames of top quality JPEGS before filling. It can capture these images at the rate of eight shots per second.
Since your camera probably writes to the card at a maximum of 4x (compared to the speed of CD-ROM drives) and the D2Hs probably writes at 80X, it will clear its buffer very quickly. Much of the cost of a D2Hs is the huge buffer and the super-fast processor that writes to the card. Since it shoots almost the same size image as your little Pentax, this accounts for a substantial chunk of the five times price differential.
If you normally blow through a roll of 35mm film in three (24 exposures) or four seconds (36 exposures), this level of performance is certainly a prime consideration. If you are like the rest of us, it simply is of no relevance other than cost savings in not having it. Using the Fuji S3 as you have described should present no problems. If you do need to shoot a fast sequence, you can shoot at 2.5 frames a second for a dozen frames without stopping. No world-records set, but no need to do so in practical terms.
Again to put it in context. Shooting the high-powered rocket launches with the CP5k (on my site), I was shooting 3fps in three frame bursts. I got two or three shots of each rocket before it was gone. The CP5k has only enough buffer for three shots at the highest rate. At 1.5fps, I could shoot eight shots at full resolution and quality – which served me well for my sequences.
http://www.larry-bolch.com/ephemeral/
http://www.larry-bolch.com/sequences.htm
At the same resolution with the CP8400, I just tested and got 24 shots before the buffer filled – meaning a much larger buffer and much faster writes. When the buffer filled, I got the camera back again in less than five seconds – so I could make another shot. Of course, it would not allow another burst of two dozen until the buffer was clear - but as the images were moved from buffer to card, that space was immediately available again. This was holding down the button and shooting continuously until it paused - the equivalent of shooting a full roll on continuous motor drive.
Had I been picking my shots, it would be almost impossible to run out of buffer space at 5MP. The camera begins writing to the card the moment the first shot is in the buffer, and one can continue shooting while it writes. I expect that several exposures had already been written to the card by the time the buffer finally filled.
By slightly increasing compression or dropping to a lower resolution, I could extend this greatly. The camera offers eight different levels of resolution and four levels of JPEG compression, plus RAW and TIFF. Staying with the 5MP resolution, but going from 1:4 JPEG compression to 1:16, extended my continuous shooting from 24 to 73 pictures.
Worst case, shooting at extra-fine quality 1:2 JPEG at the full 8MP, I have enough buffer for five continuous shots and then one shot every three or four seconds until the buffer clears. Needless to say, this is not the setting I would choose for developing action.
> I use the motor drive in my film-based cameras exactly as you have
> suggested - to move the film on when capturing the image is a
> priority, and can't remember ever blazing away and hoping to capture
> something. I can well understand a PJ needing to do this, as the
> "decisive moment" may come and go too quickly for a single shot
In fact, the motor drive - if you c& on the button – wipes out any possibility of decisive moment except by pure chance. In two decades as a photojournalist, rapid sequence shooting was rarely relevant. With sports, there can be events happening in quick succession, but even then one generally picked the precise moment for exposure.
> technique, and the cost of film is nothing compared to improving your
> chances of capturing that single moment. However, because I usually
> have to carry all my film on my back, you become incredibly frugal -
> even if I could afford to buy limitless quantities of film, I'd still
> have to carry it up and down the hills (!), and the more shots you
> take with a motor-drive, the more film you have to carry...
And for a photojournalist, the more film you have to deal with as the deadline approaches. I often arrived at the darkroom with less than a half-hour to process, print and caption six or more assignments. There simply was not the time to contemplate hundreds of negatives with deadline upon one. In photojournalism, at least with a metropolitan daily paper, time MUST be an obsession.
> Despite my attempts at limiting the amount of gear and film carried,
> compared to my travelling companions who had their small, light,
> convenient "point and shoot" cameras, I was often thought crazy to
> carry an SLR kit on my travels - comments have been made here about
> this problem, and the CoolPix range seems a real answer to such
> problems. Perhaps wildlife photography is a little different, but just
> as you stated, I am well aware of the in-built "buffer" of a 36-frame
> film when shooting. I would regularly change a film a few frames early
> if there was a lull in the action, so as to increase my "buffer" for a
> time when the situation would become interesting again.
Exactly. Now I have a one-gigabyte card which will allow me to shot 81 8MP RAW format images. Switching to high-quality JPEGs extends this 260 or more at the Fine setting. Fast 1GB cards are less than $100US now with cards up to 4GB being available at roughly similar prices per byte. There are compact hard-drive based devices and CD/DVD burners for off-loading at the end of the day, so lugging a laptop is no longer absolutely necessary.
> However, some on this forum, and elsewhere, have suggested that even
> the newer CoolPix models (8400 and 8800) may have some inherent
> "delay" in image capture compared to an SLR-type model, such as the
> D70 or S3. I remember discussions on this forum regarding the
> "anticipation" of the "decisive moment", and while I can appreciate
> that experience is a wonderful "force multiplier" when hoping to take
> back the best shots possible, it must still be incredibly frustrating
> if (as with my Pentax) you press the shutter and know that you will
> not capture the image you had intended. I do not say that this is
> necessarily the case with a CoolPix model, but others have, and I
> wondered if this was the comment being made about the S3.
Everything is relative. You think an Aston Martin is quick until you drive an Ferrari Enzo. When you realize that you will just be using it for urban commuting and trips to the corner market, a Mini begins to look more practical. Just as with a D2Hs, you pay a great deal for potential performance you will never need to experience.
I do realize that bragging rights can be part of it. I expect a number of enthusiasts will suffer the obvious weaknesses of the D2H just to be able to say “50 shots at eight shots a secondâ€, just as some people who own Ferraris may rarely get them above 55 mph. My references are to photographers, not camera buffs.
Reviewers are not necessarily reviewing in real world terms. If speed and response are the only criteria, a motorized Nikon F6 beats an 8x10 view camera to the point of absurdity. If the pure photographic quality of a large print is the prime criteria, the garbage cans will be filling with Nikon F6 cameras. Context is everything.
> I also suggested that, if this was indeed the case, then this would be
> the reason for choosing both camera systems - a (potentially) more
> responsive SLR-based system for situations requiring this (such as
> wildlife shots), and a still highly-regarded, relatively compact model
> such as the 8800. With your experience, and from the shots on your
> website, Larry, I know you could capture the "decisive moment" with a
> box brownie, but just as a motor-drive advances the film and so
> removes one task from the process, I can imagine having a "more
> responsive" system makes it a little more likely to catch that moment,
> and a lot less frustrating!
Of course, speed is lovely. My playpen is ringed with digital technology. Amazing how quickly I bogged the new workstation. I want 2015 tech here and now. If I am still pushing pixels in the pixel mines of 2015, I know I will bog the fastest workstation I can get then too. The key is whether it is below or above the threshold of usability. Even though bogged all afternoon rendering 30 seconds of animation, I just returned to this keyboard after seeing the animation running and I am pleased. It gives no instant gratification, but it certainly renders a whole lot faster than any other machine.
Once I learned to optimize the CP990, it was well above the threshold for action shooting. Not ideal, but entirely adequate to do what ever I threw at it. Digital technology has shown that there will always be better devices two years from now. If you wait for it, you lose the advantage it gives you at present, and there will be technology twice as good coming two years after that. It is like planning a day's walk to the horizon. No matter now far or fast you walk, it is always the same distance away.
I don't think that the many-times-faster CP8400 will improve my timing significantly, nor would an even faster D2Hs. However, the faster cameras are more pleasant to use, being far more responisve. However, once above the threshold of usability, it becomes a matter of the photographer rather than the camera.
With my ultra-powerful workstation, it takes the same skill and time to do the models and set up the animation as it would working on this ancient PII 400MHz machine I use for e-mail. The task itself and an animators ability to do it is the bottleneck. The power simply means that I have to wait hours or a day or two to see it instead of days or weeks as it once did.
When a camera is adequate for decisive moment shooting - it IS adequate. More speed is a nice luxury, but it will not show up in the images. My CP8400 images benefit from ED glass, better processing and 8MP.
That it is fast enough to also display a real time histogram will also make a difference, but my timing was perfect with the CP990 and you can't get better than perfect. Looking over my exposures of the time, I don't see a single shot that was ruined or even diminished, by lag.
-*-
With a purchase this substantial, if you can not get your hands on equipment locally, it will be a wise investment to travel to a city where you can. I expect that any of the dSRLs will have a few milliseconds less lag than an optimized Coolpix.. However, knowing how to optimize in both set-up and shooting, I sense no significant lag.
By the way, box cameras with the simple direct mechanical connection between shutter and shutter button, probably have the least lag of any of these. ;-)
> You mention the "buffer" of your CoolPix 5000, Larry. Again, for my
> clarification, does this mean you can take multiple images, one after
> the other, just like a motor-drive, but each time the release is
> tripped you capture the image immediately?
Exactly. My camera has several “motor-drive†settings. I can shoot it continuously just by holding down the shutter release and letting it run, or I can trip it for individual shots. The experience is just like the motor drive on my Nikon F3.
> Or does it mean that you
> can still take multiple images, but that the image capture occurs
> slightly AFTER the "intended" moment? I do NOT need 8 fps shooting,
> but would be VERY keen on capturing the moment I see in the
> viewfinder, and not one that occurs a few milliseconds later.
No camera – not even the Leica which is probably second only to the box camera – has zero lag. Just like leading a clay pigeon with a shotgun, you always shoot just before the action reaches the point where you need the exposure to occur. Shooting with a Nikon F3, I use a LOT more lead than with a Leica. Shooting with a Bronica ETR, I use a LOT more lead than with a Nikon F3. Shooting with my newish CP8400, I use about the same lead I would with the F3. This does not mean that the Leica is the better camera - all it means is that the photographer must cut back on lead time for the shorter lag. Once one becomes accustomed to the lag, dealing with it becomes hardly conscious. I moved among my cameras, even switching between the slow Bronica and fast Nikon, nailing peaks with either. A matter of fluency with your equipment - all it takes is practice.
With any camera - if you see the peak of action - you have missed it. No camera in the world shoots the moment you press the shutter. Whatever the lag, as long as it is consistent, it really matters little. It just takes a bit of experience with the specific camera.
Now we are talking just milliseconds of difference – but enough difference that you see the ball coming off the racket vs no ball in the picture. You see Pires bouncing off Rooney’s elbow with the pain showing on one face and the devilish expression on the other, or just a cliché shot of the referee waving the yellow card with a Frenchman languishing on the pitch after the fact. In other words, the difference between a picture that will be used and one which will never be seen.
> It may be that I have misunderstood others comments about the CoolPix
> and the S3 models, and so I would be happy to have others correct me
> if this is the case. It may be that the image capture of a
> recent-release CoolPix or S3 would be absolutely no problem at all. If
> a camera can catch the image I see through the viewfinder, then that's
> fine, but if (as with my little Pentax) it takes the image a
> split-second later, then that would be a serious limitation in my
> mind.
I have a well optimized group of basic settings to make my Coolpix cameras as responsive as possible. I also use a shooting technique that erases the rest of the noticeable lag. I am not sure it works with the Pentax, but it worked even with the CP990 that was many times slower than the CP8400. You can frame your jackal in the viewfinder and press the shutter half-way down. It will focus, set the exposure and lock it. When the jackal gives you the look you want, a tiny bit more pressure on the shutter nails it.
With everything on automatic, it does not even begin focusing until you put pressure on the shutter. Most of the lag is in the time it takes to lock onto focus. Coolpix cameras can be set to continuously focus and constantly adjust the exposure, which cuts the lag dramatically. On continuous focus, one can trip the shutter before the camera is in focus.
With the tiny sensors and extremely short lenses, depth of field is enormous. It is actually difficult to take an out-of-focus image. I did rely on this with the CP5k and never got an unsharp shot.
It really does not work well with the CP8400, since it focuses so quickly that it is generally ahead of me. New to the CP8400 is predictive focus. While you are framing the shot, it is guessing. When you press the shutter, it only refines. Even when it is protecting you, it is very quick. I expect the S3 would be even quicker. Still, even with the speed of a D2H or 1D MkII, it is the photographer's timing that is the critical element.
larry!
http://www.larry-bolch.com/
ICQ 76620504
