How to stop a camera 'slowing'?

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appletart

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Random question, but if I am taking loads of photos, after a while the camera starts to slow down, and says busy. Really frustrating. I have a few weddings this year, and really need to be able to take photos in quick succession and not have to wait between shots.

any ideas how to resolve this?
 
what card/cards are you using ? you can buy hi speed cards take it your shooting in raw thats why its slowing down because its writing the files to the memory card thats why im asking what size and type of card you are using
 
more likely to be the camera's internal buffer filling up, which camera do you have?
 
I am using a canon 650d, and the SanDisk SD cards. Dont know a huge amount about SD Cards, but on it it says SDHC, and in bottom corner, its has a 4 on it...

Are buffers able to be 'emptied'?
 
Buffers emptied as the pictures are written to the card, so speed of card does have some bearing on time taken,
 
The cameras buffer is a temporary storage area where the shot images live until the camera processes them and then transfers them to the SD card, once the buffer is full the camera wont take any more shots. This process is very fast depending on the grade of card that you use - a card rated at 10 will clear the buffer faster than a card rated at 4 - very useful if you want use continous mode shooting
 
crossed with Gremlin - sometimes I wish my fingers were as quick at typing as my 10 SDHC allows my buffer to clear !!!
 
Ah, OK, that makes a lot more sense. Out of interest, how come its starts of fast, but is only after an hour or so that it starts to slow?
 
Would something like this be better?
ViewImage.aspx


It says video, but dont see why it wouldnt work for photos?
 
When you say it has a 4 in the bottom corner, is it 4GB?
Do you shoot RAW?
 
be a class 4 at a guess
so thatll be the issue, its not very fast :/
that extreme pro vs a class 4 would be 4meg (it probably goes faster tbh) vs 90-95. bit of a smack down there :D

google to see if u can find how fast your camera can write, then buy a card from a reputable place, going off what you found
 
appletart said:
...how come its starts of fast, but is only after an hour or so that it starts to slow?
Click to expand...
Sounds like it's getting near full?
Which should be avoided, according to a warning I once saw from Lexar... cards needs a headroom.
 
I have a class 10 card although it's not the fastest but it still fills the buffer.


Ultimately, if you shoot continuously at 4.5fps or 5fps (can't remember what rate the 650d is even though I own one!) then the buffer will fill up and it'll make you wait.

You can shoot to jpg instead of RAW and it will let you shoot a lot longer before pausing but if you're shooting in RAW then I believe you get something 5-6 shots before it needs to pause to write to the card.
 
Phal said:
I have a class 10 card although it's not the fastest but it still fills the buffer.


Ultimately, if you shoot continuously at 4.5fps or 5fps (can't remember what rate the 650d is even though I own one!) then the buffer will fill up and it'll make you wait.

You can shoot to jpg instead of RAW and it will let you shoot a lot longer before pausing but if you're shooting in RAW then I believe you get something 5-6 shots before it needs to pause to write to the card.
Click to expand...

OP said it slows after an hour though, not just machine-gunning in bursts.
 
i think cards do slow down abit as they fill up, but class 4 and 8gb is pretty slow and small compaired to whats out there now.
 
Best value out there at the moment, IMO, are the sandisk 16Gb 45mb/s cards.
 
I recommend this card. It's almost as fast as the Sandisk Extreme Pro, but costs less than half the price. I get 65MB's write / 90MB's read from mine. This is better than all of my Sandisk Extreme's, bar the really expensive Pro version.
47652263.jpg


Also, the best way to increase the buffer is to shoot jpeg's only, followed by raw only. You can also tinker with sizes, but shooting large raw + large jpegs dramatically reduces the buffer.
 
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Everyone seems to have missed the most important part on the SD card label. its not the amount of GB a card has but the transfer card speed. Your picture shows a 30 mb/s which is terrible to say the least and I wouldn't even consider it.

i would use nothing less than a 45mb/s card and preferably a 95mb/s card

Something like this will be much better for you

410jb4cuyqlsx342.jpg


£35 from Amazon

The transcend card recommended by Orville I have no knowledge about but the price should say something about it considering the 32GB size and they don't even put the mb/s time on it

If your going to do a load of photos then spend a bit more and get a good card. Never been let down by Sandisk and wouldn't use any other make. Its a quality product and I use no other make and never been let down over the years
 
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realspeed said:
The transcend card recommended by Orville I have know knowledge about but the price should say something about it considering the 32GB size.
Click to expand...
Yep, it says it works great with a 6D (or similar) yet costs £10 less than a similar speed Sandisk card which uses the same MLC technology but only contains half of the capacity.

Check Amazon.com (US site), where there are currently 125 reviews for this product. I love it when people who have never used a product slag things off. Sure, talk up Sandisk (they are very very good, but charge a premium for the name), but don't dismiss everything else without any evidence or personal experience.
 
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Orville

Nice to see benchmarks posted well done, what I would say is a benchmark is just that and ok under ideal conditions and what its tested on. Unfortunately not everyone has the same equipment to produce the same results so this makes any benchmarks liable to variations, which is why I tend to ignore them.

For example car manufactures often quote what a car can do MPG, but oh so often this is done on a rolling road with the car set up by experts with no road friction either and not a true on the road amount of MPG one gets in reality.

AS I said I tend to ignore benchmarks and go with what actually a memory card can do.

Of course you are right in the respect that if your happy with a product then there is no reason to change. Note I have not "slagged it off " as you put it, just queried it as to the price v GB size, and just offered an alternative

Realspeed
 
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Just for you, I will now run off and compare buffer clear rate on my Sandisk and Transcend cards. Back soon....
 
Thanks for taking the time to do it, should prove interesting. Is there a reliability comparison as well do you know? The main thing is if one is happy with what they use then stick with it.

Realspeed
 
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Okay, here we go.

Test kit
*Canon 6D
*Sandisk Ultra SD 32GB (20MB/s rated)
*Sandisk Extreme SD 16GB (45MB/s read / 45MB/s write rated)
*Transcend UHS-I SDHC 32GB (45MB/s read / 90MB/s write rated)

img0650bn.jpg


Test Process
i). Format card within 6D
ii). Set manual shutter speed to 1/2000 sec, manual focus, place camera in burst mode. Image size set to RAW Large.
iii). Hold shutter until slow down / buffer full. Record number of shots before slowdown.
iv). Continue firing for 9-10 after slow down. Measure perceived buffer full fps.
v). Allow buffer to clear, measure clear time (phone stopwatch used).

Results
Average RAW image size 23 MBytes

1. Sandisk Ultra SD 32GB (20MB/s rated)
Shots until buffer full: 12
FPS after buffer full: 1 shot every 3 secs / 0.3 fps
Buffer clear time: 38 secs

2. Sandisk Extreme SD 16GB (45MB/s read / 45MB/s write rated)
Shots until buffer full: 15
FPS after buffer full: 1.5 to 2 shots per sec / 1.75 fps
Buffer clear time: 8 secs

3. Transcend UHS-I SDHC 32GB (45MB/s read / 90MB/s write rated)
Shots until buffer full: 15
FPS after buffer full: 1.5 to 2 shots per sec / 1.75 fps
Buffer clear time: 7 secs

Conclusion
The old Sandisk Ultra is dog slow on a modern DSLR taking approx 3 seconds to write every file to card. The Sandisk Extreme and Transcend UHS-I perform very similar. Perhaps the Transcend feels slightly faster, but there really is nothing in it. Both of these cards write Large 23MB RAW files at approx two per second, indicating ~45MB/s write rates. The unknown element is whether it is the latter two cards or the 6D which are equaling the shot rates. ATTO benchmark indicates that the Transcend should be faster but I cannot feel or measure the difference whilst shooting. Other online tests between the Sandisk Extreme (45MB/s) and Sandisk Extreme Pro (90MB/s) on Canon 5D3's show that speeds appear very similar, so I assume it is the camera body which becomes the bottleneck.

I personally would choose the Transcend card based on price, rated performance, reviews and Widows performance, and my own personal experience. Both are good. I have never experienced an SD card failure from any brand.

edit:
ATTO benchmarks for all three

Sandisk Ultra
su32gb.jpg


Sandisk Extreme
sx32gb.jpg


Transcend UHS-I
ts32gb.jpg


Results seem pretty conclusive to me. The Ultra is sloooowwwwww, the Extreme is fast, and the Transcend is 50% faster with writes and 100% faster with reads than the Sandisk Extreme.
 
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Indeed, if the camera is the bottleneck, faster cards will not help. However, photos will transfer much faster to your PC if you have a faster card and use a USB3.0 capable SD slot.
 
appletart, Your class 4 (4MB's rated) card is rubbish. Even the the slow Sandisk Ultra I benchmarked above is 50% faster (rated class 6). I think your 650D will really benefit from a faster card like the Sandisk Extreme or Transcend.
 
realspeed said:
Everyone seems to have missed the most important part on the SD card label. its not the amount of GB a card has but the transfer card speed.
Click to expand...

Post #12 :D

Orville, great to see someone actually able to test & post results/comparisons. :cool:
 
realspeed said:
Is there a reliability comparison as well do you know?
Click to expand...
I missed this bit. None of my cards have failed yet, and I imagine they never will, atleast within the period I am likely to use them for. MLC memory (all manufacturers incl Sandisk and Transcend) is specced for approx 2000 re-writes. Wear levelling ensures than writes are distributed equally, so it should be possible to write a total of 64TB of data to a 32GB SD card before it becomes liable to fail. This equates to 2.5 Million RAW Images being written, or approx 800 iRAW's per day for ten years.

What is much more likely is that a card will become corrupted if misused. For example, if someone removes the card whilst it is being written to, or removed the camera battery whilst wirting. As there are no moving parts, SD cards and most other solid state memory types are inherantly reliable unless abused.
 
Yup, I can only remember a single card failure since going digi 12 years back.
 
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