Comments on: D300 RAW Burst Test

By: The Sports Photo Guy

The Sports Photo Guy — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:29:31 +0000

Sounds like you’re testing under the same conditions as I am, other than putting the lens camp over your lens. I use a consistent target and lock AF rather than using manual focus.

By: Alexandar

Alexandar — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:02:00 +0000

Thanks for your reply The Sports Photo Guy.I forgot to mention that i use the MB D10 grip with a fresh Nikon EN-EL4a battery. Active D-Lighting, Auto ISO, Noise Reduction are all off.
I will try to get another identical card and repeat the test, not sure if the high street shops have opened one so i can test it in the shop.
In the meantime i wrote another mail to SanDisk customer support to let me know if i can send the card to them for further testing.I registered the card on their website and it accepted the serial and showed that the card is under warranty, so i’ll wait for their reply as well.
Once again, thank you for your reply and i hope you have a great New Year’s Eve.

A.Charvat

By: The Sports Photo Guy

The Sports Photo Guy — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:39:00 +0000

Other considerations affecting write speed would be Noise Reduction, Active D-Lighting (I turn all of these OFF for tests), Auto ISO (also OFF), and finally if you’re shooting without the grip at 6 fps (I shoot with grip at 8 fps) that will also affect your “effective” throughput.

By: Alexandar

Alexandar — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:12:46 +0000

I have purchased one SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB card from Amazon and did some tests on my Nikon D300 the following way:
I covered the lens with the lens cap, put it on manual focus and did a high speed burst for 20 shots, with the display off (12-bit, lossless compressed RAW files) . I measured the time from the first shot until the card light went off and it was approximately 13 seconds.
Each picture size was on average 7.8MB so that was a total of 156MB for all the 20 pictures taken.
Dividing the 156MB with the 13s time i got 12MB/s which i 1/3rd of the time posted.
The same test on the SanDisk Ultra II 2 GB took 25 seconds.
Thinking that i might have purchased a counterfeit Extreme Pro 16 GB, i have send pictures of the card to SanDisk and i was told that based on the pictures and the serial number of the card, it was a genuine SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB.
So, either it’s a good counterfeit card or i’m doing something wrong?
I don’t have a good card reader yet, so i only did a benchmark using the card in my camera and got 8MB/s write and 13MB/s read speed when using the ATTO Disk Benchmark program.
Can someone please do the exact test i did (Nikon D300 and SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB) and post the results here?

Many thanks in advance.
Alex

By: iluv4n6

iluv4n6 — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:34:40 +0000

I shoot exclusively in RAW format, so that’s not the issue. I did a very non-scientific test and shot a couple pics in RAW and some set to JPEG basic–same waiting time to show up on the back display.
I’ll just have to buy more CF and compare. Bummer!
Thanks a lot for you’re time!

By: The Sports Photo Guy

The Sports Photo Guy — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:21:02 +0000

Have to say I’ve never encountered this lag. You will find sometimes significant differences between different-sized cards of the same speed manufacturer/speed rating, so it could be that the 16GB Transcend is just inherently slower than its cousin. But let me also ask: do you tend to use the 16GB when shooting RAW (due to its capacity) and the others for JPG? That could certainly be a possible cause; logic would suggest the camera takes longer to retrieve and display an NEF from the card than a JPG.

By: iluv4n6

iluv4n6 — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:00:59 +0000

A bit off topic, but Is it normal for a larger capacity card to have an effect on how long it takes for a picture to appear on the LCD display after it is taken?
With my style of photography I rarely fill the buffer so speed isn’t the highest of priorities when buying CF cards for my D300. I have three Transcend CF cards: a 4GB 300x, an 8GB 133x, and a 16GB 133x.
the 4GB and 8GB cards display the photos in under 2 seconds from when my finger leaves the shutter button; with the 16GB card in, it can take 4-5 agonizing seconds to display. Strangely enough, it tends to take longer in a studio situation with strobes involved (triggered by Cybersync RF transmitters).
I’m afraid to buy anything over 8GB of ANY speed due to the eternity I have to wait for my 16GB card. Any ideas?
(I should mention that single shot mode doesn’t help at all [i.e. I'm not approaching the capacity of the buffer])

By: The Sports Photo Guy

The Sports Photo Guy — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:06:17 +0000

David,

With the fastest 600x cards, the D300/D300s can write ONE 12-bit NEF to the card from the buffer by the time the buffer is filled at 8 fps. That’s a big reason why I chose 20 frames for my “real world” test – it’s going to fill the buffer and have to wait for it to clear space for the last 2-3 frames.

The MB/sec numbers from my test are a fair approximation of how fast the camera writes to the card – it is the total time from triggering the first frame until the card activity light goes out at the end of the burst. While I can’t control the final file size – even shooting the same “target” under the same conditions, there will always be variations – it’s pretty close.

The limiting factor in terms of overall speed is definitely the D300 at this point; it doesn’t appear capable of more than 35 MB/sec or so write speed.

By: David Cree

David Cree — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 05:16:21 +0000

I have gotten my D300 to register “r17″ in the top display to show that the buffer will take 17 Raw 12 bit photos non-stop at 8 fps (battery pack attached).

So, that’s about 2 full seconds, then the buffer is full and data begins being transferred to the flash card.

With the fastest card known to man at this time—let’s say 600X -90MB/sec – for argument sake, HOW FAST can the D300 write to the card cleaning the buffer out??

25Mb/sec, 30 Mb /sec, 35 Mb/sec?????

Even if there was a 1000X CFC @ 150 Mb/sec speed, the D300 has to have a limit on how fast it can transmit data. I would like to know what that LIMIT is. Do you know??

Thanks.

David Cree
Peachtree City, Georgia

By: David Cree

David Cree — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:35:28 +0000

Forgive my ignorance—I still am having difficulty understanding the raw burst data.
How many photos can I take in a single burst, holding the shutter button down the entire time in NEF/Raw (12 bit) before the camera STOPS taking pictures using a San Disk Extreme Pro???

You say 6.7 fps –fine, but for HOW LONG and HOW MANY shots can I get on my D300 before it stops ?? 15 photos 20 photos 30???

Thanks

David Cree
Peachtree City, Georgia