There has been a lot of discussion about frames per second since the introduction of the 10fps Canon 7DmkII. This camera is said to be a great action (sports and wildlife) camera. Since I shoot a lot of action, I started thinking about what is really necessary to shoot action well. I'm an amateur and my cameras see all kinds of subjects from sports to studio portraits so, I need a more general camera. I also lean toward image quality over all out speed. That said, all else being equal, yes, I would opt for higher speed rather than not.
Some action is just so high speed, it takes fast technology to execute the shot. In fact, some technologies just make the shot possible...like the bullet through the flame (Doc Edgerton pops in my head). And some action is so unpredictable, so unexpected, that it is happy coincidence while blasting with really high frame rates that an image is captured at all. But most action has patterns and predictability to it.
Shown in the chart is a generic representation of the Magic Moment and where a great image is made versus something boring. A few points
1. The slope of the graph is different for every action event, but there is usually one fleeting moment of greatest impact.
2. The slope of such a graph might not be identical on both sides of the Magic Moment. There might be better photos either prior to or just after than the other way around.
3. What exactly constitutes the magic moment might be open to debate, but usually it is the point of highest tension or visual impact. Let's face it, a photo of a golf swing with the club perpendicular to vertical might be nice for instruction, but it is unlikely to make the cover of SI!
While the camera I shoot sports with will run at 6fps and I usually have it set that way, I find I'm more anticipatory of the moment than a blaster. I'm watching hands through the hitting zone knowing the barrel will follow rather than blasting at the jerk of the bat. I'm waiting for the soccer ball to enter the frame to capture the header than just shooting. It seems to me low shutter lag is most important to me. Fire the damn shutter when I press the button. I just find that at the shutter speeds I normally shoot and at 6fps, there is very little likelihood that a random frame will capture the moment for me. Given I capture the ball compressed on the bat of a hitter, the ball has left the frame by the time the 2nd frame fires. With wildlife, I would suspect knowing the wildlife. Having observed it over time and how it reacts in different conditions under different stimuli would be most effective coupled with a large dose of patience and anticipation rather than expecting a high speed sequence to capture the moment.
Just my thoughts. I think skill is much more determinant of getting consistently good results. Of course, a highly skilled photographer with a high speed camera is the optimum, but think the photographer is much more dominant in the equation.