# D5100 Shutter Lag



## WPhyer

I just purchased my first D-SLR (Nikon D5100) after many years of shooting with an Olympus FE-270 and Olympus D-510. So I thought it odd that after pressing half-way on the shutter-release button and letting the camera do it's thing, then pressing it all the way down it took about a second before the camera actually took the picture. My point and shoots were quite responsive, so why was my prosumer camera behaving worse than my P&S? When I tried continuous shooting, I was getting 1.5 frames per second. This wasn't anything like the quoted specs I've read. I thought maybe this is normal and you only get the quick response if you change most of the settings to manual. So the first week with the camera, I'm on vacation learning and reading through the thin owner manuals and not really getting anywhere, I concede that this is something I need to live with. It took some patience and practice to get some decent shots, but still frustrating:

[Links are to the original full size untouched images]

This was taken inside the house, through a window, manual focus and handheld (no tripod). I wish the shutter speed was faster, but it was pretty dark out with the rain clouds (I'm still learning)
http://www.tymeg.net/photos/DSC_0095.JPG

Moved outside to get a little closer. Exposure is a little dark. Again, still learning...
http://www.tymeg.net/photos/DSC_0127.JPG

Here, I've just about mastered the 1 second lag timing and getting a 60mph car in frame. I'm ready for just about anything now.
http://www.tymeg.net/photos/DSC_0459.JPG

So now I'm on my second week with the new camera and this lag is driving me nuts. I'm missing a lot of good shots and I'm thinking maybe the camera is defective. So, while perusing the PDF manual, I get to the custom menu options and I see "d4:Exposure Delay Mode". Son of a...! My camera had this set to "ON" as the default. I turn it off and WOW! Instant pictures. And my continous shooting is actually yielding a consistent 5 frames per second (according to my hi-resolution timer I was taking pictures of). I'm once again happy... (little kid-like happy). So this weekend I'll be trying my hand at photographing some fireworks.

Hopefully, my experience can serve as a tip to anyone else who might be having the same problem as I did.

What was odd is that there was no asterisk (*) next to the "d4" option. When I turned the setting OFF, still, no asterisk. But when I turned it back ON, the asterisk showed up. Turn it OFF and the asterisk goes away. Fluke? Maybe. Software glitch? Possible. Is it bothering me now? Nope. 

-William


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## orb9220

_"I see "d4:Exposure Delay Mode". Son of a...! My camera had this set to  "ON" as the default. I turn it off and WOW! Instant pictures."_

Nope that isn't the default setting. So someone somehow somewhere turned it On. But glad you found the reason. As was going to have you check that.
.


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## KmH

Congrats on getting around to reading the user's manual.


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## WPhyer

orb9220 said:


> _"I see "d4:Exposure Delay Mode". Son of a...! My camera had this set to  "ON" as the default. I turn it off and WOW! Instant pictures."_
> 
> Nope that isn't the default setting. So someone somehow somewhere turned it On. But glad you found the reason. As was going to have you check that.
> .



I'm glad too. If you saw, I mentioned how the "d4" setting didn't have an asterisk next to it. The only things I've changed were "d1" and "d3" as those were the only options marked with an asterisk. After hitting the PDF manual (on vacation I didn't have the CD with me - just the printed "lite" version) I saw this option and read the "... delay shutter release about 1 s after the shutter-release button..." and figured to check it out. Again, no asterisk next to that option, but when I went into it, it was set to ON (making me conclude that this was the default). Turning it OFF, no asterisk, turn it back on and I get the asterisk. So clearly, it isn't the default, but nonetheless that menu option wasn't behaving like it should have.

-William


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## Solarflare

Now thats really weird.

This option was definitely not enabled when I got my D5100.

I was actually expecting that you would complain about the almost 2 sec delay when focusing in lifeview on the D5100 in this thread.


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## Jaemie

With few exceptions, unless it's sealed in the box, all electronic equipment should be "Master Reset" to factory specs when purchased. Customers and staff might have changed the settings on open items.


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## leosvale

saved my life. Thanks!


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## robbins.photo

Well being a D5100 aficionado myself, a couple of other things that will help with continuous shooting, a lot:

If you shoot with your screen out, like I do, so I can see the info menu when needed - go into the playback menu and set your image preview to off.  This will prevent the camera from trying to show you a preview of each image as they are taken and speeds things up quite a bit.

In the shooting menu look for long exposure NR and turn it off.  You can always re-enable it when you are doing long exposure shots, but normally you should shut this off.

And last, but certainly not least, buy a really good memory card.  Standard class 10's have a read write speed of usually between 30-45 mps.  I use a sandisk extreme pro card myself that writes at 95 mps.  The card itself is more expensive than a standard Class 10, I paid a little over $100 for a 64 mb card, but it was worth every penny.  When shooting in RAW only my D5100 will now do a burst of usually 16 frames at 5 frames per second before slowing to 2 frames per second and the buffer clears much faster when I stop shooting.  In JPG only mode I can fire off pretty much as many JPGS as I want and the camera doesn't slow down at all, it will continue to fire at 5 FPS as long as I keep the shutter button depressed.

Hope that helps.


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## SCraig

18-month-old Zombie thread .....


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## robbins.photo

SCraig said:


> 18-month-old Zombie thread .....



Argh.. fell for the zombie thread thing again?  Really?  Yikes.  Ok, that's it, I'm getting some holy water.  And maybe some Southern Comfort.  Hmm.. wonder if I could just get some Holy Southern Comfort?  Two birds, one really big rock.. lol


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