A few tips for 10D owners

[GenDEM]

Here are a few things I have noticed about the 10D that may be interesting for those of you that have one as well.

1. The 10D has (2) 9-frame buffers. For lack of a better terminology, we'll call the two buffers "capture buffer" and "write buffer". When pictures are taken, they are stored in the capture buffer. They are then moved as quickly as possible to the write buffer. When they are both full, the camera must write out the files to the card before you can take any more pictures.

The camera cannot write out files if the shutter button is half pressed or fully pressed. If you're shooting RAW like I do, writing out the files can take a while, up to 40 seconds for everything, which can prevent you from getting the next shot. So Tip #1 is this: don't keep your finger on the trigger unless you really have to. In this way, you can let the buffers empty in the seconds between shots and you won't miss anything.

2. If you switch the autofocus and AE Lock functions (meaning, autofocus is activated by pressing the * button near your thumb), you don't have to half press the shutter to maintain focus lock. This means that tip 1 above becomes a little easier. This is in the Custom Functions section, C.fn 4; set it to 1.

Setting the camera up this way also makes the AF/MF switch on your lens redundant, and so you can tape over it to make sure it never gets bumped into the wrong position by accident.

That's all I've come up with, camera-operational-wise. The best tip I can give you though is to get a neoprene neck strap. No other thing has alleviated as much soreness as that strap. From slugging the camera around at an all day wedding shoot to slugging the camera around all day climbing mountains in Asia, that strap makes the camera feel about 1/2 as heavy as it is, which is significant with the battery grip, a 70-200 2.8 and 550EX!

...Mike

[robertwgross]

gendem wrote:
1. The 10D has (2) 9-frame buffers. For lack of a better terminology, we'll call the two buffers "capture buffer" and "write buffer". When pictures are taken, they are stored in the capture buffer. They are then moved as quickly as possible to the write buffer. When they are both full, the camera must write out the files to the card before you can take any more pictures.


Mike, the way I read this, there is room for 18 shots. Obviously that is wrong, since there is room for only 9 shots.

---Bob Gross---

[mattchase]

Actually, there is room for about 18 (not sure the exact number, but we'll say 18 ). Of course, there is a limitation...the first 8 will fire off at 3fps, and the next 8 will go at about 1fps, until the buffer is full and the camera stops shooting.

You can test this by going to manual mode, set your shutter to something fast (1/400th or so), set to continues shooting, and just hold the shutter button down. It should go clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick, click, click, click, click, click, click....until the buffer is full.

[RichardtheSane]

Probably a silly question, but do you have to hold the * button in for autofocus, or does it stay acivated after one press.
Personally I would image that can really hinder you in the handling of the camera. :)

[GenDEM]

Robert: it may not be 18 shots exactly, but it's something close. Read the memory handling information on the 10D and see for yourself.

Richard: I doesn't really affect the handling of the camera at all, once you're used to it. And no, the * button is not a toggle, you press and hold to maintain focus in AIServo, or press and hold until you hear the beet in 1 shot.

[davekone]

I like my * button to lock exposure only. Most of the time I want to lock exposure at a certain point and focus at another. I wish I could program the buttons on the 10d to do what I want them to do. There are times when I quickly want to change from AI-Servo to One shot and back again. Cant do it while I'm looking through the viewfinder.

David

[clos]

davekone wrote:
I like my * button to lock exposure only. Most of the time I want to lock exposure at a certain point and focus at another. I wish I could program the buttons on the 10d to do what I want them to do. There are times when I quickly want to change from AI-Servo to One shot and back again. Cant do it while I'm looking through the viewfinder.

David

There are three ways to do this:

1. If you have a Canon super telephoto lens with an AF stop button, you can activate custom function 17-4. You can then use this button to toggle between One-shot and Al-Servo.

2. Press the AF-WB button onthe top of the 10D and then use the Main Dial to switch focus modes (see page 66 of the instruction manual). This is awkward and you do not get AF mode status in the viewfinder so this would take much paractice.

3. Use Al-Focus. ;)

Good luck!

-Clos

[CyberDyneSystems]

I did try the switching the * button to autofocus,. I could clearly see that this set up has it's advantages! A Nikon I used was set up this way as well,. a distinct autofocus button under the thumb as opposed to its being built into the shutter. I do not know though whethter this is standard on the Nikons or if this camera was set up using Nikons own custom functions.

Anyway,. despite the obvious advantages,. I was compelled to switch back to the standard autofocus via shutter releas as I was just too used to it and was missing shots...

I may try again... it will certainly take time to "unlearn what I have learned"

[robertwgross]

gendem wrote:
Robert: it may not be 18 shots exactly, but it's something close. Read the memory handling information on the 10D and see for yourself.


Yes, and it clearly states that 9 frames is the maximum for continuous shooting. After that, you can continue to shoot, but only very slowly, because that is the slow rate at which the capture buffer is emptying to the write buffer.

So, the correct answer is 9.

My D60 is almost exactly the same, except that the buffer holds 8 instead of 9.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

From DPreview

Smart buffering
When we reviewed the EOS-D60 we noted that it had a larger internal buffer than the D30 but also that it buffered images in a totally new way. The EOS-10D now has enough buffer space for a burst of nine images (compared to eight for the D60), the number of available images for a burst is shown on the viewfinder status information line.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos10d/Images/d60buffering.gif

The Smart buffering method improves both single shot and continuous drive shooting. The EOS-10D uses its internal buffer for two purposes: buffer the data as it comes from the image sensor (we will call this unprocessed data) and subsequently buffer converted image files before they are written to the CF card. Note that the camera will not write to the CF card unless it is "idle", this means that if you hold the shutter release button in the half-press position the camera will hold the converted image files in the internal buffer until you release.

Image processing sequence:

1. Record data as it comes off the image sensor, unprocessed data (approx. 9.3 MB per shot)
2. Store this unprocessed data in the SDRAM buffer
3. Take unprocessed data and convert into image files (JPEG or compressed RAW)
4. Buffer these converted image files (JPEG approx. 2.5 MB or RAW approx. 7.0 MB)
5. Write JPEG / RAW image files to CF card


This means that although the buffer can be filled with a continuous burst of nine shots it quickly regains buffer space as the unprocessed images are converted into the JPEG or RAW image files. In a real life situation it's easy to believe that the stage 2 runs concurrently to new unprocessed data being buffered.

Take nine shots in a continuous burst, keep your finger half-pressed on the shutter release and despite the fact that nothing is being written to the CF card you will see the buffer space indicator fairly quickly count back up again. Remove your finger from the shutter release and the counter doesn't change but you can observe data being written to the CF card (indicator light on the CF compartment door flickers).

Repeating this test for both JPEG Large/Fine and RAW I discovered that the buffer has space (without writing any data to the CF card) for:

9 x JPEG Large/Fine images and approx. 4.5 seconds later indicates space to shoot 9 more
9 x RAW images and approx. 8 seconds later indicates space to shoot 6 more
The EOS-10D takes just 500 ms to convert the unprocessed data into a JPEG Large / Fine file, approximately 880 ms to for a compressed RAW file. This also means that the EOS-10D is approximately 30% faster than the EOS-D60 at the image compression stage.