A FAST compact needed? Any suggestions?

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Snapshot26

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Marc
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Hi,

I need to get a new compact but im really frustrated by the speed of them. I brought a £250 sony a few years ago based on good reviews, but its so slow that by the time you have pressed the button to the time it takes the photo the moment has passed. I upgraded to the fasted speed memory card but that didnt make much difference. So time to get another i think.

I mainly only use my compact camera for parties and nights out so it needs to be good in low light.

I want something thats easy to work (just pull out and go) and reacts fast to capture the shot.

Any ideas or suggestions very welcome. Many thanks.
 
That is shutter lag and has nothing to do with the memory card (speed of memory card only matters once the shot has been taken and is writing it to memory)
A lot of compacts have a good bit of shutter lag. If you research "shutter lag times" for the various options it will help you get what you require.
 
GF1 and a 20mm prime.... alternately, some compacts have a high ISO mode which gets grainy, low resolution shots - but importantly they're sharp. Alternately, use the flash with a little bit of rizla paper over it or similar (milk bottle plastic is another goodie) which softens the light.

The V1/J1 are good here, especially with the prime, but they're more than your possibly willing to pay. For that money, unless you specifically want the tiny form factor, you might prefer a low end DSLR and a low light prime such as the D3100 and the 35mm f/1.8. be aware that the DSLR combo is much, much larger than the other options here.
 
The Panasonic TZ series does seem to offer good shutter lag speeds from reviews. Im curently looking at that and the Nikon S8200, though the reviews on amazon give the nikon excellent reviews, the pro reviewers are less than keen.
 
Snapshot26 said:
Hi,

I need to get a new compact but im really frustrated by the speed of them. I brought a £250 sony a few years ago based on good reviews, but its so slow that by the time you have pressed the button to the time it takes the photo the moment has passed.
Click to expand...

The problem is that some are slow to meter and focus so if you can take some or all of that away from the camera it'll get faster.

bj.jpg


I took this with a Panasonic LX2 in manual using zone focus. If you can set the camera up it'll take shots basically as fast as you can press the shutter button. I have my phone camera set to focus on infinity and it too can take a pretty much instant shot.

So, maybe your best plan would be to look at a camera with manual controls so you can set the focus and / or exposure?
 
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