Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnoll110
Hi smc1377
Thanks for the comments, very helpful. Knew there had to be more factors (than the ones I theorised). Now it my job find out what the critical ones are. 
I think the lenses are the standard 'body+2 lenses' offer from Canon, I'll find out. Trying different lenses is a great idea. I can try my EOS 50E lenses, a known quantity. Last night, my friend commented on the materials quality of my ten yr old canon lenses versus their 'tinny' EOS 400D lenses.
Friends headed home this morning. I'll find out the details. I do note she tends to take losts of landscapes & bird pics. So the cycle time of the camera wouldn't be an issue there.
As a pointer, what is considered fast & slow memory speeds?
Thanks again for the meat, smc  |
I've never shot with an XTi, so I am not speaking from a position of authority. However my older DSLR, the Canon 10D, is real slow in writing speed so it can't exploit any memory card faster than say a 40x memory card. The XTi, being a much newer camera, I would suspect could fully exploit memory cards at 80x or higher speeds.
Go to the website below and scroll down a little to see dpreview's sound recording of the XTi in action with a fast memory card. Note how it is able to shoot 35 shots at 3 fps before it buffers out for a few seconds, then is able to fire off another 10 shots or so, then buffers another couple seconds, then fires off another round of shots. So that's why I believe that your friend must just have a terribly slow memory card if her camera was "busy" and not letting you shoot.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/page6.asp
Just a question though. Are you absolutely sure that she had a Rebel XTi (400D) and not a Rebel XT (350D) or just plain Rebel (300D)?