Camera is "BUSY"

Occassionally when I am taking pictures (and trying to do so in a quick fashion) my camera will display "BUSY" on the display. I have to give it a few seconds to catch up or do whatever it is doing and by then I've lost the shot. Any one know why this happens or a setting to prevent from happening? These are usually indoor shots.
Thanks, T

Depends what camera you have -- which is it?

You probably need to buy a faster memory card for it... or you could be at the limit of the camera's processor and buffer speed.

Welcome. What camera are you using and what mode are you in? If you are shooting in burst mode and you are trying to shoot 25 pictures in 4 seconds, your camera is going to take it's normal time to save the images through a buffer.

How long have you had your camera and what lens is on it? Some of us put a short gear list at our signatures so we can have it for members to know before responding. If you care to do that, go to User CP and create a signature. You will see what I did with my signature so you know what gear I am using and have some knowledge of.

When the buffer is full, it takes some time to write the files to the card.
It is normal...It also depends on the camera, the card you are using, and the size of the file (Raw,RAw + Jpeg ?)

if your using fill in flash, it takes time to recycle...

Thanks for the replies! Remember I'm a beginner to the max. I usually shoot on auto b/c I haven't become entirely familiar with the settings for the camera and the lighting and all that stuff.

Camera is an EOS Rebel XTI. The lense I usually shot with is the EFS 18-55mm. (I hope I posted that correctly).

What advice can you give me to minimize this from happening? Some of you mentioned memory cards. Is there a better card to shot with? I am currently using a Lexar Pro 133x Speed.

My tip:

Don't treat the camera as a machine gun, it has a one-shot mode, let it have a rest.

One thing is 'what type' of file you want to shoot, all raw, raw+jpg. Large raw + sm-jpg, is what I use. l-raw=ljpg will slow things down

tmndi wrote in post #7380574
Occassionally when I am taking pictures (and trying to do so in a quick fashion) my camera will display "BUSY" on the display. I have to give it a few seconds to catch up or do whatever it is doing and by then I've lost the shot. Any one know why this happens or a setting to prevent from happening? These are usually indoor shots.
Thanks, T

Yes! It takes time for the data that is being read from the sensor, to transfer to the memory card. To help, the camera has a buffer system which normally allows you to keep shooting while the transfers are taking place but it it's a fixed size and can only cope with certain number of frames before the camera stops to catch up. The quantity depends on which type of files you are shooting. i.e. RAW or JPG. Professional bodies have larger buffers, especially a body like the MKIIN which is designed for sports shooters. Some memory cards support a faster transfer of data into their memory. You get what you pay for in the end. You'll have to learn to judge how many in a sequence you can take before lifting off the "shutter button" and taking a breather.

Good luck.

Mine tends to do this when my card is getting full when I'm using my crappy cards.

What's good? For you probably SanDisK Ultra II (get 2 or 4BG instead of 8 or 16... more cards over more space is a good idea in case a card decides to bite the dust). If you have some money to spend, get a SanDisk Extreme III or IV. But really, for what you're doing an Ultra II will be fast enough.

Get a new card and see if that helps. If not- SLOW DOWN! You don't have to take 100 pics per second. Make sure your focus is where you want it to be before every shot so you have more keepers.

Thanks for the advice! I'll give the new card a try. I'm a new mom - so I usually try taking 100 pix/minute. I can't help it. hahah!

Lowner wrote in post #7382341
My tip:

Don't treat the camera as a machine gun, it has a one-shot mode, let it have a rest.

Good tip Richard.. You'll get much more out of your camera if you think about exposure, composition etc than "spray and pray"..

my camera does this when i'm using flash. if you are using the flash a lot it will get hot, so it will say its busy to let it cool down before you can fire it again

Are these long or short exposures? My 350D sat for quite a while showing busy when taking anything longer than a 30 second shot. My guess it was probably the noise filter hard at work. Not sure if turning it off would make it faster. don't have the 350D with me right now

Adding to mellowd's point, if you use high iso noise reduction on a long exposure it takes a "dark frame" equal in time to the actual exposure and then subtracts that info out as noise.