You'd have to be keen wouldn't you. I mean for $500 you can get 4 Extreme III 16GB cards which write at around 2 images/s. Hard to imagine the kind of shooting that would fill up even a standard buffer.
It's not like the old days with the D1x where if you had zoom enabled you could only get four images in the buffer and they took about 30s to write to the old 1GB Microdrives. That was $236 well spent for that upgrade.
Like many things in life, either you need it or you don't. Airshows are a perfect example of places where you can need it badly. Each act runs 10 minutes or so, and is choreographed to provide as close to non-stop action as possible. So no matter how careful you are, that buffer (even the expanded one) is going to hit the stops a bunch of times.
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
Each act runs 10 minutes or so, and is choreographed to provide as close to non-stop action as possible. So no matter how careful you are, that buffer (even the expanded one) is going to hit the stops a bunch of times.
If you're shooting RAW, perhaps. Shooting JPEG it's literally impossible to fill the buffer since the CF subsystem is so incredibly fast. The only thing that stops you is Nikon's artificial 100 photo continuous shooting limit.
Exposure and white balance are huge challenges at airshows, I shoot RAW to get the best possible images. So does everyone else I know, especially since I don't know anyone who shoots for sports magazines and might need images immediately.
If you want to go to an airshow and try your luck while taking the quality hit to your images, you go right ahead. Freedom of choice is open here. But the point was, and remains: some of us do need that buffer upgrade. And if you do, then it's money well spent.
You just were completely unspecific in your claim, so I provided some perspective on it. Have you actually shot with a D3, in RAW, at an airshow and filled the buffer? The thing I'm trying to prevent is for people to look at the relatively small buffer size and be fooled into thinking that it won't perform well for them. The size of the buffer in relationship to the speed of the CF subsystem is what matters. My 1D Mark III had a bigger buffer than the D700's, but I would fill it regularly - under the same conditions I haven't come even remotely close to filling the D700's. The D700 with a UDMA card is ridiculously fast.
I certainly agree that if you "need it", it's worth it. But I suspect most people won't.
Yes, I am not sure if I would need that $500 buffer upgrade, but it is fantastic to know that it is out there. The reason I asked in the first place is I use two canon 5d's for weddings, photographing kids, etc, and often fill up the buffer. It is only like 9 shots... and writing to cards at 20Mb/s is definitely not fast enough.
It is good to know that the D3 has a buffer twice the size, and can write to UDMA cards, which I have 3 of (4GB's). I imagine I would fill that as well on occasion, and that upgrade might actually be worth it...
First I have to decide on if I'm switching to Nikon or not... one thing at a time.
Thanks for the replies though, and feel free to debate all you want. Makes for a good read.
Let's get our bits and bytes straightened out here... the 5D, at a maximum, can write to a CF card just under 8MB/sec (megabytes, not bits). The D3 (and the D700) can write at 30MB/sec. The combination of the larger buffer on the D3 and the CF subsystem which is nearly four times faster means you likely will have no issue shooting weddings with it, even in 14bit RAW mode. These things are fast.
I often fill the D3 buffer and can't shoot for some time. I want the upgrade but am surprised that Nikon hasn't announced a D3 + with the upgraded buffer and a few new features by now-especially since D3 sales have flattened out.
FYI two 5Ds aren't the equal of one Mk III for buffer capacity. The D3 with enlarged buffer would be at least 1.5x the Mk III's buffer capacity and, with the previously described faster write speed, would write out to the CF faster.
Sam Bennett wrote:
You just were completely unspecific in your claim, so I provided some perspective on it. Have you actually shot with a D3, in RAW, at an airshow and filled the buffer?
What "claim" is that? In a prior post, camey said it was "...hard to imagine the kind of shooting that would fill up even a standard buffer." It was a simple question, and I provided a simple example: airshows are like that.
To answer your other question: yes, I have had the privilege of borrowing a D3 at an airshow since my own cameras are D300s. It's fast as hell, but it's writing 8-9MB files at a rate of 9 fps which is somewhere in the ballpark of 75-80MB/sec. UDMA cards are fast, but still they "only" move 35MB/sec or so. At a good airshow, I get 3,000 frames per day or more... and yes, the buffer fills up multiple times. Try following an F-22 during a low fast pass with a sharp turn, where you want to get the airplane's mugshot before it passes you, as it passes you, during the turn, right up the afterburners, through the heat haze, and from the "top" as it ratchets around. Boom... there went your buffer.
If all you're trying to do is provide some perspective, then you're being awfully smug about your point of view. So, have you shot a major airshow with a D3 on RAW? What was your experience with the buffer in that situation?
I know I've thought about the $500 upgrade from time to time for wildlife. 99% of the time I just don't need it, but there's still that 1% where you may miss a once-in-a-lifetime shot of say an antelope running by or some cool hawk coming down and jumping on a mouse. I think most people would probably be just fine without it, and with a fast card I can still shoot 1FPS in RAW even with a full buffer. However, there have been a few times I'd like to have had a little more space.
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
What "claim" is that? In a prior post, camey said it was "...hard to imagine the kind of shooting that would fill up even a standard buffer." It was a simple question, and I provided a simple example: airshows are like that.
That's fine, the point that I was making was saying what you said without the context of how you're shooting (RAW vs. JPEG) is meaningless. Again, with JPEG you literally can't fill up the buffer. If you're a RAW shooter and you shoot like that, then by all means get the upgrade.
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
If all you're trying to do is provide some perspective, then you're being awfully smug about your point of view. So, have you shot a major airshow with a D3 on RAW? What was your experience with the buffer in that situation?
I think you're being a little defensive here. I'm just trying to help people avoid looking at numbers like "Buffer Limit" and drawing conclusions without looking at the bigger picture. A 9 frame buffer on a camera with 8MB/sec throughput is going to be much less effective than a 9 frame buffer on a camera with 30MB/sec throughput.
Thank you for sharing your first hand experience for your particular style of shooting - that's much more meaningful than just theorizing about it, which is what it sounded like you were doing. No, I don't shoot airshows but I do shoot a lot of indoor sports, which can be fairly demanding in terms of buffer. Thankfully in what I shoot, there is enough of a pause between consecutive bursts that the D700's buffer in combination with its throughput is fine.
