New camera with low shutter lag and fast shot-to-shot?

[lamboe80]

My wife and I are expecting our first baby in three months. Our old digital camera takes horrible indoor pictures, and it is time for a new one. The main thing we are looking for is a very low/no shutter lag and a really fast shot-to-shot speed. And for myself, I want to be able to leave the shutter open for 30 seconds or more for star gazing pics.

I'll copy and paste the questionaire from the stickied thread:

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Under $300, but preferably under $250.

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Size doesn't matter.

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you? At least 4 megapixels

* What optical zoom will you need? Standard 3x-4x

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10) 9

Do you care for manual controls? Yes, I want manual controls.
General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for? Indoor pictures (low light?) of our new baby to share with family.

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not? Occasional big prints.

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos? Yes

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos? Yes, occasional. I'm a golfer.

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate? No.

Are there particular models you already have in mind? Canon A95, and Kodak EasyShare DX7630. The review for the EasyShare said that Noise could be a problem.

I would be grateful to anyone that could make a good recommendation. Thanks!

[lamboe80]

shutter lag and shot-to-shot speed are the most important in my search. what are the fastest cameras on the market under $300? I've discovered that the Fuji F10 is extremely fast. With soem searching I might find one under $300. To anybody that may have an F10, how much control do you have over manual features?

Any other recommendations?

[PhotoMom]

I'm new at this, but I am also looking for a camera that has fast shot-to-shot action so I don't miss the pose before my kids move, and so I can take a few sequential shots without a long lag. Any suggestions?

[cdifoto]

I'm new at this, but I am also looking for a camera that has fast shot-to-shot action so I don't miss the pose before my kids move, and so I can take a few sequential shots without a long lag. Any suggestions?

Any point & shoot digital camera will have lag between pressing the shutter button and it actually firing. This is because the shutter isn't mechanical like a dSLR (think: interchangeable lenses) camera. To minimize the lag, depress the shutter button halfway to lock focus then fire when ready.

To have *almost* no delay, get a dSLR and half-depress the shutter to lock focus and fire when ready.

Your needs are the same needs folks upgrade from Point-And-Shoot cameras to the dSLR cameras. Unfortunately there are no dSLRs under $300 new.

[JCnumber9]

I was looking for instant shutter, too, for getting pictures of my son. I went to a big box store with a large selection and just started pushing shutters. Of the ones that worked, under $300 (my max price), the Sony DSC-W5 was by far the fastest.

When I tested it at home, it was slower because of low light conditions, but that seems to be the case across the board. I also since have tried an HP R817 that is equally fast.

Good luck!