20D buffer?

[danielr]

Hey everybody.
anybody who has had experience filling up their buffer with raw images please help!
i was wondering after the 6 shots are filled does it automatically stop shooting altogether or can you keep the release down and it just goes slower? could you tell me what you've been able to get from the buffer?

Thanks heaps
Danielr.

[ScottE]

Keep the shutter pressed down and it slows down to about 1/2 a second per shot. For action photos that is too slow to be of much use. I try to time my shots so that I catch the peak of the action in the second and a half it takes to capture about 7 RAW shots.

Also you can take two or three quick shots, pause, and then take a few more when you have recomposed and watched the action develop. With my old D60 the camera would stop untill the buffer was empty before it would start a second sequence, but with the 20D it is ready to go any time there is room in the buffer.

Scott

[aam1234]

...Also you can take two or three quick shots, pause, and then take a few more...

Good idea, unfortunately the camera freezes when I do that. Wish Canon makes a variable FPS.

[tim]

You know you could just try it for yourself - that's generally the best answer for most things in photography! In my experience, if you leave the button down it will keep shooting, just slower. The buffer empties asynchronously, so what you do with the shutter button has no impact, except for filling the buffer if there's room for another image.

[danielr]

tim, i would love to be able to try myself but i was asking it because I do not own one myself, lol. i'm 99% sure i'm buying the 20D as my first SLR but am a little apprehensive as I will be using it to shoot sports, amoung other things but particularly surfing and sequences are very important in surf photography. Although i would love to wait for the 30D or whatever it may be to come out and have a larger buffer for RAW i would rather be learning in that time.

Danielr.

[Rob612]

Well, a series of 6/7 shots is no bad at all anyway. If you really need speed, beside gettin on the one digit series, you can always go to large jpeg, in this way you can have a longer sequence. Personally I tend to train myself to use what I have available shooting in RAW (BTW, I shoot in RAW+JPG, so its even worst) but sometimes I've fould myself to switch even to medium jpeg (max quality, of course) just to have really long bursts. Sometimes is better a smaller jpeg (still the medium size can be handled is a lot of ways on PP) that no pic.

[tim]

Like Rob says, if you need a huge number of shuts in sequence just use JPG. Unless you mess up the exposure or set the white ballance wrong the quality will be just as good. It can do like 25 before it fill the buffer, with a fast CF card it'll do a bunch more and not slow down too much.

[danielr]

cool thanks guys yeah i had been told not to bother shooting jpegs and i know its not great but i can deal with it if i need lots in a sequence. thanks again everyone

[tim]

Actually the JPGs the camera produces are great. You might want to turn up the sharpening or saturation a little, but I know of some professional wedding photographers that shoot purely on JPG. They look great so long as you get the exposure right, and there's room for some tweaking if you miss it a little. The advantage over RAW is the workflow - there isn't one!

[Wazza]

I once set my camera to Small Jpg, and it wouldn't fill up the buffer. Stopped after around 250 shots. :p

I don't shoot RAW, and when I short normally on JPG Fine, I hardly shoot enough to fill up 20-40 frames, (only a couple of times)

[Andy_T]

Wish Canon makes a variable FPS.

Well ... they kind of do. It's all in your trigger finger :lol:

I realized that when I had filled my Sandisk UltraII 1GB card on my 20D and had to use the 1GB IBM microdrive from my old G2 ... I was taking 5 FPS large jpg shots of my son on a speeding model train at a fair when the camera noticeably slowed down to allow the microdrive to write the buffer contents...

I had never before really 'realized' the buffer indication in the viewfinder, as the Sandisk UltraII is so fast that it empties the buffer nearly immediately. However, the microdrive had a very hard time keeping up and slowed down my shooting action considerably. So I was basically hypnotizing the small number in the viewfinder to go up so I could start shooting again...

Best regards,
Andy

[danielr]

Thats interesting Andy. Do you think there would be noticable difference between say an ultra II and an extreme III in how quick the buffer clears?

Danielr

[Andy_T]

Daniel,

the older version of the UltraII was nearly as fast as the ExtremeIII ... but they replaced it with a slower controller.

Take a look at rob galbraith's CF database (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7303) for more information.
I find it very convenient and informative.

On Rob's site there should also be an article about the replacement of the UltraII's controller.

The difference between my UltraII and the IBM (or Hitachi) microdrive is quite noticeable, as the Sandisk is nearly twice as fast. Don't know how much you will notice in the performance of the UltraII and the ExtremeIII ... but from my knowledge the prices are not that much different, either.

The microdrive also really sucks, as far as the startup time of the camera is concerned. Quite noticeable.

Best regards,
Andy

[Salleke]

Like Rob says, if you need a huge number of shuts in sequence just use JPG. Unless you mess up the exposure or set the white ballance wrong the quality will be just as good. It can do like 25 before it fill the buffer, with a fast CF card it'll do a bunch more and not slow down too much.

Hello Tim, I have a Sandisk standard 1 GB CF card and a EXTREME III Sandisk 1 GB CF card and they are equally fast and can hold the same amount of pictures when the buffer fills up.
I know that on the Rob Galbraight website it's stated different but in my real life test there is no difference. I have done this test several times and have posted a few threads her abou it but no one can tell me otherwise. Or maybe my EXTREME III card is faulty and need to be send back. But it works perfectly so I think that the 20 D does not support faster CF cards because the writing speed is lower then we think. Or I'm doing something wrong.

[aam1234]

Well ... they kind of do. It's all in your trigger finger :lol:

Yes, but for some reason my 20D freezes when I do that.

[tim]

On Rob's site there should also be an article about the replacement of the UltraII's controller.

Are you able to give us a link to the article? I can't find it :(

[Andy_T]

Are you able to give us a link to the article? I can't find it :(

Was easier to find it here on the forum.

Voila! (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=60034&highlight=sandisk+extreme+ultra)

However, now that I read Phil's revised post, I am interested to see how much of a difference it's really going to be.
Also, in the CF database, there is no mention of significantly slower UltraII cards (it was feared by some some when the change in the card was introduced). So the cards ought to be good with about a 10% speed disadvantage compared to the ExtremeIII cards.

Maybe not something you would notice.

Best regards,
Andy

[tim]

Ta :)

I wouldn't worry about the difference between extreme and ultra ii myself - 0.03MBps really isn't noticable.

[aam1234]

Yes, but for some reason my 20D freezes when I do that.

Hmm, quoting myself :D . Seriously, does the above happen to your 20D (in jpeg).

[HJMinard]

Actually the JPGs the camera produces are great. You might want to turn up the sharpening or saturation a little, but I know of some professional wedding photographers that shoot purely on JPG. They look great so long as you get the exposure right, and there's room for some tweaking if you miss it a little. The advantage over RAW is the workflow - there isn't one!

I agree, there are some "RAW snobs" who unfairly give JPEG's a bad name. I (most of the time) shoot RAW+Large/Fine JPEG and I'm extremely happy with the JPEG quality. I rarely end up using the RAW files unless I mess up the white balance setting or (very rarely with the 20D) the exposure. I have the RAW files if I need them ... and I keep them for archive purposes. For action shots, if I feel limited by the buffer with RAW+JPEG, I feel completely confident in switching to JPEG only.

[aam1234]

Couldn't agree with you more Jay. I find "if you don't shoot RAW you are not a serious photographer" thing a bit disheartening. I'm 100% RAW shooter now, but still wondering if shooting raw is the lazy way, as one can correct many things after taking the photo.

This is not a RAW vs. JPEG, I'm just agreeing with Jay.

[Rob612]

I think that we are all saying and doing the same thing. We tend to use RAW (or RAW+JPG) whenever possible, but no regrets or complaints if we have a need for speed, thus switching to JPG only.

Have the RAW available has its value, we all know that, and I personally prefer to have it rather that have the Jpeg only, but if its not the right option... well, Canon did a great job, lets use it :)

[Andy_T]

Well, I normally use only large JPG, because I'd only get some 90 shots on my 1GB CF card otherwise :rolleyes:

On my G2, I religiously used RAW, converted every image to TIFF and heavily post-processed it in PS. On the 20D, the large JPG out of the camera is normally good enough (that means: a lot better than the final result out of the G2, and I'm not talking MP here :wink: ).

When in doubt (backlit situations, sky shots etc.), I bracket exposure in continuous shot mode. But normally I don't really need it.

Best regards,
Andy

[aam1234]

Spoken like a true German. Are you an engineer by any chance Andy :D

[Rob612]

Well, I normally use only large JPG, because I'd only get some 90 shots on my 1GB CF card otherwise :rolleyes:

This is something we all "digitals" get trough. But sometimes happens to me to stop for a second a think about it. Most of us, if not all, went trough the film, with the limit of 36 exposures (ok, I've had the 5 mt back that gave me I do not even remember how many, but sure enough far less than what I have with digital) and the problem of carrying X rolls with the doubt that it would not be enough, that large stocks of rolls were bulky, the problem of keeping them safe in extreme cold/warm weather etc.

Now, we are somehow disappointed because in a 1 GB CF we can only store 90 pics (in RAW!!!).

From a certain point of view, it makes me smile. From another, it really sounds weird. Jeez, 90 "negative" pics on a reusable support, no developing costs and hassles, can have 2, 3 or X of those, plus the various digital wallets... And we (at least I often do) complain about the CF being too small ? Thats something to think about, once in a while.

To me, this happens almost every time a stop looking a 4GB CFs at 450 EUR - more or less 550 USD - thinking if I should buy one or two of those for avoiding the annoyance of changing CF (I do have 8 or 9 1 GB cards).

But maybe this has to go in a different thread...

[Andy_T]

Rob,

I completely agree with you on most accounts ...

But:
- Image quality is sufficient for my requirements
- I only have 1 fast CF card (I know, I'm a lazy slob, I should just shell out 200$ for 2 more fast 1GB cards :wink: )
- Normally I like to take lots of images to ensure I get a few keepers
- I don't just want to save the images on the CF, I also have to transfer them to my PC and back them up on CDRW ... which is enough of a hassle with my current filesizes.
- Guess I should also get a DVD-RW drive ... but it would have to be an external one for my laptop ... and those are quite bulky or insanely expensive :rolleyes:
- Take that all together, and it's a nice EF 85/1.8 (next on my wish list)
- I'll rather continue to shoot JPG with my new EF 85/1.8 :lol:

Spoken like a true German. Are you an engineer by any chance Andy :D

Quite close. I'm not German (I'm from Austria, so that's close) and I am a marketing consultant.
Otherwise, you absolutely hit the nail on the head :wink:

Best regards,
Andy

[aam1234]

Hey, my g/f is from Austria!