Trying to understand camera specs

[dzikiewicz]

I am looking into buying a digital camera. I notice that lots of people have cameras that take a long time to 'recharge' after taking pictures. I want to buy a camera that can take many shots in a row without having to wait for the camera to recharge for the next picture. So, my question is how do I know that I am getting a camera that can perform this way by reading the specs. What do I look for in camera specs that tells me the a camera will take one shot right after the other without considerable lag time ? I would imagine that with and without flash make a difference. Aside from going to a store and trying one out, I am researching online first and I am looking at specs, but I dont know what to look for. Can someone enlighten me on how to read the camera specs for this feature.
Thanks

[David Metsky]

Look for "continuous" or "burst" shooting mode. It will have a measure of number of fps, or frames per second. For example, the SD700 takes 2.1 fps in burst mode.

That means that if you hold the shutter down, it'll capture a shot roughly every .5 seconds as long as you want. That is assuming the memory card is fast enough to keep up, but that's not hard to do in todays P&S cameras. Memory is pretty fast. In some cases you'll see a higher burst mode for a short time, like 5 fps up to 15 shots.

During these shots, the camera isn't reseting the focus, it just shoots with the same settings over and over. Reaquiring focus and setting the apature and shutter speed take time so the camera uses the first setting.

If the camera needs to flash, all bets are off. It takes several seconds to recharge the flash, so usually you can't do flash in burst mode.

For regular mode, look for a spec for "shot-to-shot" measured in seconds.

-dave-

[Christian]

Not to sure about P&S cameras, but if your getting a dSLR you'd be able to get off faster recycle times using an external(hotshoe)flash with a power pack. Also, with the dSLR you can put it into AI Servo(Canon) or Continuous(Nikon) so it'll keep focusing while the camera is moving, i.e. sports/wildlife photography.

As Dave said, just get a fast card and you should be sorted providing the cameras write speed is also fast enough so the buffer doesn't get clogged.

Good luck.

[patrickt]

The continuous or burst mode is generally expressed in reviews as so many frames per second in a specific resolution or file format up to a specific limit of shots. If you're shooting low-res JPEG you can obviously store shots more quickly than if you're shooting hi-res or raw.

[Rhys]

I am looking into buying a digital camera. I notice that lots of people have cameras that take a long time to 'recharge' after taking pictures. I want to buy a camera that can take many shots in a row without having to wait for the camera to recharge for the next picture. So, my question is how do I know that I am getting a camera that can perform this way by reading the specs. What do I look for in camera specs that tells me the a camera will take one shot right after the other without considerable lag time ? I would imagine that with and without flash make a difference. Aside from going to a store and trying one out, I am researching online first and I am looking at specs, but I dont know what to look for. Can someone enlighten me on how to read the camera specs for this feature.
Thanks

Recharge? Are you talking about the flash?
My understanding is that all flashguns need time to recharge, depending on the amount of power they're using for each flash. IE, something close will need less flash than something further away so will use less of the charge and will hence require less recharging.

If you're talking about the number of photos you can take in a row before the buffer fills up then don't worry. Unless you're shooting sport then you probably won't need more than 2 frames a second. Personally, I used to shoot sport with 35mm and a motordrive but I never used to put it into continuous - too asteful of film. I got better photos by predicting when the action would occur