Improving SD300 Shutter Speed

I'm generally pleased with my SD300, BUT, when trying to take action shots of our new Yorkie, I have become frustrated. By the time the shutter fires, he's off to new adventures.

Thus my question. Anyone know the right set of options to select on the SD300 to achieve the fastest possible shutter response time?

Thanks,

dbw

Redeye reduction off (which brings about other problems, like - you guessed it - redeye). Manually setting as much as possible will also help. I don't know whether you can set manual focus on the SD300 or not, but if you can, you want to try zone focussing - if you focus for about 1.5 meters/5 ft, you'll have a couple of feet either side of that which will be in focus. Much further away and a Yorkie will be too small in the picture; much closer and you'll have a very narrow zone to deal with. Couple this with the highest availalble ISO setting to help get max. depth of field. If you can manually set exposure too, do that. You want to minimize the decision-making the camera will need to do before taking the picture. If you can avoid using flash at all, you'll also shave a few milliseconds off the time needed. All that said, I'm afraid the SD300 isn't ever going to click when you press the button; there will always be some lag during which the puppy will have managed to get into a less photogenic pose.

Thanks, Jon. I'll try these things.

dbw