Does a digital SLR camera give real time shots?

Question

With many digital cameras, there is a split second delay between pushing the button and getting the picture....it is not fast in real time like a film camera. Are there digital SLRs that squeeze off in real time?

Answer 1

The "shutterlag" of a modern digital slr is so small that it's virtually insignificant.

For example, a Nikon D200 has only a 0.05 second (50-millisecond) shutter time lag.

Even a consumer-level Nikon D40 has a quick response of 0.26 seconds. That's approximately a quarter of a second between the press and the image capture.

Here's a link that gives a very detailed chart (with anotations) for current digital cameras.
http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/shutter-lag.html

Remember to compare apples to apples. An autofocus camera needs time for the mechanism to move the camera lens. A manual camera reduces that shutterlag significantly.

There's a marked difference between digital point & shoots and DSLR's, so don't compare the two.

Just a thought. I shoot sports and have my 35mm slr cameras sitting in bags at home. The speed of my Nikon DSLR's have served me well enough. You won't find any 35mm slr cameras courtside or on the sides of the playing fields today.

I hope this answers your question.

Answer 2

A DSLR will get you as close to real time as you can get before you capture full video. With most DSLRs you can shoot 5 FPS (some of the high end models shoot 10FPS).

I tried many of the non-DSLRs trying to capture my kids playing soccer. The shutter lag was frustrating. Then I borrowed a friend's DSLR. The difference was night and day. Within a week, my first DSLR arrived.

Since then, I've taken well over 10,000 pictures of my two kids and their team mates (halfway through my 3rd year as team photographers on two teams).

Best of luck!

Suggest you take a look at www.dpreview.com, fredmiranda.com and imaging-resource.com for reviews, advice and lots of general knowledge!

Answer 3

You can go to www.dpreview.com and read all the shutter-lag tests, but the Executive Summary is, they're instant.

Hope this helps.