Buffer constraints

NikonKev

NikonKev

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Kev
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Googled the heck out of this and still not much wiser :whistle:

What is stopping manufacturers from producing cameras that don't have Buffer issues ?

Is it price, Size, deliberate hold back or what ?

In other words why can't we have a camera such as a D4S at 11fps keep firing at 11fps until the card whatever size is filled, I know that is a very very unlikely situation but it illustrates my point.

Anyone with an answer ?
 
Like a computer the camera needs a really good processor, in this cade to shoot so many images and write them to the card in time, if they were able to develop a processor that you could continue shooting until the card fills it would cost a lot of money to put in the camera so wouldn't make it cost effective and the price would go though the roof like any new technology that comes out, you can see the buffer of the D4 camera for example is a massive improvement from the first D1! Over time it will get better and better...
 
Cards aren't fast enough.
 
If you think about the camera being like a computer, the buffer is the RAM and the SD/CF card is the hard drive. You can get fast storage or you can get big storage but getting one that does both is expensive :)

The SD/CF cards themselves aren't fast enough to keep up with the rate at which data is generated by the sensor.
 
Cost has already been mentioned - the fast buffer memory is (relatively) expensive.

So the manufacturers put in the minimum that will be enough for most users - I don't know the buffer sizes on other cameras, but on my Sony A900 I can shoot at it's max 5fps for almost 3s - which is, to be honest, more than enough.
 
its actually the cameras cant process the info quickly enough, thats normaly the limiting factor

but for raw you would need ssd i think, which is what cinema cameras use
 
pingu666 said:
its actually the cameras cant process the info quickly enough, thats normaly the limiting factor

but for raw you would need ssd i think, which is what cinema cameras use
Click to expand...

Well with my A7R the limiting factor is the card write speed, the camera tops out at around 35MB/s thats even with a 280MB/s card or 95MB/s card same result, the speed at which cameras write to cards need to keep up. The 280 card would handle 22MB files at 11fps.
 
Were talking theoretical in here keep up. It was asked why a camera cant shoot 11fps and not just fill the card up. The buffer issues are size related not speed. The bottleneck is usually the cameras ability to get the data onto the card, a buffer just offsets the problem.
 
robj20 said:
Were talking theoretical in here keep up.
Click to expand...

robj20 said:
Well with my A7R the limiting factor is the card write speed
Click to expand...

Think you might want to consider what your putting next time then as your making no sense saying your cameras limiting speed is only the card then going onto saying its the processors problem, so you basically contradicted yourself...
 
Not really, you have the actual card capable of over 200MB/s but the card writing capability of the camera can be much much lower as in 35MB/s.
 
the buffer is just that, a buffer, camera will dump data to ram quickly, but in terms of sustained high fps it makes little difference

reminds me of this
:D

fast sd cards are cheap now anyways, just got a integeral 90/80 64gb for 32 quid or so :o
 
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