Timing & Performance

Although it's not class-leading, the NV7 puts in a perfectly respectable performance in most areas, though there are a couple of key failings; telephoto focus speeds are pretty poor in anything but the best light, and we found some hunting even at the wide end (particularly slow is the Auto Macro setting). Shutter lag is also a bit on the slow side at 0.14 seconds (we consider anything under 0.1 seconds to be adequate), which isn't a huge problem unless you're trying to snap something moving fast.

Timing Notes

All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a 3126 x 2345 Super-Fine JPEG image (approx. 3,200 KB per image). The media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card.

Action	Details	Time, secs
Power: Off to Record		2.9
Power: Record to Off	Lens retracted and all activity ceased	1.9
Power: Play to Off	When buffer is empty (lens extended)	1.9
Power: Play to Off	When buffer is empty (lens already retracted)	~ 0.6
Record Review	Image displayed	0.9
Mode: Record to Play		0.3
Mode: Play to Record		0.8
Play: Magnify	To full magnification (8x)	3.7
Play: Image to Image	Time to display each saved image	~ 0.3
Play: Thumbnail view	3 x 3 thumbnails	0.6

Lag Timing Definitions

Half-press Lag (0->S1) Many digital camera users prime the AF and AE systems on their camera by half-pressing the shutter release. This is the amount of time between a half-press of the shutter release and the camera indicating an auto focus & auto exposure lock on the LCD monitor / viewfinder (ready to shoot).	(Prime AF/AE)
Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (assuming you have already primed the camera with a half-press) to the image being taken.	(Take shot, AF/AE primed)
Full-press Lag (0->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (without performing a half-press of the shutter release beforehand) to the image being taken. This is more representative of the use of the camera in a spur of the moment 'point and shoot' situation.	(Take shot, AF/AE not primed)

Continuous mode

The tables below show the results of our continuous shooting test, indicating the actual frame rate along with maximum number of frames and how long you would have to wait after taking the maximum number of frames before you could take another shot. Media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card. Shutter speed was kept above 1/200 sec during these tests.

Continuous drive mode

The NV7 has three continuous shooting options. The main 'continuous' mode lets you shoot at around 0.7 frames per second (approx one shot every 1.4 secs) until the card is full. A second High Speed mode manages around 2.5 frames per second but only for three shots (and with a slight delay whilst the images are saved). Finally there is a 'Motion Capture' mode which offers 1024 x 768 pixel shooting at 7.5 frames per second for 20 shots (ideal, we guess for analyzing the old golf swing)...

Not class-leading, but unless you're a sports shooter (in which case you really need something with faster telephoto capture) it's perfectly adequate.

File Write / Display and Sizes

Timings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the storage card, the timer was started as soon as the shutter release was pressed and stopped when activity indicator went out. This means the timings also include the camera's processing time and as such are more representative of the actual time to "complete the task". The media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card.

At around 1.8 seconds to process and store a 3.2MB JPEG the NV7 is actually pretty speedy (around 1.7MB/sec), and if you like to take a lot of shots in rapid succession (or shoot extended movie clips) a faster card would probably be a good idea.