Shutter Lag-Time The shutter lag-time on this camera seems quite long to me. I have read the manual that came with the book as well as a "short course" book on the G6 and this isn't really mentioned. I am wondering if this is a problem unique to my camera or if others have noticed this. In "AUTO" mode it is the worst. Am I missing something, or is this just the way the camera operates?

This "shutter lag" is a common situation with most compact point&shoot cameras. The camera has to do a lot of work when you press the button, including acquiring focus, metering the exposure, and switching the circuitry from displaying on the screen to recording to memory. More sophisticated (and more expensive) cameras have more hardware to reduce this lag.

You can reduce the shutter lag by anticipating the action. Press the shutter release button halfway to focus and meter. Keep it pressed halfway until the right moment and then press it the rest of the way.

No. The shutter lag is due to the camera needing to focus and meter the light. The size of the memory card makes no difference to the speed. A faster memory card might let you take another picture quicker, but the difference would only be a small fraction of a second.

Shutter lag is simply a fact of life for most point&shoot cameras. You can reduce it somewhat by anticipating the action, pressing the shutter release button halfway to focus and meter, then pressing the button the rest of the way when the action peaks.

Use Extreme Memory Card.

This is "shutter lag," the delay between pressing the shutter release button and the camera actually taking a picture. This is a common situation with many compact cameras. The camera has to focus on the subject, meter the exposure, and switch the circuitry from displaying on the screen to recording the image and saving it in memory. More sophisticated (and expensive) DSLRs eliminate this shutter lag by having more dedicated hardware for this.

With a compact camera, you can reduce the shutter lag by anticipating the shot. Press the shutter release button halfway to focus and meter the exposure. Continue to hold the shutter release button halfway until the right time, then press it the rest of the way.

You need to press the shutter button half-way and allow the camera to lock in the focus before you press the rest of the way. This eliminates "shutter lag".

First of all, all point and shoot cameras suffer from "shutter lag". You can Google that for more info. To minimize it, press the shutter button half-way and lock in the focus. Then, press the rest of the way when the time is right. Your camera will be about 0.5 to 0.8 seconds behind the actual press of the button.

After the focus is confirmed, the Shutter-release time lag for the DiMAGE E201 is approximately 0.4 second. If the shutter-release button is depressed in a quick motion without making any pause to confirm focus, approximately 1.9 second is necessary.

Card speed won't interfere with shutter lag. The lag is much less (near non-existent) if you pre-focus. Or use manual focus with small enough aperture to get lots of depth of field. Make sure your kids are in the focus zone and just snap away.

I don't know what your measurement conditions were, but there's no way the shutter lag after focus is 1/2 second. I don't have a quantitative number at my finger tips, but it surely falls into the "instantaneous" category, as far as I can tell. I've taken plenty of action shots and candids, including shots of flying birds, that will back that up

Thats going to be a problem with most digital cameras in that price range (and even some $$ ones) really the only thing I can recommend is PF.F.S. That would be Pre-Focus -- Frame -- Shot. Many people try to frame a photo up then focus/shot all in one, but this does not always work. So if your looking to speed things up a little, just half press the button to get a prefocus and then do your magic. Really everything I talked about above was Focus-lag, not actually shutter lag. But since this is often confussed I thought I would add it in.