D200 write speeds...

[bashveank]

I got a job at the campus newspaper and they gave me a D200. Continuous shooting within the buffer works fine, but once the buffer fills up it shoots at around 0.7fps. This is with a Sandisk Extreme III CF card at 30MBps.
Is there something wrong with the camera? I have RAW compression turned on and am getting 9MB NEF files, so shouldn't I be getting a little over 3fps?

 

[Padaung]

How many shots are you able to take before the camera slows down?

I did a test with my camera (also a D200 with Sandisk Extreme III card) and this is what I got before the camera slowed down, shot at the fastest frame rate available (5fps?).

22 uncompressed RAW
or
28 full res JPG

After these numbers of frames the camera slows to a crawl as the buffer is filled up. This is normal until the camera can clear some buffer space. As a comparison it is much the same as the RAM in your computer -both act as a temporary, very fast, storage space. Both a computer and camera slow down once this space is filled up as they can then only work as quickly as the next part in the process - the CF card/hard drive.

Additionally, if you need to shoot constantly at such continuous frame rates then I think you need to think about how you are shooting your photos. I have only once filled the buffer on this camera in the 3 years I've had it, whilst shooting RAW.

Hope this helps.

 

[bashveank]

I can take around what you're getting. I probably wont ever fill the buffer so it's really a non-issue, I was just wondering if there's something wrong with the camera because on my D40 I can still shoot at the speed of the memory card after the buffer's been filled.