What should I look for when buying a good digital camera? I want one that wont hesitate when I push the flash button. There is nothing more annoying than waiting for a pic to get taken. Thanks! Flash is one factor that causes the dreaded 'shutter lag'. The other is focusing and the nature of most point & shoot digitals. The only ones that don't lag for certain are DSLRs.
A DSLR will also allow you the maximum flexibility with interchangeable lenses and the full support of a professional system. My personal favorite for beginners (and not-so-beginners) is the Nikon D40.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm
Check out the performance.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/d40...
Look at what happened when it was handed to the folks in this town.
http://www.stunningnikon.com/picturetown...
Hope this is helpful. In some cases the hesitation is due to auto-focus/exposure choices the camera is making before shooting. You can often change your options to reduce this lag time.
Most new cameras can be plenty fast with the auto-flash crap turned off. Anything at or above 5-6 megapixel will be sharp enough for the average person. If you pre-focus by pressing the shutter button half-way down while aiming at your subject - or where you anticipate your subject will be when you want to take the picture - it will help considerably. You can set your camera in "Sport" mode or "Scenery" and this will minimize the lag. If you do not use the flash, it will help. If you turn off "face detection," it will help. If you turn off the LCD monitor and use the viewfinder only, it will help. If you use the continuous shooting mode for a burst of 4 or 5 shots, there will be no pre-focus in between those shots. For most point and shoot cameras, this will give you 1.5-to-2 frames per second, but you can't use flash.
Some point and shoot cameras are better than others. I have a Canon Powershot SD900 that seems quite fast to me. If you go to http://www.dpreview.com and read the reviews (once they are available for the cameras you are considering), you can go to the page called "Performance" and see exactly what the tested shutter lag is, as well as several other performace benchmarks.
Here's a link showing a chart of various cameras and their shutter lag as well as the time it takes to shoot five frames. You will not see any DSLR's listed, because they have no shutter lag. If you click on the column heading, such as "One Shot," the chart will sort according to that measurement.
http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-la...
Here's a list of five good cameras with brief shot-to-shot delays of less than 1.5 seconds (in good light) each: http://www.cnet.com.au/digitalcameras/ca...
Canon Powershots SD850-IS and SD750, Sony Cybershots DSC-T100 and DSC-W55, Kodak Easyshare C875. | 