I never said you were full of shit, I said that statement was a crock of shit. Different thing.

Cheers

Cris

I wasn't actually. I assumed that was some kind of joke, therefore my light reply.

But the very fact you think it may have been, kind of proves my point. You like to make wide fleeting statements of fact and then defend then even in the face of stronger counter evidence. I don't know why you choose to right that way but you do. Sometimes, just sometimes people are going to pull you up on it. And even though you may twist words to make out that they are making a personal attack it doesn't mean your original point is still correct. Or the manor in which you made it acceptable.

Cheers

Cris

I think you're wrong there. I find these threads fascinating.

Part of the reason I haven't been here much was the lack of participation on this BBS. Specifically, the people I'm personally interested in hearing from. They've mostly moved on in some way, so there are other avenues of communication.

I have a theory that you've always been posting your opinion as fact, but as people left the BBS, it became harder to ignore. You're currently one of the most prolific posters here. Unfortunately, I feel like I have to fact-check almost anything you say. I can't be the only one.

I used to have this BBS in my bookmarks bar. It isn't anymore. Like I said, there are other factors, but a big one is some of the ridiculous things I see posted here. Just so you know, I'm not singling you out and I don't think Cris is either. The board has become something else over the last few years and it's not as interesting. In my opinion, these camera threads have been the best thing since the Rio Karma launch.

He speaks, the voice of reason

Thank you Rob.

Cheers

Cris

I've used that a lot for tethered shooting. It's a great bit of software, but like you say, it doesn't really do bramping.

The framerate in the viewfinder is the full res capture resolution; it is not the same as LCM refresh, which is fixed at 60Hz. When I say "zero shutter lag", I mean it to refer to it capturing the exact content of the viewfinder when the button is released.

The experience of a user seeing something they want to capture but inexplicably (to them) missing is very frustrating, and something that needed to be dealt with appropriately - in this case by ensuring the image capture and processing pipeline was seriously oversized compared to what other people shipped.

Obviously, what's on the screen will be delayed vs the light hitting the sensor, as the frame has to be sampled, stream out, de-bayer'ed and stored. Scaling is something that happens on the way to the LCM, so that's not another step.

Flash is obviously a big delay because a wimpy LED flash needs to be on for many tens of milliseconds to illuminate the scene.

Possibly I should have prefixed my comment about zero lag with the above, but even an SLR almost certainly has in the same order of "real world->capture" lag due to moving the mirror and so on.

As noted earlier in this thread, a pre-focussed point-and-shoot also has really low "lag". But it sounds like the 4S really does something well there.

Operationally, I don't know how much of a real-life difference it makes -- literally, I don't know because I've never used the 4S's camera. But I would guess that if I started with the phone in my pocket, and pulled it out for a "snap", the total time taken might be a few seconds longer than doing the same action with a dedicated camera.

That's a form of lag that matters to me, as well as the actual "shutter release" lag.

Cheers

It sounds like a good guess, but it would be wrong. With the new lock screen button and the 4S's extra speed, I can take it out of my pocket, focus and take a shot in just under 3 seconds.

And the phone is always on and doesn't have a zoom lens to deploy (obviously a minus point too). And it is small enough to have in my pocket, where as most "compact" camera that are worth carrying aren't really at home in my jeans pocket.

I'm not claiming that the 4S has image quality to rival mid range and above compacts, but it is very fast.

I was going to pull out some numbers to compare against recent compacts, but dpreview seem to have stopped measuring auto focus and shutter performance ?

I really would like to be able to delete images from Photo Stream though

Mmm.. that's quick.

I really hope that Apple add a dedicated shutter button to the next iPhone, that would make it even quicker. Though I'd be surprised if they do.

I'm quite happy with the improvement in "from pocket to picture" time iOS 5 and the 4S brought. This is also an improvement I partially attribute to the competition in the mobile space. One of the priorities for Windows Phone 7 was this speed. They solved it by enforcing a dedicated camera button on every phone. If the device is asleep, even with a pin lock, pressing and holding the button caused the device to go into picture taking mode. The button also had the two stage action most point and shoot cameras have. This competition, along with user feedback likely helped to improve things for iOS users.

It's a fine line between copying another idea with the understanding of why it was a good idea, vs blindly copying everything, but not copying well enough to keep the spirit of the idea alive.

With flash, and focus from my pocket I can get it to just over 5 seconds. Without the flash I'm at a shade over 3 seconds like Andy. Once pre-focused I am also able to continue to take pictures at what feels like 2fps (without flash) which I think is quite impressive, and one of the things I loved the most while doing the little fashion shoot with it.

Over all it's an impressive bit of technology that is my pocket where ever I go, and I never forget to have it with me. No compact camera can beat it on that score!

Edit - I should also point out that the camera app wasn't already running when working out those timings, so included opening the app itself.

Cheers

Cris

In ios5 the volume+ button is the shutter button now. No half press to focus though.

I know, but it practice it isn't very useful. It is on the wrong side of the phone for how I hold it when taking photos. And you can use it to speed up the picture taking process. Ideally if you pressed and held it, it would unlock, focus and take the picture. As it is now you have to unlock, wait for it to focus and only then can you press the physical button to take the shot.

I also find I get more camera shake when using it, especially compared to pressing the on screen shutter button and sliding off to the side while keeping your finger on the screen.