What is Shutter Lag and How Can I Overcome It?

I have a small digital camera by Norcent. It is a 10 MegaPixels camera and takes pretty good pictures. But one thing that I really hate about it is shutter lag. So shooting action shots is very difficult to catch just the right moment. When trying to take pictures of my dog I get the position to take a great shot but by the time I press the shutter release button and the shutter actually fires in around a second. By then my dog has moved and I didn’t get the shot I was expecting.

Shutter lag is the time between when you press the shutter release button and your camera actually takes the photo. All digital cameras have some shutter lag especially the cheaper brands and models. It may be only a fraction of a second for the more expensive cameras to over a second for the cheaper brands.

To help with overcoming shutter lag you can first pre-focus your camera by pressing the shutter release half way down allowing your camera to focus. Next, holding the shutter release half way down until you are ready to take the photo. This will save you precious milliseconds that the camera takes to auto focus.

You could also use the focus lock feature of your camera to lock the focus on the spot where you plan to take the picture. This will reduce any lag time between the time you press the shutter release button and when your photo is actually taken.

Another help to overcoming shutter lag is to preset your camera’s white balance to match the scene that you are taking. You see, using auto white balance also requires the camera to make its own adjustment prior to actually shooting the photo.

Finally learn your camera’s shutter-lag delay so that you can compensate for it. Before you take an action photo, do a test of your camera paying attention to its lag time. Note how long it is so that you can “pre-shoot” to compensate for the lag.

Trying to take photos in action sports and you have the same problem. You can anticipate the action that you want to shoot but you have to add in the shutter lag of your camera. You have to give extra time when framing your shot, so that when you depress the shutter button, the photo will get taken at the precisely the right time.

Of course another option is to get a high end camera with a low shutter lag. That is the main reason that I purchased my Nikon D90 camera. Its shutter speed can be as low as 1/4000 second. Not only is the shutter fast but I can also shoot in continuous high speed mode at the rate of 4.5 frames per second. Now I get the shoot that I was expecting, at least most of the time. The Nikon D90 is really a great camera. I am still learning how to use it but don’t get the time to take a lot of pictures so it will take awhile to get fully familiar with the camera.

Jerry J. Jansen

Tags: Camera, Nikon, Shutter Log