I’m currently discussing with someone who want’s to buy a smartphone. There are some options left, but FP2 is competing hard. There are several points, like battery life, which we simply have no data on until the phone is delivered.
However, I wonder if we can already know the camera shutter lag. Since the forum already contains info on the camera chip of the FP2, can someone here probably interpret the data available and tell us what shutter lag would be possible?
AFAIR, shutters in those kind of cameras are electronic anyway (as opposed to mechanic), right?
So, I suppose it should be possible to do an informed guess?
(BTW, the shutter lag is of course also a question of the software used - I use OpenCamera and the build-in (MediaTek/AHong) app, and the former has a way longer lag. But that’s another problem, and we will have to see how the chip performs under RL conditions, anyway.)
This smartphone comes with an 8MP AF camera packed on the rear with LED
flash and a 5MP camera on the front. Camera focusing is good, fast and
quality is above average. Rear as well as front camera can shoot FHD
videos. There is slow motion video option too but the slow motion speed /
quality is no good.
The shutter lag of the electronic shutter also depends on how many apps you use in the background. It is pretty much user specific. Sure, there might be a “minimum shutter lag” available after the first reviews maybe
Fast enough, I assume. If done correctly and the SoC and camera fit together well, the SoC should be able to buffer the picture(s) from the camera directly into the memory over and over again. I assume this is what they call “zero lag” in the advertisements.
But I guess the autofocus or fancy features like face detection may will cost extra. Also the first “start” of the camera will take some time. Once it’s on, it will be as fast the camera can deliver/refresh to the buffer. Also the camera software “app” that is used to manipulate and show the picture in “real time” could slow things down, depending on how the software is written and how it works with the images.
Qualcomm states that their SD SoCs are “engineered to enable zero shutter lag”. Are they also engineered to wait for the AF? I don’t know. So I guess you better test a 801 based phone – a Xiaomi Mi 4 comes to mind (same SoC, but better camera – don’t tell your friend, I’m sure there will be a camera update for the FP2), if available in your area.
With the new Android there will also be a new camera API that even mentions ZSL. I’m sure that is also possible with the old API, but this shows that there is even a special ‘mode’ for this now (even with AF on!).
There is no way anyone could take informed guesses. Everything said above applies to all smartphones. However still some take longer and some are faster to take pictures. It is highly dependent on camera hardware, software stack, operating system, light conditions, interplay between all these points and much more.
Anyone who tells you “shutter lag of a phone which no one has ever used before is fast/slow” is lying. There is no way they could know.
Thanks for that clear response. It truly makes a lot of sense. So I’ll have to wait. (Which is a real pity, but better than fake numbers to base decisions on.)
There are several points, like battery life, which we simply have no data on until the phone is delivered.