dyximan

My question is this, all things created equal no battery grip fully charged battery pull the camera straight out of the box. Set it to continuous high to shoot birds, Pull the trigger. What has the most or only affect on the buffer speed? and second question quantity? The hardware, software, firmware, camera itself, or the chip, and its speed. The combination of the two, or others?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Are you shooting RAW? Do you capture 1 or multiple images at once such as RAW+JPEG? How many cards does your camera have? Is the card (all cards involved) using the maximum speed your camera can support such as 90MB/s or faster?

You didn't state the camera body. A 7DII, 1DXII, D5 or D500 professional sport models, they all have virtually unlimited buffer for JPEG-only bursts. For most other cameras, the cards and the user-selected file types are the limiting factors.

papa Loc: Rio Dell, CA

This is "Photo Gallery", but in answer to your question, I will share the technicalities that I know matter. RAW being a lot more information takes more time to write and more room on the buffer. The buffer has limits. This is why it takes considerably less RAW than JPEG to fill the buffer. Depending on the camera RAW files can be 20MB-50MB compared to large JPEG 8MB-20MB; so 2-3 times the size. Then there is the write speed of the camera and add to that the write speed of your storage card. Now, if you're not thoroughly confused, I'll give you my personal experience. Take my FF Canon 5D Mark III that I was having sloooww write and after searching online I found the information. As the MkIII has two slots (CF & SD) I had a card in each, but the camera wasn't writing any faster with the UDMA7 160MB CF than with the dog it replaced. I found that it only writes as fast as the slowest, so I now shoot with the CF only and there it is. I didn't have this with my 7D, as it has CF card slot only. Did this help? You could ask in another category here or better yet is, ask in search on Google; that's what I do.

dyximan

I apologize if I posted in the wrong form I simply went to the homepage and it asked if I wanted to post something

dyximan

[quote=CHG_CANON]Are you shooting RAW? Do you capture 1 or multiple images at once such as RAW+JPEG? How many cards does your camera have? Is the card (all cards involved) using the maximum speed your camera can support such as 90MB/s or faster?
I know there are differences between the FPS and buffer capacities of different cameras. But my question Was more along the line of what affects the camera buffering more the hardware, mechanical limits or the software. And if it was a mechanical limit there's nothing you could do to increase it but if it were a software or firmware,could it be increased. as I have recently spoken to some individuals who tell me the Fuji XT 2 which I have shot recently along with the D500 and 7D mark II The Fuji obviously the slowest. But I was told baby are coming out with some firmware at the first of the year that will increase the speed of the XT two to that of the Sony A9. And again was wondering if this was a possibility or if the limit was mechanical more than software. And please excuse my spelling and grammar I'm doing this on an iPhone with voice texting

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

[quote=dyximan]
A Sony A9 can shoot 20 frames a second. This is a mirrorless camera. There's no mechanical lifting / lowering the mirror between the shutter and lens. The limit appears to be the size of the buffer (internal memory) needed to collect and hold images between capture, processing and write to the card media. There may be software (firmware) opportunities, but this model (all models) would seem to be a hardware limit to expanded with the design of the next model.

whitewolfowner

The piece of equipment that determines how fast your buffer works is the SD (or whatever size your camera takes) card and both the cameras speed to download and the size of the buffer. The one you control is the card. Check with your manufacturer and find out the download speed of the camera and what is the fastest card it will take for the cameras speed. You get nothing more if you pay extra for a card that is faster than the camera, but match their speeds (or get them close) and you will have the fastest the camera can do.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Things that affect buffer or buffering, speed of memory card and camera buffering rate.

warrenvon Loc: Ellicott City, MD

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is shutter speed. Shooting at slow speeds, say 1/50 will slow the buffer as it now must wait for the shutter, while shooting at 1/1000 will allow the buffer to go at a much faster rate.

There are also several in camera image preprocessing modes that will slow the buffer rate.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Given a particular body, you have control over 3 variables: (1) the write speed of the card (2) the type and size of file you write to the card - raw, JPEG-S, JPEG-L, etc. (3) if you have dual card slots, how (dual format or overflow) and if you write to the 2nd slot (which includes potentially removing the 2nd card as has been mentioned). Depends on the manufacturer, but most manuals have a table showing the max number in a burst before the buffer fills and must be written to the card. The manual can be quite instructive - it’s mentioned in a note (but not emphasized) in my 5D3 manual, that writing to both cards can dramatically reduce the possible length of a burst.

In terms of the drivers of those limits, ignoring shutter speed, it’s the depth of the buffer, the write speed of the card(s) and how fast the camera’s processor can process/move the data from the buffer to the card.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The "buffer" is essentially a flash memory module where digital images straight from the sensor are stored temporarily, while the files are being written to the memory card.

The buffer allows continuous shooting... up to a point. After a long series of shots, it can fill up and the camera will need to slow or pause taking images until the buffer has had a chance to clear itself.

The qualities of the buffer (it's own speed and size) are one factor. The type and size of the files being written to it effect buffer speed and capacity. For example, RAW files tend to be much larger than JPEGs. Because of that, most camera buffers can accommodate a lot more JPEGs than RAW, before the buffer fills and the camera needs to slow or pause. File size also is effected by what's being photographed... subjects with a whole lot of detail make for bigger files than subjects that are very plain. Sometime compare the size of a photo of a tree with a photo of a plain blue sky.

It also can make a significant difference what memory card is used. If the write speed of the memory card is fast enough or faster than the camera's maximum write speed, then the card won't matter. But a card with a write speed below that of the camera can be a bottleneck that slows buffer clearing.



All of these and more can effect the performance of the buffer.... The camera's resolution and bit depth/file size, user settings that effect file size, the speed with which camera hardware components (processor, etc.) are able to write data, the size and performance of the buffer itself, the type and speed memory cards used in the camera and potentially other things. Firmware can make quite a difference, too... After several years selling their original EOS 7D with 1.xx firmware, in 2012 Canon offered a major 2.xx firmware upgrade for the camera that greatly increased the number of images it could buffer before having to slow or pause for the buffer to clear. That change alone allowed the camera to shoot JPEG files continuously at the highest frame rate (up to 8 fps) until the memory card was filled,and increased the number of larger RAW files the camera could buffer before needing to pause from an already good approx. 15 images to an excellent 25 images at the highest frame rate. The 7D 2.xx firmware had a number of other enhancements, but increase in the buffer size was usually the first thing people noticed and commented about.

All this discussion brings up an important point... Manufacturers often rate their memory cards by "read speed", instead of "write speed". So be careful... it's very easy to get "too slow" memory cards that won't support the camera's highest frame rate for the maximum number of images possible.

On the other hand, even shooting sports I've rarely seen shooting situations where I had to wait for a buffer to clear, even using older, slower memory cards. Partly that's thanks to the cameras I use having a buffer that's more than large enough for the bursts I shoot... But it's also because I rarely take more than 3 to 5 consecutive shots and a lot more often only 2 or 3 in a burst.

Finally, you mention battery grip and battery charge condition, which may or many not matter... depending upon the particular brand and camera. For example, adding a battery grip to most Canon DSLRs doesn't make any difference in the frame rate, image resolution or the number of images that can be handled in a burst. With most Canon all the grip does is increase the total number of images that can be captured before a fresh set of batteries is needed. With most Canon adding a grip and second battery doesn't increase frame rate or bit depth.

But I know some other manufacturers' cameras are only able to shoot at their highest frame rate and/or at greater bit depth when auxiliary power from a dual battery grip or a higher performance type of battery is used. Then that's the case, either when images are taken at a faster rate or when files are larger due to more bit depth, it will put a heavier load on the buffer, filling it faster and requiring the camera to slow or pause sooner or with fewer shots taken.

dyximan

I truly appreciate your time and effort you put into your answer. As I had heard many of the things that you spoke of mentioned but I was just trying to find out if it was more software/firmware related or mechanical in nature and it seems the consensus is that it's primarily for more/software. As I am looking into purchasing a new camera I recently shot the Canon 7D Mark ii the Nikon D 500 and the Fuji XT 2 and was told there may be a firmware upgrade to make a Fuji as fast as the cannons Nikons and possibly the Sony a 9 and I was curious if this was possible But as you mentioned the 70 from the Mark1 one to the Mark2 was a considerable increase just with the firmware. As I preferred the simplicity of the Fuji over both Canon and Nikon, but new the Nikon had a buffer of around 200 and both the Canon and Fuji have a buffer of only around 25. If the Fuji could be increased to 50, that would be nice. because I found the speed to be adequate as it is fps although not quite as fast as the other two. Thank you again for your time and effort and information