its not pre-caching anything. You can easily verify this by adjusting the light level really quickly. It if was taking photos from the by-gone video stream the

its not pre-caching anything. You can easily verify this by adjusting the light level really quickly. It if was taking photos from the by-gone video stream the exposure would be off in rapidly changing light situations. The shutter lag seems evident to me when I tried shooting an analog clock. Much of the perceived shutter lag is actually post processing the image to something that it can display. (remember the sensors on digital cameras produce a format that need some decent number crunching before it can be rendered. All this said, the camera on the iPhone 3GS is mediocre at best. Compare it to any p&s produced in the last couple of years and you'll be sadly dissapointed. By the time Apple are at iPhone 7 it should be good enough for anything more than sleeping cute dogs.