Memory Speed

[davemj98]

I recently had an issue at a shoot, that had a very large turnout, and so after just halfway through, my 32GB CF was getting full. When I switched to my 16GB MS, I was appalled at how slow I was able to shoot this fast paced event. I switched to another CF as soon as I could, but after being caught with my pants down like that, I fixed it by throwing money at it. B&H sold me a 64GB CF @600x, and I got the Sony 32GB HS Pro Duo. After installing them and formatting, I aimed at the wall and shot 29 pictures so fast that I got scared! I knew intellectually that the faster cards had benefits, but having it in hand was an eye opener. Now I feel like I was foolish for not getting spending the extra $100 for an even faster card at my local store. Any one have experience on a 900 shooting sports like this can you tell me if an even faster (600x) CF allow the buffer to clear faster, because when the crashes occur, the images are almost priceless. Anyone that has experience with these file sizes and fast paced events can you please advise what level of CF or MS PRO Duo is the max output the the 900?
Thanks,
Dave

 

[HansenTsang]

It is good to know. I was trying to shoot panorama from my RC helicopter. I needed to pan the camera around while holding down the shutter. With my SD cards I was getting five consecutive images before the shutter slowed down to a crawl. So like you I am now throwing money at B & H to get the fastest possible cards. I hope that solves my problem.

 

[Godfrey]

Just remember that in addition to the write speed of the media, every camera model has it's bus speed limitations as well. For instance, with my ancient E-1, there's NOTHING in the universe that will allow it to write 12 exposures to a storage card quickly, no matter what card speed you buy over 133x. Just ain't gonna happen.

It sounds ilke the A900 has a fast bus in it and can handle the load with fast cards well. Were you capturing JPEGs or raw format files? Most cameras these days can write JPEGs to reasonably quick cards as fast as the camera can shoot.

 

[HansenTsang]

It sounds ilke the A900 has a fast bus in it and can handle the load with fast cards well. Were you capturing JPEGs or raw format files? Most cameras these days can write JPEGs to reasonably quick cards as fast as the camera can shoot.

I am using a NEX 5 and 5N. I want to capture RAW to enable my clients to print a large image.

 

[Godfrey]

I am using a NEX 5 and 5N. I want to capture RAW to enable my clients to print a large image.

I'll be interested to hear how fast they write raw files with a fast SDHC card, like a Sandisk Extreme SDHC class 10 or better. And how many they can do in a sequence.

BTW, you can print just as beautiful a large print from a 24 Mpixel JPEG as you can from a 24 Mpixel raw file. What I send out for making large prints at a service bureau are large JPEG files with minimum compression anyway ... It all depends on how good an exposure you make in the first place. The advantage of raw capture is in editability.

(My Olympus E-5 DSLR, fitted with a Sandisk Extreme UDMA 400x 16G card and capturing raw-only, could achieve 15-16 raw files in sequence at Continuous-Hi sequence chapter before it ran out of buffer/write space and had to slow down. Fitted with the SDHC class 10 card above, it could get to about 12 in sequence. I thought that performance was excellent for raw sequence capture. But I almost never need such fast sequence capture capabilities!)

 

[HansenTsang]

>>I'll be interested to hear how fast they write raw files with a fast SDHC card, like a Sandisk Extreme SDHC class 10 or better. And how many they can do in a sequence.<<

Ok I received the fastest 8 GB SD card that B & H has to offer. It is a class 10.

Interestingly it does not increase the continuous shooting speed on my Sony NEX 5N. It is still going strong for 5 shots and slows down.

However it did increase the continuous speed on my Sony NEX 5. It can shoot 8 frames now before slowing down. The super speed continuous is the same. It will fire off 8 frames.

I was shooting RAW+jpeg on both cameras.

>>BTW, you can print just as beautiful a large print from a 24 Mpixel JPEG as you can from a 24 Mpixel raw file. What I send out for making large prints at a service bureau are large JPEG files with minimum compression anyway ... It all depends on how good an exposure you make in the first place. The advantage of raw capture is in editability.<<

Yes I agree. I do like the ability to edit a RAW file more.


>>(My Olympus E-5 DSLR, fitted with a Sandisk Extreme UDMA 400x 16G card and capturing raw-only, could achieve 15-16 raw files in sequence at Continuous-Hi sequence chapter before it ran out of buffer/write space and had to slow down. Fitted with the SDHC class 10 card above, it could get to about 12 in sequence. I thought that performance was excellent for raw sequence capture. But I almost never need such fast sequence capture capabilities!)<<

I need to try the same card with my GH2 and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Godfrey]

Ok I received the fastest 8 GB SD card that B & H has to offer. It is a class 10.

Interestingly it does not increase the continuous shooting speed on my Sony NEX 5N. It is still going strong for 5 shots and slows down.

However it did increase the continuous speed on my Sony NEX 5. It can shoot 8 frames now before slowing down. The super speed continuous is the same. It will fire off 8 frames.

I was shooting RAW+jpeg on both cameras.

Sounds like Sony used the same size data buffer and/or same speed data bus in the 5 and 5n ... the difference in data size per frame between them (14 vs 16 Mpixels) is almost exactly that three frame difference. The NEX 5 simply has a bit more overhead to grow into the faster card's write speed.

BTW, Class 10 cards are not all identical. I've found rather big differences comparing Sandisk Extreme vs Transcend vs Lexar vs Panasonic Gold Class 10 SDHC cards. So far, the Sandisk are the fastest on sustained write operations, with the Lexar and Panasonic neck and neck in second. The Transcend are a bit slower.

... I need to try the same card with my GH2 and see if that makes a difference.

I had the G1 and found that there was virtually no difference in write speed on sequence captures between Sandisk Extreme Class 6 and Class 10 SDHC cards, but the GH2 might have a faster bus and/or a bigger buffer. I seem to recall that the G1 had a 7 or 8 frame raw buffer, max, but I could be mistaken.

 

[Hosermage]

Maybe not something you guys will be interested, but I upgraded to Sony's faster memorystick MSHX16B and it's a vast improvement. The camera turns on faster, faster saving time after recording video, and almost zero wait time after snapping multiple shots while holding down the shutter.

Before this, I was using a class 6 SD card and was very annoyed by the lag time while the camera is saving the files.

 

[HansenTsang]

>>BTW, Class 10 cards are not all identical. I've found rather big differences comparing Sandisk Extreme vs Transcend vs Lexar vs Panasonic Gold Class 10 SDHC cards. So far, the Sandisk are the fastest on sustained write operations, with the Lexar and Panasonic neck and neck in second. The Transcend are a bit slower.<<

I figured there must be a difference. So I just did a search on the B & H site for the fastest card. This is the Sandisk Extreme Pro with a "95 MB/s" write speed. Well at least that's what the manufacturer is claiming. I have no way to test it.

>>I had the G1 and found that there was virtually no difference in write speed on sequence captures between Sandisk Extreme Class 6 and Class 10 SDHC cards, but the GH2 might have a faster bus and/or a bigger buffer. I seem to recall that the G1 had a 7 or 8 frame raw buffer, max, but I could be mistaken.<<

I tested the card on my GH2 and it did not improve the consecutive frame speed a single bit.

 

[HansenTsang]

>>I upgraded to Sony's faster memorystick MSHX16B and it's a vast improvement. The camera turns on faster, faster saving time after recording video, and almost zero wait time after snapping multiple shots while holding down the shutter.<<

I should look into the Sony Memory Stick and try. I didn't look into Memory stick was because of convenience. I have to carry a card reader for the Memory stick.