New CF card or .....

Gopher ... the files sizes of the SONY images are so much larger than the Canon, it is rather scary ... but to get the "machine-gun" recycle of the frames-per-second, those images have to get the heck out of the buffer as fast as their little legs will carry them, hence the increase in bits-per-second transfer to the memory.

420x is perfectly doable - no bottle-necking - and works ... 133x does not. Keep that one in your 12-17 MP camera and be happy, I guess. When you get the Canon up to 24.6MP @ 5fps ... then we shall speak, once more, about this.

Speed is Killer! :D

I believe it is the shitty cards crapping out and not the camera itself.
And Don, wasn't your 133x card a Transcend?
Not knocking the brand itself, but I have had A-Data and Kingmax corrupt on me in rapid fire mode. On a D90 and on the a300.
So it has nothing to do with the camera itself!

Hopefully my next card will be a 533x G-Monster Pro Plus.

Yes, my 133x CF cards were Transcend ... but, Transcend now makes a 400x and a 600x card, although I do not use them. Yes, I have become a little leery. :eek: Burn me once ... and all that.

Still, they still work just fine in the α700 and that's where they will reside, happily collecting 12.2MP images from its slower buffer.

I purchased and use the San Disk 16 GB Extreme III CF Card (SDCFX3-016G-A31) with my A900 and have been very happy with it. Although a number of friends have recommended getting several 4GB cards instead of the larger cards. They prefer the 4GB cards because they are usually cheaper and are easier to dump directly onto a DVD.

With the A900, if you have both CF and memory stick cards, you could always load both in and switch when one gets full.

I was thinking of going with the 64GB Calumet ProSpec CF card and then the SONY 32GB Memory Stick, as a backup.

I know that 98GB of mass image storage seems a bit conservative to some folks, but it is how I roll. :p

C'mon, have a little excitement in your life:

"I shutter every time I see something I like." :eek:

Attachment 54164

You know something ... I going to put that on a photography club T-shirt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonSchap

I was thinking of going with the 64GB Calumet ProSpec CF card and then the SONY 32GB Memory Stick, as a backup.

I know that 98GB of mass image storage seems a bit conservative to some folks, but it is how I roll. :p

C'mon, have a little excitement in your life:

"I shutter every time I see something I like." :eek:

Attachment 54164

You know something ... I going to put that on a photography club T-shirt.

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Hey Don: Isn't that a Canon that you are holding there? And here I thought you liked Sony...:rolleyes:
I guess it's true what they say: A picture is worth a thousand words :p

While SONY was growing a pair, I had to make due with a Canon EOS 20D. It covered the ground pretty well, but there is nothing like in-the-body anti-sh-sh-shake to cure what ails ya. LOL :p

Good eye, there, J.R.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonSchap

Gopher ... the files sizes of the SONY images are so much larger than the Canon, it is rather scary ... but to get the "machine-gun" recycle of the frames-per-second, those images have to get the heck out of the buffer as fast as their little legs will carry them, hence the increase in bits-per-second transfer to the memory.

420x is perfectly doable - no bottle-necking - and works ... 133x does not. Keep that one in your 12-17 MP camera and be happy, I guess. When you get the Canon up to 24.6MP @ 5fps ... then we shall speak, once more, about this.

Speed is Killer! :D

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Every camera out there empties it's buffer into any speed of buffer and just holds off the refill until there's room. Should work the same for 30x as for 300. Just bad programming.

My 7D fires 7fps at 23MB per, the 5Dii 28MB per. Don't even think about HD video. I use 133x cards. I've had usage halt when the (fairly large) buffer does fill but never an error.

Anyway; a faster card seems to solve it. If it's limited to just that I'd make the trade for all-round IS.

Gopher, you are allowing yourself to be led up the garden path by misinformation being promulgated in this thread. Let me clarify.

There is nothing wrong with the Sony electronics, the problem lies in substandard memory.
It's well known that there are problems with Trancend, A-Data, Kingmax and some Kingston cards (I think they fixed it); any cheap CF cards are suspect.
There is no problem with GENUINE Sandisk or Lexar Pro (and I daresay others but I have no information).

There is nothing easier than for counterfeiters to stick a false label on cheap memory and make BIG profits, so be aware that cheap Sandisk Cards off the web are likely to be counterfeit and only buy from legitimate sources who give refunds.

AFAIK the A900 can handle data writes of approx 35MB/sec. The Sandisk extreme IV writes at 45MB/sec so that's as good as it gets. Going to the 60 and 90MB/sec write speed of the more expensive 60 and 90MB/sec will not gain any more performance. I stand to be corrected on this claim as I haven't tested it, so if anyone wants to test, go ahead and prove me wrong.

Using the Sandisk Extreme IV (45MB/sec) card, the A900 will take well over 100 JPEGs (Xtra fine) at 5fps and still be going strong.
It will record 14 RAW images at 5fps until it maxes out the buffer, after which the frame rate will drop to a little over 1FPS.
Once the buffer is full you are limited by the speed at which the buffer can clear to the memory card in use.
Considering that a RAW file is 37MB in size, that's a pretty impressive data pipeline.

Using a 133x Sandisk Ultra II (15MB/sec) cards, the buffer will max out after about 10frames and the subsequent frame rate will be pretty pedestrian, but note that the card and camera still function as intended.

I find it hard to sympathise with those who buy "cheap" and complain about the consequences.

Don, I know you have 8GB, 16GB and 32GB cards (maybe more) and now you are contemplating adding a further 64GB CF and a 32MB MS card.

I know you and I have different philosophies but using Flash memory as semi-permanent storage makes no financial sense whatsoever.