SD Card question: I think I'm having a brain freeze or cramp but looking for help. Does the speed of the card determine how fast the camera processes a photo? It seems that when I'm...

rydabyk Loc: Florida Panhandle

I think I'm having a brain freeze or cramp but looking for help.

Does the speed of the card determine how fast the camera processes a photo? It seems that when I'm taking long exposures say 45 seconds and longer it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r for it to write to the card and I was wondering if the card mattered so much. My cards are class 10 and I'm only shooting RAW files and zero video.

By the way, I have googled it but I'm now looking for actual field experience.

Thanks!

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

rydabyk wrote:

I think I'm having a brain freeze or cramp but looking for help.

Does the speed of the card determine how fast the camera processes a photo? It seems that when I'm taking long exposures say 45 seconds and longer it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r for it to write to the card and I was wondering if the card mattered so much. My cards are class 10 and I'm only shooting RAW files and zero video.

By the way, I have googled it but I'm now looking for actual field experience.

Thanks!

You do not say what camera you are using or how your shots are set up, but it sounds like you have "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" turned on. This generally beneficial function makes an exposure without opening the shutter of the same length as your 'live' exposure after it's complete in order to identify and back out any hot pixels. Doing this obviously doubles your exposure time. It's normal functionality. Of course, you can turn that function off if necessary, but then there will probably be more noise in your image.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Respectfully, I don’t think it has as much to do with the camera as it does with the read/write speed of the memory card. Most card manufacturers publish read/write stats for their various products and you can see that information at the vendor sites where you purchase the cards.

juan_uy Loc: Uruguay

The card speed matters until the writting speed of the card exceeds the writing speed of the camera. Manuals usually have some requirements about this.
For long exposures, the cause may be long exposure noise reduction. If that is on, I think that a 45 seconds exposure is followed by 45 seconds of the long exp NR action, doubling the time it takes.

You could try turning it off, only to see if that is the cause. If that is, then you should see if you want to use it or not, or when to use it.

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

I didn't realize the write speed time was so easy to determine.

rydabyk Loc: Florida Panhandle

Deleted-duplicate post sorry.

rydabyk Loc: Florida Panhandle

larryepage wrote:

You do not say what camera you are using or how yo... (show quote)

BINGO!!!!! That must be it, for some reason, I forgot to turn that off the other day. I usually do. Thanks so much, like I said brain freeze! By the way, I'm using a Canon 6D, usually with either a 6 or sometimes a 10 stop ND filter and possibly a soft grad.

Thanks for the feedback.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rydabyk wrote:

.....
Does the speed of the card determine how fast the camera processes a photo?
.....

"Processing" a photo, no- saving it to the card, yes, up to the limits of the camera write speed.
Having a card capable of being written to faster than your camera can send the data to it will not gain you anything.
(The camera will process and then save.)

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

rydabyk wrote:

BINGO!!!!! That must be it, for some reason, I forgot to turn that off the other day. I usually do. Thanks so much, like I said brain freeze! By the way, I'm using a Canon 6D, usually with either a 6 or sometimes a 10 stop ND filter and possibly a soft grad.

Thanks for the feedback.

Don't you just love those easy fixes? Especially the ones that don't cost anything or require buying something new?

rydabyk Loc: Florida Panhandle

larryepage wrote:

Don't you just love those easy fixes? Especially the ones that don't cost anything or require buying something new?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

larryepage wrote:

You do not say what camera you are using or how your shots are set up, but it sounds like you have "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" turned on.

Yes, that can be a killer! I can't see any practical use for that. Noise can be taken care of in processing. I guess it's available for a reason, though.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

larryepage wrote:

Don't you just love those easy fixes? Especially the ones that don't cost anything or require buying something new?

Yes

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

It has to do with how fast your camera buffers between shots, especially bursts. I recently had a discussion about this with my trusted camera store, Hunt’s. If you look at your memory card under the descriptor (like SanDisk Extreme Pro, there should be a number. The higher the number is, the faster the buffering capability. I noticed a marked difference between the 95 and 300 card. Hope this helps!

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

mizzee wrote:

It has to do with how fast your camera buffers between shots, especially bursts. I recently had a discussion about this with my trusted camera store, Hunt’s. If you look at your memory card under the descriptor (like SanDisk Extreme Pro, there should be a number. The higher the number is, the faster the buffering capability. I noticed a marked difference between the 95 and 300 card. Hope this helps!

A camera can only write so fast and when the write speed capability of the card exceeds that of the camera's ability, there is no gain. A faster card can empty the buffer only as quickly as the camera's ability to write to it.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

jerryc41 wrote:

Yes, that can be a killer! I can't see any practical use for that. Noise can be taken care of in processing. I guess it's available for a reason, though.

I think the benefit is that by making a duplicate exposure, the camera can identify and eliminate specific pixels to eliminate, whereas in post processing, the software has to decide whether a bright spot is noise or part of the intended image. It is possible that it might decide wrong. So I'm pretty much a fan of the in-camera noise reduction. But I don't use it when doing a big panorama. It just makes things take too long, and can stretch the time out enough that the earth's rotation can move things enough to cause some indigestion for the stitching software