While attempting to take pictures of friends using a rope wing, I noticed that timed action shots are difficult to do with slower digital cameras. I have found examples of burst photography, but it would appear difficult to fish through seven or so images to find the best one and free up space before the next person jumps. Which camera in the $300-$700 street price range will allow difficult shots like this to be taken, as well as high quality stills? Thanks

-- Robert Kennedy (R-Kennedy@uchicago.edu), November 22, 1999

Answers

Robert,

I have not read of any such studies, but the delay you are referring to is most often caused by the auto focus and film cameras have a similar problem. Digicams do take from 2-6 seconds to record images, but that is after the shot so would not be part of your problem unless you want to take several shots quickly. As far as I know, all digicams that have a burst mode actually record all images at the same time on sensor and thus each image takes up 1/8 or 1/9 of sensor space. This means they will have only 1/8 or 1/9 as many pixels as normal. That is, much less resolution.

To shoot quickly may mean getting a digicam with manual foucus capability so that you can focus ahead of time and not have a delay when you push the shutter button. I would try a variety of models and then select the one that best meets your needs.

Rodger

-- Rodger Carter (rodger.carter@wpafb.af.mil), November 24, 1999.

I found this to be a problem with my Canon PowerShot Pro 70. And I believe that it is the autofocus mechanism, as the previous writer described.

One solution is to try to pre-focus, if there is anything to focus on in your situation (I don't know what a rope wing is). With some autofocus mechanisms, if you can push the shutter button part way down and hold it there, the autofocus will do its thing and then the shutter will be tripped as soon as you press the button the rest of the way. The Canon definitely works that way - I don't know about other cameras.

-- Michael Bate (michaelbate@mediaone.net), November 28, 1999.

Robert, my experience with Canon, and i would think all digital cameras, is they are not good for action shots even with pre- focusing. the capture time is just too great. it's not like a film camera where capture is instantaneous once shutter trips. the action shot problem is a well kept secret by the industry.

-- Edwin Kehr (isoflavone@worldnet.att.net), December 02, 1999.