pascal03 wrote:
For me shutter lag was the few milli seconds it takes from depressing the shutter button to the mirror going into action. The canon 1-series are rated at 55mm shutter lag - the nikons are around 45ms or thereabouts.....Then there's also the mirror blackout time which this camera shouldn't have.

Right. But the "mirror blackout" time will be effectively the time it takes the camera to switch between displaying Live View, Capturing the Image, then returning to Live View - which was the shot-to-shot time I was talking about, in a nutshell.

dasrocket wrote:
Sure, but my G10 by comparison, even with manual focus still had a noticeable lag due to metering and what have you.

My point is that, according to CNET, the time includes focusing. CNET has also said that the kit lens is very slow to focus and that the other Oly 4/3rds lenses were much faster. So, there's really not much to glean from their data unless you're convinced you'll be using the kit zoom, which I suspect many on this forum won't be. Others have indicated that when manually focusing, the shutter lag is not problematic.

After a day testing out the E-P1 with AF on the shutter button (like my G10), I switched the camera to put AF on the AEL/AFL button (like my DSLRs). Now that I'm shooting this way, there is no more shutter lag (defined as the lag time between pushing the shutter and the image being taken) on my E-P1 than on my 40D. You push the button, and some small number of milliseconds later, the image is taken.

If you hold the shutter down in continuous mode, you get 3fps until the buffer fills up. No different than a DSLR.

If you shoot a frame, let your finger halfway off the shutter, then shoot another frame, there's a very short delay. I'd guess perhaps 250ms? Wild guess.

If you shoot a frame, let your finger ALL THE WAY off the shutter, then shoot another frame, there's a much longer delay. I'd guess perhaps a full second. It seems to me the camera decides that when you let your finger all the way off the shutter, you want to see the image on the LCD, and starts that process, only to be interrupted by your immediate full re-press of the shutter.

Knowing this, I'm not too bothered. I can avoid this long delay by simply keeping my finger half-pressed. (Which, incidentally, is what I do with all my cameras, anyway.) I work around shortcomings in all my cameras, be it the small viewfinder in my E-410, or the poor daylight LCD on my 5D, or the crappy zoom lever on my G10. The E-P1 just has a different set of shortcomings I'll need to work around.

To be honest I'm more bothered by the vestigial EC button on the top deck than the shutter lag. I wish I could use that button as a second "Fn" button. I absolutely love the "instant WB" feature, but I sometimes miss DOF Preview when taking closeups.

While the cam is capable of shooting continuously at 3 fps with good buffer, its response can be retarded. While writing to clear the buffer, the cam is not responsive when buttons are pressed for review or change of settings.
Also, the LCD live-view screen tends to be jerky at times and may caused me to miss the shot at the critical moment.
The cam is certainly not for fast action.
That's my rant about the camera. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed shooting with the twin lens kit since I bought it a week ago.

CKrueger wrote:
If you shoot a frame, let your finger ALL THE WAY off the shutter, then shoot another frame, there's a much longer delay. I'd guess perhaps a full second. It seems to me the camera decides that when you let your finger all the way off the shutter, you want to see the image on the LCD, and starts that process, only to be interrupted by your immediate full re-press of the shutter.

Are you saying that only taking your finger "ALL THE WAY off" is when it returns to Live View? Returning to Half Press doesn't return you to Live View? Or are you referring to the image just taken?

Returning to half-press does return you to live view, but the sequence of events goes like this:

picture taken -> return to half press -> full-press -> (0.25sec?) -> picture taken

If you instead don't take a picture right away, you get this:

picture taken -> return to half press -> (0.5sec?) -> Live View returns

You can interrupt this process at any time by full pressing. Doing this fires off a shot almost immediately (we're talking 100ms at most), and resets the 0.5sec-ish delay.

Cool, thanks.