Shutter lag


In photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded, which includes all lag between when the shutter button is pressed and when the photo is taken, including metering and focus lag. it can be mitigated to an extent by pre-focusing and readying for action.

Film cameras

In film cameras, the delay is caused by the mechanism inside the camera that opens the shutter, exposing the film. Because the process is mechanical, however, and relatively brief, shutter lag in film cameras is often only noticeable to professionals. SLRs have a slight additional lag due to the time it takes to move the mirror out of the way.

Digital cameras

Shutter lag is much more of a problem with digital cameras, although higher cost models tend to have less lag.
The comet-tail artifact that early CCD sensors suffered from was significantly reduced by the invention of the pinned photodiode. It was invented by Nobukazu Teranishi, Hiromitsu Shiraki and Yasuo Ishihara at NEC in 1980. The "pinned photodiode" is a photodetector structure used in almost all charge-coupled device and CMOS image sensors due to its low noise, high quantum efficiency and low dark current. In 1987, the PPD began to be incorporated into most CCD devices, becoming a fixture in consumer electronic video cameras and then digital still cameras. The PPD has since been used in most CCD sensors and then CMOS sensors.
Improvements in technology, such as the speed, bandwidth and power consumption of processor chips and memory, as well as CCD technology and then CMOS sensors, have made shutter lag less of a problem. While digital SLRs have achieved lag times around 50 ms by the late 2000s, some EVILs take half as long in the 2010s. That said, the lag times of some exceptional historic devices are still unsurpassed, see table below.

Examples of various shutter lag times

Note that cameras offer increasingly varied choices of fully mechanical shutter, first-curtain electronic shutter, or fully electronic shutter. This is paired with either autofocus, fully manual focus, or prefocus. Typically, prefocus + EFCS results in the shortest shutter lag.
This table quotes the shortest possible lag time of the respective camera. Note that variations may occur between manufacturer-claimed times and real-world measurements. In the case of follow-up versions of cameras, it is usually save to assume identical performance unless explicitly stated otherwise in press releases or comparisons.
CameraTypeShutter lag
Nikon Coolpix L3Point-and-shoot 1800
Nikon Coolpix S550Point-and-shoot 590
Panasonic DMC Lumix FS20Point-and-shoot 480
Canon PowerShot A590 ISPoint-and-shoot 350
Samsung Nx-MiniSLR 164
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80Point-and-shoot 150
Pentax MZ-50SLR 120
Konica Minolta Maxxum 7DSLR 117
Sony NEX-5EVIL 115
Fujifilm GFX 50SEVIL 108
Fujifilm GFX 100EVIL 105
Fujifilm GFX 50REVIL 102
SLR 90
Sigma SD1SLR 88
Leica M8Rangefinder 80
Leica M9Rangefinder 80
Sony A850SLR 74
Sony A900SLR 72
Minolta XD-7SLR 60
Nikon Z7 and Z6EVIL 59 and 56 respectively, 69-70 both
Canon EOS-5D Mark IV and 5DSSLR 57, 61-63
Canon EOS-1D XSLR 57-58, 36
Nikon DfSLR 55-57
Nikon D300sSLR 53
Sony Alpha SLT-A77SLR 53
Canon EOS-1D Mark IISLR 53, 40
Canon EOS-1D Mark IVSLR 49
Leica SL 601EVIL 46
Nikon D700 and 800SLR 44, less than D500, 600, 610, 750, 810, and 850.
Nikon D3sSLR 43
Nikon D3xSLR 40
Nikon D5SLR 39, 43-57
Minolta XE-1SLR 38
Nikon D2H, D2Hs, D2XSLR 37
Nikon F6SLR 37
Contax RTS33SLR 22
Sony A7 and A7 IIIEVIL 21-25, 23
Sony NEX-7, NEX-5N, a6x00 seriesEVIL 20-25, 22
Sony A7r IIEVIL 20, 21-26
Sony A7sEVIL 20-23
Leica M3Rangefinder 16
Leica M7Rangefinder 12
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-F828Point-and-shoot 9 = manufacturer claim. Note that Sony claims the same 9 ms for models P93, T33 and W1; ImagingResource tested them at 11 ms
Canon EOS RTSLR 8
Canon EOS-1N RSSLR 6