User ID

`
Very fast burst speed with a built-in limiter to dial down
to 3, 4, or 5 frames total run is a very effective general
purpose setting for any subject that will move a bit, or
change expression, blink, etc. Not a fantasy, one of my
cameras has this and it's a best-of-both-worlds method.

For very active subjects I have a camera with a built-in
limit of 20 frame bursts ... I would cut that to half if it
were possible. And this system is on constant recording
standby, such that when you press the shutter release
you save the 10 frames preceding and 10 frames that
follow pressing of the release. This method is limited to
only 18MP per frame, but that's usually more than enuf.

Acoarst constant record standby sucks the battery, but
I mention that only for those who cannot afford spares,
or those who find that swapping the battery after every
few hundred frames is more burden than rewinding and
reloading 35mm film every 36 frames ;-)

Come to think of it .... any user who cannot afford one
spare battery per few hundred frames could also never
have afforded to use film for that few hundred frames,
so moot point on battery expenses. The cost is about
the same as film ... ignoring that the batteries, unlike
the film, are reusable a hundred times over !


`

zzzynick Loc: Colorado

My Canon 1D Mark III, can shoot 10 Raw frames a second.
It's the reason I bought and use it.
I do a lot of splash photography.
Water drops. Popping water balloons. Dropping stuff into a 10 gallon tank.
I bought a Miops unit to capture lighting.
Last spring I was at the Denver Pow Wow, and I know I would have missed some great shots with a slower camera
So yeah for me, fast is good
There are times I wish it was faster.

Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand

I'm with you pendennis....

gessman Loc: Colorado

Thanks Andy! ...'tis a good rule of thumb you have. Devoid of a shred of artistic talent I do confess to being a tinkerer/experimenter as opposed to a photographer. I wish it t'weren't so but as they say, "time will tell" and I'm afraid it has in my case.
ti

gessman Loc: Colorado

...and with all the available software that permits us to upsize images plus the latest printing techniques that have become available in recent years, a capture is all you need to make some very nice prints if that's a goal.

alx Loc: NJ

Coming from the days of 5fps and processing/mounting color slides of airshows limited to 36 shot rolls where I had to have enough shots left to get through the pass, yes, I had to shoot wisely lest I run out of frames before the best shot of the pass was reached. Then a quick reload before the next pass. I spooled my own loads down from 100 foot rolls and between film, chemicals and TIME it was costly. But the motor drive gave me results.

Today, with memory cards yielding the equivalent of tens of rolls of film on even the hungriest of cameras like my D850, wisdom is to take advantage of the technology to make sure you get THE BEST POSSIBLE SHOT. Pixels are free. Celebrate the fact. The time it takes to review your shots to narrow down the selection is far less than the time it took to mount those old slides for projection.

IF you have achieved the level of perfection where every shot involving a living, breathing subject in motion is perfect on one click of the shutter, congratulations! My guess is that you are only fooling yourself because better was probably +/- 2 frames had you shot a burst.

Today's memory offers opportunity I would have killed for in the '70s. Take advantage of it and ENJOY!

fantom Loc: Colorado

BebuLamar

I use a camera at work that can shoot 10,000fps for motion study but still sometimes I don't think it's fast enough.

aubreybogle Loc: Albuquerque, NM

Thanks Steve for sharing your excellent article. It is clearly and consisely writen, and full of good common sense advice, which we all know is altogether too uncommon.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

The reason for "burst mode" is the same reason photographers hate shutter lag and slow refresh rates in EVFs. The idea is to capture the action at its peak. Shutter lag is a killer for that. And so are slow refresh rates. In the film days, one learned how to best anticipate the action and work at capturing the peak. Even with motor drives back then, with 5fsp to 10fps, one had to be careful; the rolls of film were only 36 exposures.

Now we are in the digital age. But the goal is still the same: capture the peak of the action. It has it good points - and it bad points in this case. With my Olympus, I can shoot with Pro Capture. This with allows me to capture 30 frames just before I pressed the shutter. That way if I was a little slow and just a little off in my anticipation, I still have the paek action. The down side of this, especially with the camera set at 60fps, one has to go through a lot of picture editing to find that "one" peak shot. One does not get something for nothing; one can capture that peak action, but you are going to have to sort through a lot that aren't.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

When taking images of things that are moving fast very often the difference the difference between the shot you want and the shot you don't is a a fraction of a second. Repushing the shutter just isn't fast enough to capture action.

As an example, I was at a revolutionary war reenactment this past weekend and I wanted to capture the belch of fire and smoke from the cannon as it was fired. I could not tell when the explosion would come, I could only see the lighting of the fuse. As soon as the fuse was lit I starting capturing 10 fps. It was
less than a 2 second burst but I captured 15 images and only the 8th one caught the flames and smoke at the exact moment it left the barrel. Images after that showed only smoke receding from the barrels mouth.

Joelwexler

I like how the photogs at press conferences stand on the shutter button, coming home with 500 closeups of whatever puffy faced pol they're shooting.

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

Some of the commenters talk rather blithely about pushing the shutter button 4 or 5 times per second. They seem to e unaware of the camera shake this frantic activity would induce.

orchidalan Loc: Arroyo Grande, CA

I thought that besides helping you not miss something that is fast action the burst was also used so that if the first picture is blurry because of camera shake form pressing the button the next pictures might not be shaking

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

And this is relevant to this discussion in what way? Two posts here and this is the best you could come up with?