Craig, regarding the delay in actually taking the photo, by depressing the shutter release only half way down, you freeze all the camera settings, allowing the shutter to release instantly when the button is depressed the rest of the distance.
Indoor photography with flash, particularly when the maximum amount of light is needed, results in long recycling times with the built-in flash (and shorter battery life for the whole camera as well). The answer here is an external flash. The Nikon 950 and 990 require a special bracket with special cable to attach to the camera (big profits for Nikon). When you mount Nikon's best quality TTL flash, you get magnificent results, almost instant recycling, and a big bill for the new equipment (about $400). With the external flash, the longest part of the recycle is spent waiting for the image to be saved on the flash card. In my 950, using the highest resolution (2.1 mp, TIFF), I wait about 25 seconds, which is too long.
Your attachment to the Hasselblad is understandable. But economics is working in favor of digital, with problems, such as recycling time and print permanency, being worked out rather nicely as the technology matures. You won't get better permanency than you do with the Olympus dye sublimation printer right now, on any media. And even if the print fades, you can easily reprint from the stored image. In the end, the digital camera wins on the basis of cost per image.
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