Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"We need a digital camera that can be switched on and fire off that first shot fast. It's not a commonly tracked statistic on any review site, and nobody seems to have this information for every camera. We were hoping other readers could inform us as to what small digital cameras can fire off their first pics in under a second (ideally under half a second). It needs to be small, but mostly, just really quick in operation. Thanks!"
rolling shutter effect would ruin this i think-- do red cameras exhibit this effect? i hope that it'd be non-existent at this price point.
All CMOS cameras are prone to rolling shutter issues.
In theory yes, but in practice it's hard to produce with RED, if at all. We haven't had any problems with it, and the last I heard about it was back when RED took the camera out of beta status. I doubt many would shoot with it if it still had a significant problem like that.
Which is why a good DP will always test the tools for the job. I couldn't imagine having a single camera with CMOS used in heavy panning action films, or at least not have it tested against an alternative in order to establish whether or not it has visible rolling shutter.
One of the first things RED investigated was designing a full-frame CMOS that didn't have rolling shutter. It generated a significant amount of heat, but they were able to accomplish this feat within a very short time-frame. If you can find it (I couldn't), there is an article detailing the struggle in a past issue of HD Video Pro magazine.
And here's an article that I hope clears up the myths and misconceptions about CCD vs CMOS:
http://blog.abelcine.com/2009/04/15/the-difference-between-a-global-shutter-and-a-rolling-shutter/