Does anybody knows what is the buffer size when shutting raw. In other words,if I hold the shutter release, how many pictures I can take at the rate of 6 fps before the buffer is full and the camera slows down. What would be the fastest 32 gb card available for this camera.
Wow, the buffer on the 5D-3 hold 70 raw images ? , that is more than any other camera I ever had, except for my Mark 4 which can hold 453278 images in the buffer if I hold the shutter release for about 11.72 hours. Boy, It's getting very deep in here , time to open the door and let some of it out...
jaybird555 wrote:
Wow, the buffer on the 5D-3 hold 70 raw images ? , that is more than any other camera I ever had, except for my Mark 4 which can hold 453278 images in the buffer if I hold the shutter release for about 11.72 hours. Boy, It's getting very deep in here , time to open the door and let some of it out...
No , the buffer is not 70 raw images deep. That's how many you get over a 30 second burst . The buffer is anywhere between 12-13 and 18-19 apparently depending on how fast the card is (Faster card stops the buffer filling up as fast) . After you fill the buffer up you then drop in frame rate and the camera will take a shot whenever there is sufficient room in the buffer.
Now if I interpreted rg's figure correctly his burst number is taken on 30seconds of raw+jpeg . So the very fastest card is 75 which is an average of 2.5 frames a second. And as its been mentioned on here that the buffer for raw+jpeg is only about 6 frames at 6fps (so approx 1 second) that would then indicate that the camera slows down to 2.3fps for the rest of those 30seconds. But then we can also assume the fastest card gets a bit longer than 6 raw+jpegs before slowdown. ( if it managed 12 that leaves the other 28 seconds at 2.25 fps)
But all that is with the fastest card. Now take a slower card that's only a bit further down the list ( around the 50 burst point) and the slowdown after this first 6 frames is more like 1.3 -1.5 frames a second.
The DRAM buffer capacity in 5D3 is similar to 5D2 as Fred mentioned. but the FLASH memory interface is faster (UDMA 7) so if you have one of the super fast (and super expensive) cards it can empty the buffer faster thus allowing for a burst of up to 18 CR2 files as Canon indicates. However with most (even high end like SanDisk Extreme Pro) CF cards you get only 12-13 CR2s or only 2 seconds of continuous shooting.
I did mention this point to Canon and I think it is a legitimate criticism. They should have increased the camera's on-board DRAM to cope with 6fps. Those very fast cards are ridiculously expensive (e.g. Lexar 1000X 32GB sells for $250) a bit more than a super fast 128GB SSD with 6Gb/sec bandwidth. Pro photographers sometimes need to shoot in remote locations for a few days w/o access to backup (or even power) so they need to carry as many as 4-5 cards per body. This increases the cost significantly.
Overall the camera is underspeced with respect to buffer capacity for demanding action shooters, but then it's not really an action camera to begin with.
stanj wrote:
My 5D3 with the 1000x Lexar card keeps shooting at 3-4fps in raw+S mode once the buffer is full. In raw only mode it shoots at a solid 4 or more fps.
Thanks for that information. I wondered how fast it was after it filled.... 3-4fps is pretty good when compared with the 1DS Mark III.
jaybird555 wrote:
Wow, the buffer on the 5D-3 hold 70 raw images ? , that is more than any other camera I ever had, except for my Mark 4 which can hold 453278 images in the buffer if I hold the shutter release for about 11.72 hours. Boy, It's getting very deep in here , time to open the door and let some of it out...
It seems that Canon's target is about 2-2.5 seconds of shooting in full speed for all their cameras. 1 DS Mark III gets about 12 frames at 5 fps, 1 D Mark IV gets about 26 frames at 10 FPS, 7D gets about 15 frames at 8 fps... the 5D Mark III is rated at 17 frames at 6 fps or about 2.7 seconds of flat-out burst in the raw mode.
I'd like to see that figure changed to 5 seconds or more....
Posted elsewhere, my results with a couple of different CF cards. These are with RAW only, and no SD card in the camera:
Sandisk 45 mb/s - 13 shots RAW
Sandisk 60 mb/s - 16 shots RAW
This was the number of shots I got before things started slowing down. I didn't do a full 30 second count like RG did - I just wanted to see how much I could get in the high speed burst.
I shot a wedding last weekend I shot a wedding with Transcend 400X CF card and Transcend 8GB Class 10 SDHC card, and at sRAW1 and Medium JPG, respectively, the viewfinder showed 7 shot buffer.
I have to add (thanks 4honor) that when I tried the test with the CF and SD cards installed, set to RAW (on CF card) and JPG (on SD card), I could only get a 7 shot burst. The SD card was a Sandisk 95 mb/s.
Tom_W wrote:
I have to add (thanks 4honor) that when I tried the test with the CF and SD cards installed, set to RAW (on CF card) and JPG (on SD card), I could only get a 7 shot burst. The SD card was a Sandisk 95 mb/s.
2 reasons are probable here.
1 the raw + jpeg buffer is only about 6-7 shots.
2. Even though you have a fast SD card the body can't use the speed. SD write times top out at about 20mbs .
