RAW and Rebel -- tradeoff?

I have the original Rebel/300D. After using this camera for about a year, I decided recently to try RAW. I am still getting used to a new process, but so far I like the ability to make corrections.

My issue is that the 300D is already slow enough with writing images to the CF card. Now that I am shooting larger RAW files, it is even slower. So it seems that I have to make a choice between capturing more images and faster writing on the one hand, and better post processing (and better images?) on the other. By shooting RAW, I might miss a shot because the camera cannot keep up, e.g., when in continuous drive mode and I am taking pictures of the kids. However, with RAW, I have a better chance of being able to make a good quality photo of the images that I do get.

Anyone else face this dilemma?

[Yes, I am sure many of you will suggest it is time to move up to a better camera. However, I have already bought some lenses, flashes, and Photoshop CS3 this year, so it is not in the budget.]

What speed CF card are you using?

I'd do what you are happier with.

It is indeed a trade-off, then is it one that you're happy with?

sando wrote in post #3203157
What speed CF card are you using?

I'd do what you are happier with.

It is indeed a trade-off, then is it one that you're happy with?

I just bought a Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB CF card. Actually, with this camera, the brand of card does not seem to make much of a difference for the write speed.

The brand wont, but the speed will. And it seems you're using a fast card.

It just depends really, will RAW really make such an huge difference to your images? say you mistakenly take an overexposed shot and you save it, that's great. But how often do you do that, honestly? And how many pics will you miss because it cant write RAW fast enough? Probably more.

I would stick with the speed and go for Jpeg, tbh.

rdsmith3 wrote in post #3203249
I just bought a Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB CF card. Actually, with this camera, the brand of card does not seem to make much of a difference for the write speed.

High speed (133x) card makes a HUGE difference on my 400D (compared with an 80x one). I can comfortably do RAW bursts long and often enough to keep me happy when shooting football (Yeah, it's no 1D, but it's still workable).

But yeah, sorry, that doesn't help you. I don't know where the botteneck is with a 300D, maybe it is the camera and not the card in your case.

The 300D write speed is VERY slow, JPG or RAW, compared to the more recent models. A faster card doesn't necessarily mean a quicker write speed.It will write as fast as IT can, not as fast as the card can accept.

You can read a review of this here.

rammy wrote in post #3204542
The 300D write speed is VERY slow, JPG or RAW, compared to the more recent models. A faster card doesn't necessarily mean a quicker write speed.It will write as fast as IT can, not as fast as the card can accept.

You can read a review of this here.

Exactly

The 300D is slow by design and even if putting a 15000000000000000x card in it the newer cameras will still be faster.

The bottleneck is not the card but the camera itself. That being said, minor performance gains do come from some of the very generic cards to decent brand higher speed cards. I noticed a bit of a difference going from crap generic to a good Sandisk card

I faced similar slowness with my 300D but just got used to it. I mostly shot in jpg though cause I was not into RAW (just getting into it now).