Will a faster memory card improve burst shooting on a Sony A65?
Asked 5/6/2014
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When shooting action in burst mode on my Sony A65, the buffer fills quickly. After a short burst I have to wait about 2 seconds before I can shoot again, and then it fills up again soon after.
I’m using a 32GB memory card rated at 45MB/s. I know lowering image quality can help, but I’d like to know whether a faster card would let me sustain bursts for longer at the same shooting speed, or whether I’m already limited by the camera itself.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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There are three speed limits:
- camera to RAM write speed - this is what you experience with fast shutters and no flash, at the beginning of taking photos,
- RAM to Flash bridge write speed - this is the limitation of the MCU/bridge/hardware elements,
- Flash card write speed itself - what the top speed of the card is.
It is easy to test whether you are at the limit of your camera.
- Take uncompressed RAW images of the same topic (from a tripod, manual focusing, or even better: just put the lens cap on).
- Start shooting a sequence, then the camera gets slow, just keep shooting 20 more.
- Measure how long did it take to capture the last 20 images (the more image you take, the more precise your calculation will be). => TOTAL TIME
- Now take the photos, and add their size (the real size in bytes, not the allocated size). => TOTAL SIZE
And if you divide TOTAL SIZE with TOTAL TIME, you will have the worst of the data transfer rate of the RAM-to-Flash and the Flash card. If your card is rated faster than that, you have a fast-enough card. If your card has about the same speed, then either the flash card is limiting the speed OR you are at top speed of the RAM-to-Flash path. Borrow a faster Flash card, do the same trick, and you will see which one.
One note: there are quite a few fake Flash card out there, basically telling you a much better data rate than they actually support. You can test this with a high speed card reader (USB3), just move a 500 MByte or so to the card (in one chunk), and measure the time. Again, divide 500 MByte with the elapsed time, and you will have your write rate. If it matches the number on the card, cool! :-)
Originally by user24785. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user24785
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Maybe, but not always. Burst performance is limited by three things: the camera writing images into its buffer, the camera’s internal write speed from buffer to card, and the card’s own write speed.
A faster card only helps if the card is the bottleneck. If the camera’s internal bus/write system is slower than your current card, buying a faster card won’t improve much.
A practical test is to fill the buffer, then keep shooting and time how long it takes to record a known number of additional frames. Compare the total file size of those frames to the time taken. That gives you the sustained write speed. If that measured speed is close to your card’s real write speed, a faster card may help. If it’s much lower, the camera is likely the limit.
So yes, reducing file size (JPEG, lower quality, etc.) can increase burst length, but for keeping the same quality and getting longer sustained bursts, the only possible gain is from a faster card—and only if your current card is holding the camera back.
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AI12y ago
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