i don't like shutter lag either. but, given that our reaction time varies from 1/10 to 1/4 sec. (ever play the start/stop stop watch game? my personal best 0.09), what is the problem with 90msec delay?

one shouldn't jab at the shutter button anyway, correct? squeeze.

-- steve (leitz_not_leica@hotmail.com), May 14, 2002

Answers

The problem is that the human reaction time and the shutter delay are sequential, not coincident. That means that the shutter delay starts after the human reaction is complete. If each delay is 1/10 second, then the total delay is 1/5 sec. Squeezing makes a difference to the steadiness of the results, but a squeeze can be as fast as a jab, especially if the trigger slack (sorry, shutter slack) is already taken up.

Shutter delay is a real issue, especially when you're trying to shoot fleeting expressions. All else being equal, I prefer a camera that fires as soon as mechanically possible after I tell it to. I can certainly tell the (minor) delay difference between my Hexar and a Leica, and it's one of the things that keeps me coming back to my Leica.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), May 14, 2002.

As a trapshooter, I think my experience in timing is completely fitting here. How can I time the pulling of the trigger with the barrels passing in front of the (clay) bird? Dunno, the brain just does it. If my triggers had a 90ms time delay... I'd never hit a bird once in a million years.

Its just about the same thing in photography - you instinctively get the button pushed at the moment you desire (some practice is needed, but not much). Add that 90ms and your timing is all off, and I'm not sure our brains can see much ahead with timing (or at least without a LOT of practice).

Same thing holds true for guitar players... how does the left hand finger depress the string just an instant before the right hand plucks it? I've seen some experiments from Sermons from Science, where they put earphones on a musician that gave everything about a 1/4 second delay. They could not play, nor recite anything as simple as Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The mental processes that we deal with, are just not suited to long timing being part of the calculation for precision events.

Or... maybe I'm just not seeing this right, dunno...

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 14, 2002.

i thought of the timing/anticipation issue.

ever notice how black powder guns have a delay in firing? they still managed to kill.

i hate the 700msec of point-and-shoots, but 90 being a problem? btw, what is the hexar doing for these 90msec?

-- steve (leitz_not_leica@hotmail.com), May 14, 2002.

i really really wanted to like the hexar. paid a premium for an early one, ordered a VERY expesive case from kameraleder, etc. in the end, however, i just couldn't stand the fact that it waited what seemed like forever to fire sometimes. my keeper percentage really dipped. i struggled with it for six mos and then finally gave up -- sold it and the case for a loss. i don't know what 90 miliseconds is, but it does make a difference -- at least to me.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), May 14, 2002.

Ah smokepoles... easy to shoot from the bench at a stationary target. Stand and shoot at a stationary target, things get a little more exciting, and more exciting as the target is smaller/more distant. Now make that standing, and small distant target... and they're downright a pain.

Similarly, the 90ms delay is fine on a tripod, when the subject is a bowl of fruit. Make that subject a moving bobsled passing at 80mph, and you're missing shots.

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 14, 2002.

oops, it should read ".....small distant _moving_ target...."

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 14, 2002.

Guess all those sports photographers (whose SLRs generally have longer than 90ms lags) aren't really getting the shots. I'd guess they are taking the video, picking out single frames, and saying that they used a camera.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), May 14, 2002.

very good point Jeff. even with pelical type motor drive cameras - the world record being 13fps the lag would be 1/13 sec, you all do your own conversion.

-- steve (leitz_not_leica@hotmail.com), May 14, 2002.

Charles: what is the delay, in milliseconds, in a good boxlock between releasing the sear and ignition? And between ignition and the roughly 1350 fps (but only at the muzzle) spread of 8s reaching the clay from the 16 yard line? I can't guess the total distance because I don't know how fast you are. But what's the additive delay you are really coping with?..............

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 14, 2002.

Lock time .010 to .015 seconds, barrel time about .003 seconds.

An excellent lock time would be under .010 seconds I hear, but I'm not in that shotgun league.

Time of flight is built into the amount you lead the shot... I'm not sure if applies. So, the comparison is about .018 seconds vs about .108 seconds (with the 90ms added).

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 14, 2002.

The question I posed for Charles was a lowdown, trick question. Actually the mean velocity of a trap load of 7 1/2s over 40 yards is about 900 feet per zsecond, so even without incliding anything at allfor the process of ignition, if he is breaking his birds at 30 yards he has learned to cope with a 100 millisecond delay.............

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 14, 2002.

and I wouldn't worry about the shotgun league you're in : Rudy Etchen used a Remington pump

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 14, 2002.

Now hold on... I shoot Dove and Quail #7-1/2's or #8's (cheaper here than reloading!). Those are closer to the 1350fps!

But the point is, we visualize the lead, based on what we know. If we suddently said.. the gun will fire nearly another 1/10th second after you pull the trigger, it would be bad .

Now why do I get the feeling that you know what I'm talking about, and are only playing devil's advocate here?

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 14, 2002.

/My typo: should have been 30, not 40 yards. I do reload and have chronographed a bit. Round shot it a ballistic stinker which looses its velocity pretty rapidly, especially past 30 yards. I'm probably a slow shooter by trap standards -I shot mostly skeet- but my understanding is that breaking birds at about 20 yards out from the house is about par. So a shooter would be breaking his birds at about 36 yards with a very slow projectile and doing it all by a form of anticipation expressed as swinging through the target at various speeds. What a miracle! Similarly I believe we learn to anticipate our camera's shutter, one of the things Gjon Mili meant by "The camera you know is the camera you like".

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 14, 2002.

and yes, if you handed me a camera with a radically slower shutter i'd be hopeless, but only for a while........

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 14, 2002.

Get we get back to things everyone here understands? :-)

AFAIK our brain learns pretty fast to deal with moving objects: if we watch fast-moving objects, e.g. tennis balls, we actually perceive them where they will be approx. 80 ms later. We actually see the ball (or clay target) not where it is but where it is supposed to be an instant later.

Wrt to sports photography, anticipation's the word. We learned to press the shutter release an instant before the action peaks. This actually means (at least for me) a new camera needs some training until you get it right.

-- -- (Oliver.Schrinner@campus.lmu.de), May 15, 2002.

I think muscial instruments are a good analogy here. I am a bass player (both upright and electric), and I've often wondered how it is, with the delays built into the human nervous system, that musicians can play with such precision. I think you have to learn to "play" your camera like an instrument, and the shorter the delay, the better. I know the Hexar has a longer delay than the M6, but with all the noises going on before and after the shutter release, it's hard to know exactly when the shutter is open. Try putting a Hexar on B some time and sort out the sounds. Perhaps some people are counting sounds after the shutter is open (motorized recocking, second curtain, even film winding) as part of the delay.

When MIDI controllers first appeared for basses, allowing a regular bass to operate a synthesizer, the delays were awful. They are still bad. I remember one saleman trying to tell me that the random length of the delay could be used as a "creative tool." I guess one could then argue that the long delay of digital point and shoot creates an environment in which our preconceived notions of the moment we want the picture taken are replaced with a more spontaneous choice facilitated by the mechanical and electronic isolation of the artist from direct control of the apparatus. I'm sure that would sell in a pretentious gallery, but I just want the camera to fire as soon as possible when I push the button. Now if I could only find a way to get my Leica frame as accurately as a good SLR, I'd have exactly what I want, when I want it.

-- Masatoshi Yamamoto (masa@nifty.co.jp), May 15, 2002.

One related thing that puzzles me: Over the years I've worked with probably dozens of editorial and news photographers who seemed to have no trouble at all handling M-Leicas and (usually Nikon) SLRs at the same time, switching back and forth during the same shoot with no apparent difficulty. So presumably the brain is capable of storing nore than one set of anticipatory instructions?........

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 15, 2002.

The shutter lag is over exaggerated feature from Leica propagation. To some extend they are shooting into their own feet, the Leica R camera. Do they suggest that the Leica R is less useful camera because the shutter lag which is longer than that of an Leica M camera?
I have missed shot for using my digit camera, Canon G1, which I must half pressed my shutter, hold and paused for a short while (may be 1/3 of a second) and fully pressed the shutter. I can feet the shutter lag of my P&S, Olympus Stylus Epic which the lens only travels and sets when I fully press the shutter, but I can never tell that I miss any shots because the AF and shutter lag.
For practical use, I can never tell the difference the of shutter lag from any of my Leica M, Konica Hexar RF, and my SLR cameras.
More often I found my self to miss shots in between film loading/unloading/rewinding, manual film advancing by using my Leica M6. I feel much relieved by using my Hexar RF now.
More often I found I trip the shutter either too earlier or too late by using any camera. For the auto film advancing, I may still, in a good chance, make up the shot which I missed.
Regardless how fast is the shutter lag, the eyes may blink during the duration of the shutter opening, for instance 1/125 sec. I may know that when using my RF but not my SLR cameras. In short, the shutter lag may exist but it play very little role in my picture taking.

-- kenny chiu (gokudo31@hotmail.com), May 15, 2002.