Will the frame buffer on Rebel XT 'speed up' slow CF memory?

I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up
the $200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can
buffer up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14
before the camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?

Shooting video sounds like it might be a problem. DV video is something
like 720k, 30 times a second. Depending on what it compresses to, it
might be a problem.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...?cid=6007-7699

"Lee" wrote in message
m...
I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up the
$200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can buffer
up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14 before the
camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?

Shooting video sounds like it might be a problem. DV video is something
like 720k, 30 times a second. Depending on what it compresses to, it
might be a problem.

"Lee" wrote in message
m...
I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up
the $200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can
buffer up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14
before the camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?


I would highly recommend a SanDisk Ultra II but to answer your question you
get 14 shots and then it just slows down. It will keep shooting at around
1.5 fps after the buffer fills.

Greg

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:08:26 -0700, "G.T."
wrote:


"Lee" wrote in message
om...
I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up
the $200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can
buffer up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14
before the camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?


I would highly recommend a SanDisk Ultra II but to answer your question you
get 14 shots and then it just slows down. It will keep shooting at around
1.5 fps after the buffer fills.

Greg


For my XT I purchased a pair of 256MB Kingston Pro CF cards. I've had
absolutely no problems with multiple bursts of 3-5 frames but have not
tried the full loan of 14. Just my $.02 worth.

Lee wrote:
I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up
the $200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can
buffer up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14
before the camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?

The shooting style and subjects matter. If you shoot eg. action photos
you'll need probably all the speed you can get. If you're into
landscapes I doupt you'll ever have the buffer full situation.

The speed shows up in how quickly the pictures are stored once the
buffer is full. Faster with a faster card. It shows up in how quickly
you can copy the card to a computer too (a minor advantage I think). For
most situations it won't show up for me.

I've got a Kingston Elite Pro (1Gb around $100 or so). It is fast enough
that the buffer never fills up if I'm shooting jpegs, once tried about
50 shots and thought that's enough for most situations

It does fill up with raw but very rarely for me. I think buffer is
capable of about 9 raw pictures and in action shooting (taking multiple
frames 3 per sec) the buffer fills up easily. For occational burst here
and there it won't fill up even with raw.

Buffer helps a lot and if you shoot at more than about 1,5 frames/sec
(for average 14 shots) it will get full, if not it won't and you'll gain
nothing with a faster card.
--
Harri

In article , Harri
Suomalainen wrote:

Lee wrote:
I scraped to get a Rebel XT. As a consequence, I can't really cough up
the $200 for a fast CF card. It means older, cheaper CF memory for me.

It got me thinking- will I ever notice? Now that the Rebel XT can
buffer up 14 frames, I wondering how often I would shoot more then 14
before the camera had a chance to write them to CF. Is this logic right?

The shooting style and subjects matter. If you shoot eg. action photos
you'll need probably all the speed you can get. If you're into
landscapes I doupt you'll ever have the buffer full situation.

The speed shows up in how quickly the pictures are stored once the
buffer is full. Faster with a faster card. It shows up in how quickly
you can copy the card to a computer too (a minor advantage I think). For
most situations it won't show up for me.

I've got a Kingston Elite Pro (1Gb around $100 or so). It is fast enough
that the buffer never fills up if I'm shooting jpegs, once tried about
50 shots and thought that's enough for most situations

I have that card as well. I was surprised to see it was middle of the
pack as far as speed in a 300D is concerned.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...?cid=6007-7699

Harri Suomalainen wrote:

The speed shows up in how quickly the pictures are stored once the
buffer is full. Faster with a faster card. It shows up in how quickly
you can copy the card to a computer too (a minor advantage I think). For
most situations it won't show up for me.

I've got a Kingston Elite Pro (1Gb around $100 or so). It is fast enough
that the buffer never fills up if I'm shooting jpegs, once tried about
50 shots and thought that's enough for most situations

I just got a Sandisk 40x card for my D70. My old microdrive only allowed
a three frame burst with raw + jpeg, now I can do 4 frames. I use it
when trying to catch a bee in flight (for instance). Check you camera's
write speed & get something that matches that. Anything more helps with
downloading to the computer which took about 20 minutes for my 2GB
microdrive. The new 40x card downloaded 100MB in 2 minutes. I haven't
figured what those work out to in MB/second but at least I'm meeting the
camera's specs now.



It does fill up with raw but very rarely for me. I think buffer is
capable of about 9 raw pictures and in action shooting (taking multiple
frames 3 per sec) the buffer fills up easily. For occational burst here
and there it won't fill up even with raw.

Buffer helps a lot and if you shoot at more than about 1,5 frames/sec
(for average 14 shots) it will get full, if not it won't and you'll gain
nothing with a faster card.
--
Harri

--
Paul Furman
http://www.edgehill.net/1
san francisco native plants