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.