Digital Lag: Capturing Your "Kodak Moment"
With digital cameras, capturing a "Kodak Moment" has never been
so easy... and so hard.
It's never been so easy because with our digital cameras we can
basically snap away like madmen with a machine gun and see right
there and then whether we've captured the moment.
But it's also never been so difficult because of the annoying
thing known as "shutter lag."
Shutter lag is a digital phenomenon, and refers to the time
between the moment that you hit the button to take the picture
and the moment that the camera actually captures the image. Lag
time can reach nearly 2 seconds! That's like an eternity when
trying to capture a moment. I mean I've seen my children go from
laughing to crying in that amount of time!
On film cameras there really isn't any lag, but on many digital
models (though not the more expensive SLRs), the lag is
considerable. Considerable enough to mean the difference of
capturing the moment and not.
The truth is, as much experimenting as you want to do and as
much as you want to spend on equipment, taking pictures is all
about capturing moments. Miss the moment and it doesn't matter
what kind of camera you have.
I once went to a friend's to see his wedding pictures. He showed
me the pictures shot by a professional using the best camera,
flash, lighting system and other equipment. Then he showed by
the pictures taken by friends and family with disposal cameras
and average digital cameras. Though the professional took better
quality pictures, the friends caught much better moments.
I'll take a captured moment over quality any time. I recently
went to a birthday party with my children. My youngest daughter
was having a blast, smile painted on her face. I kept trying to
take pictures of her, but when I looked at the screen, all I was
left with was an arm or wisp of hair as she had moved away by
the time the camera captured (or missed) the moment.
I believe without a doubt the #1 Rule in photography is Get the
Shot. So what to do about this pesky shutter lag problem.
Digital cameras work by first pressing the shutter button half
way to focus and then fully depressing to take the picture.
What you can do is if you know you are getting read to take a
picture is:
1. Turn off all automatic features like red-eye reduction 2.
Focus on your subject a couple of seconds before you know you
want to take the picture, wait for your Kodak moment, and then
take the picture.