Digital delay: capture a "kodak moment"

With digital cameras, capturing a “Kodak Moment” has never been easier…and harder.

It has never been easier because with our digital cameras we can basically shoot like crazy with a machine gun and see at that moment if we have captured the moment.

But it’s also never been that difficult because of the annoying thing known as “shutter lag”.

Shutter lag is a digital phenomenon and refers to the time between when you press the button to take the photo and when the camera actually captures the image. The delay time can reach almost 2 seconds! That’s like forever when it comes to capturing a moment. I mean I have seen my kids go from laughing to crying in that amount of time!

Film cameras don’t really have any lag, but on many digital models (though not the more expensive SLRs), the lag is considerable. Significant enough to mean the difference of capturing the moment and not.

The truth is, as much as you want to experiment and as much as you want to spend on equipment, taking pictures is all about capturing a moment. Miss the moment and it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have.

I once went to a friend’s house to see the photos of his wedding. He showed me the photos taken by a professional using the best camera, flash, lighting system, and other equipment. He then showed me photos taken by friends and family with junk cameras and average digital cameras. Although the professional took better quality photos, the friends captured much better moments.

I’ll take a captured moment about quality at any time. I recently went to a birthday party with my children. My youngest daughter was having a great time, with a smile painted on her face. I kept trying to take photos of her, but when I looked at the screen, all I was left with was an arm or a lock of hair, as she had turned away from her when the camera caught (or missed) the moment.

I believe without a doubt that Rule #1 in photography is get the shot. So what to do about this annoying shutter lag issue?

Digital cameras work by first pressing the shutter button halfway to focus, and then pressing it all the way down to take the picture.

What you can do if you know you are preparing to take a photo 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 photo, follow your subject, wait for your Kodak moment, and then… Bam… take the photo and capture the moment.