Faster memory cards won't help unless the camera can utilize them; I don't believe most p&s cameras can.
The newer P&s have less of a lag than the older ones, at least according to the wtite ups.

No sure how old your camera is, newer cameras are faster, and if you go Digital SRL then you got plenty of speed. The Canon EOS30D is ready to shoot after 1/10 of a second from start and can shoot up to 5 images a second.

Quote:
No sure how old your camera is, newer cameras are faster, and if you go Digital SRL then you got plenty of speed. The Canon EOS30D is ready to shoot after 1/10 of a second from start and can shoot up to 5 images a second.

I must be doing something wrong. This camara is probably 6 months old... tops. And it takes several (about maybe 5 seconds) before I can take a second pic. Seems absurdly long imho.

according to the specs, your camera has a 1 fr/sec burst rate for a max of 3 pictures. Enough?
Perhaps it is the auto focusing that is slow?

Have you tried contacting HP customer service? Because even with 8MP 5seconds delay seems awfully long.
What memory card are you using? Have you tried any other brand/fst cards, like the Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme III? ( check here

Luca

Hi Sad enough most the small point & Shoot have a delay factor. it takes time to learn how much time you need to plan your shot. I know it made it hard for me to enjoy my first digital point & Shoot for a few reasons.
Startup time
Shutter delay
Battery life

Of course everyone can't afford to buy DSLR's and all the fine items, but as a learning faze you can hope to one day move up to a DSLR. Without a doubt they are far from perfect and bugs etc.
I always encourage others to read reviews and if all possible to try one on hands before buying.
But for most point & shoots you can research the actual delay from the time you take the picture till the sensor processes to the written to the card.
The cards in itself can be a bit of slowdown in some cases. I found about a year ago I bought mine at a walmart and turns out there was no speed designation on the package and after trying it out I found the card was out of date for the camera. Sure it would work but I had to wait for the card to recieve the info. I bought a CF card at my local camera shop and it was 80X a never had the problem afterwards. I would look up the numbers on your card to see what speed it is and if it may be the card or the camera causing your issue.

Hope it helps some, but till then try to work with it by compansating for the antisipated photo in mind

Hope it helps.
NikonMeister

I forgot to ask you: have you tried reducing the picture/size and quality to the minimum value to see if the speed increases? If it does (smaller file to write) it's definitely the memory card that is too slow.

Luca

Luca and NikonMeister,

Point and shoot cameras have existed for a long time previous to digital, and the most plentiful were 35mm compacts. Most of these cameras compared to 35mm SLR cameras exhibited considerable shutter delay between depression and actual shutter release, as well as relatively slow, if motorized, film advance and shutter cocking.

An analog, film snapshot camera and its digital successor have one thing in common, they are not made for demanding, experienced photographers who require fast responsiveness to capture sports action. The solution today is the same as it was in the old film days, dig into your pocket and pay the price to move from snapshot performance to advanced enthusiast and professional level performance.

There is nothing wrong per se with today's digital snapshot cameras, they serve the casual user quite adequately in terms of what 95% of novices demand. If you want more performance then pay the piper and move up to higher performance models.

While I agree with David that P&S cameras exhibit significant lag compared to higher end cameras, there does seem to be a bit of a disconnect between the times you're talking about MV and the experience noted by the review at Steve's Digicams. They indicate normal shooting at about 1.5 to 2 seconds of delay depending on whether flash was used or not. This is still substantial compared to higher end cameras. I wonder if it only seems like 5+ seconds but is actually in the couple second range. The review at Steve's also indicated that in Burst mode (what Ronk was describing) once the buffer was full after 3 shots, the delay was about 3.5 seconds before another shot could be taken. Are you shooting in Burst mode often?

David is right though, that in order to get better performance you do have to pay for it. Memory card write speed isn't likely going to be the problem unless you're using a very old, slow card. I'm not sure any camera can take advantage of the manufacturer claimed write speeds of some of the current cards available.

Sadly I don't think many P&S digital camera purchasers realize a part of the saving in those lower prices is in part due to expensive high speed buffer RAM being minimal or absent in these cameras, as well as other higher-end components that speed the control processing of auto-focus and auto-exposure adjustments. The old saw you get what you pay for applies.