Beginner Slow Camera

Stedavey

Stedavey

Suspended / Banned
Messages
16
Name
Steven
Edit My Images
Yes
Ok so yes I am a novice and still getting to know the photography world and I have what I would probably call a very amateur question. so here it goes. when I have press my button to take a photo in the bottom left of the view finder is says R-5 and as I snap it goes R-4 then another R-3 and so on, so if I take 5 pics my camera will be extremely slow on responding to taking another shot. now yes I know this is like buffer rate or whatever you want to call it basically the camera is processing the pics I have just taken. However is there any way of speeding this up ? I am using a PNY 100-MBs memory card and I shoot in RAW and J-PEG ( because I am a newbie ) Now I believe shooting RAW would have some effect ? is this the case or am I missing something? BTW I have a Nikon d3300 :)
 
Get the fastest memory card you can. Shooting JPG only will speed up the processing/storage time but get a fast card and you will see the difference.
 
It's not slow but there are faster. Taking multiple shots at both JPG & raw will require a fast card to avoid pauses and my advice above will help with this.
 
yeah alright, buddy thanks, I will look into getting a faster card :) for the mean time I'm guessing just shooting jpeg will improve speed?
 
Your camera will shoot 5 frames in a second.

My first motor wind camera was capable of 2.5, and my first digital camera only 2 fps. I've had a lot faster, but my 6d is close in speed to the d3300 and I never consider it's not fast enough.

I'm guessing if you're finding it too slow, you're possibly doing something wrong.

How are you focussing? Is your focussing technique slowing you down?
 
From a D3300 test write-up.
"Burst speed now meets our criterion of at least 5 fps for amateur sports shooting. With JPEGs, you can get upwards of 100 shots before the buffer fills, likely the result of D3300’s newer Expeed 4 processor; with RAW you get 11 shots per burst. That’s down from the D3200’s 18, but by no means shabby for a camera of this class."
 
Stedavey said:
Ok so yes I am a novice and still getting to know the photography world and I have what I would probably call a very amateur question. so here it goes. when I have press my button to take a photo in the bottom left of the view finder is says R-5 and as I snap it goes R-4 then another R-3 and so on, so if I take 5 pics my camera will be extremely slow on responding to taking another shot. now yes I know this is like buffer rate or whatever you want to call it basically the camera is processing the pics I have just taken. However is there any way of speeding this up ? I am using a PNY 100-MBs memory card and I shoot in RAW and J-PEG ( because I am a newbie ) Now I believe shooting RAW would have some effect ? is this the case or am I missing something? BTW I have a Nikon d3300 :)
Click to expand...

A buffer is like a waiting room.

You take a photo. Your camera start processing the photo. It then saves it to a memory card.

If you take few more photos while the camera is still processing the next photo. The camera will then asks the incoming photos to go into the waiting room (the buffer), and wait for their turn. When the camera had finished processing the photo and save it to the memory card, it will call out "Next!" to the buffer, which will then send the next photo to be processed.

But the buffer can only hold a set number of photos just like a waiting room have a limited number of seats. If the buffer gets full, you can't take any more photos until there is some space in the buffer.

What slows down the buffer is the processing. Image the in-camera processing stage like a doctor taking a long time with a patient, the waiting room gets full of people waiting for their turn.

To speed it up. You need to think about your settings. For example: Better to shoot in RAW with basic settings, and post-process it yourself on computer than using the camera menu and turn on the camera's fancy options such as turning on B&W, Sepia mode, Soft focus mode, whatever other modes the camera can do. Because it is like the camera saying "Hang on! I'm trying to process the photo, make a sepia looking black and white with soft focus, so the rest of the photos will have to wait for their turn in the buffer!" Or it may be that, go for shooting in JPEG only, forget RAW. Or shoot in RAW only, forget JPEG, because shooting in both would take more time for processing and transfer to memory card. There can be a number of reasons why in-camera processing had slowed down a bit, forcing the buffer to get full waiting for their turn.

And as other members pointed out in the above posting, faster memory card can sometimes helps.

Slower or cheap rubbish memory cards means the processed photo is slow to transfer to the memory card (specially if JPEG + RAW = larger size), bit like people leaving a room or building via a single door, the longer you wait for them to leave, the longer people in the waiting room wait for their turn. Faster (as faster as you can afford) memory cards helps move processed photos from camera to card as quickly as they can, like having double doors, or as many doors as the wall can have.

The less in-camera processing with the help of faster transfer to memory card, the faster the photos get a move on, the faster the buffer empties leaving you with more room to take more photos.
 
Stedavey said:
when I have press my button to take a photo in the bottom left of the view finder is says R-5 and as I snap it goes R-4 then another R-3 and so on, so if I take 5 pics my camera will be extremely slow on responding to taking another shot ... I have a Nikon d3300 :)
Click to expand...
I don't understand this. Your camera can shoot at up to 5 frames per second and it has a buffer which can hold up to 100 JPEGs, 11 RAW images or 6 RAW+JPEG. (See page 367 of your reference manual.) So you really shouldn't see any slowing down until you've taken at least 6 images, even with the slowest memory card in the world.

I'd like to know how you've got the camera set up. Is it really the image processing time that's the bottleneck, or is it the image acquisition?
 
Following on from what others have said as well, bear in mind that that "100MB/s" is likely to be the Read speed of the card, not the Write speed.

Have a read of https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/fastest-sd-cards/ for an idea of cards with fast Write speeds, one of those might help if it's the buffer not being able to clear down quickly enough, but yes, as StewartR says, that should only come up after 6 shots if you're on RAW+JPEG settings.
 
Looking at the quoted specs above and coming at it from a technical point of view a factory reset of the camera should rule out any in-camera options you may have inadvertently set. Also I would try an in-camera format of the memory card.
 
I shoot a D3200, I use, what were when I got it 'fast' 45Mb/s SD cars, but as others have said, that's only the nominal rating of transfer speed, and usually brought 'up' a lot, particularly on cheaper cards by a faster read speed, and a slower write.

HOWEVER.. why on earth do you 'need' to shoot in NEF + Jpg?.. why are you trying to 'machine gun? Why are you BASICALLY overwhelming the poor camera?

RAW.. is a raw nerve to me.. a bit like 'Pro's go Manual (exposure!)' .... its a peculiarly 'amateur' attitude... pro's use as MUCH 'automation' as they can.. they don't want to be wasting time 'faffing' with stuff when time is money... and the money is what makes them a pro, ot how good thier pctures may be! Its an indulgence of the amateur/hobbiest who can afford the time to 'faff' and when it doesn't really make their photo's any better for it, they resort to the retort that 'they' are taking control... NO.. most often they are just FAFFING for the sake of, and making a big deal of the business for the sake of! [Rant possibly over]

RAW... isn't, for starters... there is a presumption that the RAW format files record the actual 'base' light levels off the sensors receptors.. which they don't.. the sensor array is made up of filtered receptors for Red, Green and Blue the camera's electrckery interrogates the sensors, gets readings then interpolates those readings to create artificial 'pixel' values for a photo-file....what RAW formats usually do, is record an 'extended data set' that 'may' include some of the lower-level almost base data, 'close' to the sensor readings, but also the algorithms used to create the picture-set, so that it 'may' be back-tracked in adjustment... which is all probably a bit Geek-Greek to you, but don't worry...

NEF, as in Nkons 'pseudo' RAW file format, I dont know exactly, but NEF probably stands for Nikon, Editing Format, or Nikon Extended (jpg) Format .. therein lies the hint of the 'redundancy' duel-saving in NEF+JPG... Nef already IS a JPG format image file.. it merely contains a second data-set that explains how that Jpg was created, to allow more or alternative processing to viewable image file to be made by the user.... it may be a handy feature if you want 'quick' Jpg's to show and share, but the NEF's to play with at leisure, BUT for the most part it IS just a great way to clog your cameras electrikery..

Next up... I do NOT habitally shoot in RAW... I see no need..... I did NOT spend umpety hundreds of quid on a fancy all singling all dancing automated photo-bot to turn all that electrickery 'OFF' and try shooting it like my old Clockwork Film Camera, and then spending more ruddy time than I did n a dark-room developing and printing, faffing about in View NX messing with sliders, to do something the camera should have done for me... and if it DON'T then probably because I effed up before I pressed the shutter, and no amount of turd-polishing will 'fix' what I got wrong to start with!

For YOU as a beginner... NEF / RAW is probably NOT helpful; you do NOT 'make' photos in post process, you make them in-camera, and f you haven't got it right in-front of the lens before you press the shutter, you are onto a looser trying to sort it out after.... and its a road to madness even trying, and worse beveling that you should!!!! Get it 'Clean-In-Camera' get it right first time, at point of capture and you NO NEED to post process at all; THEN for all the small added flexibility you have from a RAW or Extended file to change the way the image is converted from numbers to pixels you can see, matters little! RAW/NEF really has very limited scope to change stuff, mostly the base exposure and contrast; you CANNOT correct out-of-focus you cannot correct Depth of Focus, you cannot correct motion blur, you HAVE to get that sort of stuff 'right' right at the start.... post-process faffng and shorting in RAW/NEF you HAVE to faff with even to turn into a view able display format file, like a Jpg, is leading you down the garden path AWAY from getting it CinC, making you believe you 'can' correct 'anything' in post.. you can not! So don't even try!

Advice therefore IS... Shoot JPG 'only'.. work on getting your shots Clean-In-Camera, put the effort and attention in upfront at point of capture get it right first time, let 'duffers' in the Jpgs show you where you effed up! Don't wast time turd polishing, spend it instead trying to work out what you did wrong and putting it right for ext time, 'upfront' for CinC.!!! Your SD card will love you for it!

Follow on from that is why machine gun? Slow down TAKE your time, pay attention, get it right in camera, don't presume to spray and pray, that 'something' in the stream will have turned out 'OK'.... As Phil pointed out a film camera that could, with a motor-wind shoot at more than two-frames a second was going pretty good..... and STILL folk told us with wonder-winder equipped auto-fantastic cameras to SLOW DOWN, pay attention,... You only need take ONE photo... IF you do it right! And THAT is where the art lies! Truth in that bit of base ludditsm has't changed just cos electrckery has made cameras quicker and packed in more features!

This would to my sense of sensibilities be a pretty typical case of modern techno-marketing over-loading your plate with too much technology for newbies to get to grips with, and make a whole plathora of alternative 'mistakes' to when we used to have to twiddle a focus ring, and only had two or three things we could have possibly effed up!

Basically your SD card is telling you you are trying to make the camera do too much, because you are doing too little, and are trying to cover all the bets on the table.... back off, slow down, get strategic, get savvy, learn what does and doesn't really matter, and believe me, MOST of that is infront of the camera, NOT 'in' the camera, less in the settings, menus and options!
 
Even with a fast card in my old D7100, buffer was only 5 shots in RAW and JPEG. Got to the point I was taking my Pentax K-3 to airshow shoots instead. Having the D500 now is a blessing, although I was getting to the point that I was being more selective in what I was shooting and waiting until aircraft was closer and resisting the temptation to use CLh all the time....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top