Slowdown due to SDCard ... how to notice?

[DirePenguin]

I've been reading some threads about high-speed shooting or video (on an S3) having problems if the SDCard is slow.

The card in my camera, right now, is just a year-old (maybe even older) Lexar SD-512M that I got at Sam's club for my Palm Pilot and low-level formatted in my S3.

Just doing a little test, I took my S3 outside and set it for High-speed Continuous and just fired away at a backhoe at work in the lot next to my office. I counted the shutter clicks and I didn't let up on the button until my camera had taken 25 shots. I now have a neat little mini-movie of the backhoe digging! :)

However, I didn't *notice* any slowdown or see any messages (like "busy").

If I had a faster card (say an Ultra II/III) would the sequential photos have been taken faster or was the camera already going "flat out"?

[berniej]

I too have a 512 Lexar 60X and it seems to shoot pretty fast in continuous. I also have an Ultra II 2gig Sandisk and a regular 2gig Kensington. I have not tried the Ultra on continuous but I had no low down while shooting with the other two. I bought the UltraII for video because I did notice some buffering lag with the regular cards on video.

[oj88]

I've been reading some threads about high-speed shooting or video (on an S3) having problems if the SDCard is slow.

The card in my camera, right now, is just a year-old (maybe even older) Lexar SD-512M that I got at Sam's club for my Palm Pilot and low-level formatted in my S3.

Just doing a little test, I took my S3 outside and set it for High-speed Continuous and just fired away at a backhoe at work in the lot next to my office. I counted the shutter clicks and I didn't let up on the button until my camera had taken 25 shots. I now have a neat little mini-movie of the backhoe digging! :)

However, I didn't *notice* any slowdown or see any messages (like "busy").

If I had a faster card (say an Ultra II/III) would the sequential photos have been taken faster or was the camera already going "flat out"?

Were you shooting in super fine at max resolution?

[DirePenguin]

Were you shooting in super fine at max resolution?

Good point ... I was using superfine, but at the 2nd resolution down (M1). I'll try it again using the L size....

[DirePenguin]

Thanks for the advice....

I just did a quick test, switching to L/Superfine ... I started to see the "busy" message at the 25th shot, and then the slow down *was* noticeable.

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the shooting rate won't get any faster with a faster card, it just won't bog down on L/Super as early as the 25th shot.

I also understand that some pictures have more information to process and these would probably cause the slowdown/buffering earlier than 25th-in-a-row.

[David Metsky]

That is correct. When you are shooting at "full speed" the camera writes out to the card from an onboard buffer. As long as the buffer isn't full the camera is taking pictures at maximum speed. Once it fills up, the camera has to wait until there is more room to put the next shot.

Faster cards can pull info off the buffer quickly enough to keep ahead of the camera. Slower cards can't, but you don't notice until the buffer fills up.

-dave-

[AZshooter]

One more item concerning the "busy". As your batteries lose power, you will get the busy message quicker with the slower card. I do not know the science, but I have used half power batteries, shooting continuous, (L/Superfine ) and the busy message came after 8-12 shots. I then switched to my Ultra II and I still could fill the card without the busy message.