Fast AF 35mm P&S?

[blee1996]

Hi, are there 35mm P&S that are very fast in auto focus and has very short latency after pressing the shutter button?

Background: I have already tried and owned several P&S (Yashica T4, Ricoh R1s, Minolta TC) and many more manual focus compacts. I do like the manual focus compacts, if I set up zone focus and can shoot very quickly. On the other hand, the P&S are spontaneous and fun to ask strangers to use in a party. So my question is that if you have played with enough P&S cameras to find out the fastest operation choices. My requirement is that it has to be quite compact and not super expensive (<$500). Thank you!

 

[Paul Howell]

Konica Z up, I have the 28 to 50, pretty fast AF, not much shutter lag, faster than any of my Pentax. Other is Pentax WR models. Downside not very compact at all.

 

[xkaes]

The fastest P&S -- also the most compact and least expensive -- are fixed focus. They usually have a wider focal length lens and not a fast aperture, so the DOF is good from 5 feet or so.

In any case, much depends on what type of light you expect to be in.

If you are going to hand a camera to strangers, I'd suggest "cheap and simple" -- the camera, that is!

There are LOTS of Minolta's -- they probably made more P&S cameras than anyone. Here's only half of them -- the fixed-focus models -- at the bottom of this page:

http://www.subclub.org/minman/minfind.htm

 

[Cholentpot]

The original Olympus MJU has very little lag. Try the Canon Sureshot 130, it's tiny and fast. Olympus Infinity Zoon 70 and Canon Sureshot 60 are all very quick, small and still cheap.

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

The Nikon Lite Touch with the 28mm f/3.5 is really fast, from OFF to a shot is very quick. Too bad they are hard to find working, they were not very robust units.

 

[blee1996]

Lots of good suggestions, I will look into them. Thanks!