Help with Slow Picture Taking Times

[Fractal]

When I shoot RAW with my FujiFilm S9000, it takes about 1.5 to 2 seconds between shots. I'm writing to a SanDisk Ultra II Comfact Flash card. Is this a problem with my memory media or the camera itself?

I found a posting that shows the cycle time for shooting RAW with a S9000. It says it's 10.01 seconds. I don't know what cycle time exactly means though. Is that good for a 9 MP camera? I just want to know if my expectations are too high. Any input would be great.

[smc1377]

It's not great, but it's not bad either. One most DSLRs, they come with some sort of buffer memory so that shots can be taken one immediately after another and the camera will just store the image in its internal buffer until the pictures can be written to the card.

It appears that either your camera lacks this internal buffer, or the buffer is very small so when shooting in RAW, it's unable to keep up with the amount of data that needs to be transferred.

As to your question on whether or not it's the memory card, the answer is "I doubt it." The memory card is capable of much higher writing speeds than what you quoted from a source claiming 10 seconds. But if you're only having to wait 1.5-2 seconds, then you could be fully tapping the potential speed of the card.

The answer is kind of vague really. I really don't think you could ask any more from a prosumer type of point and shoot camera. I'm guessing that a faster card really isn't going to yield any time savings. If you absolutely need it to be faster, you'll probably have to step up to a nice DSLR that has a good buffer that'll allow you to take quite a few RAW pictures before you get *locked out*.

[mdwsta4]

It takes that long to save any picture? or are you referring to long exposure pictures? if it's the latter, then that's expected. my canon can take 30-45 seconds if i'm taking a 2 minute exposure.

[Fractal]

mdwsta4:

It takes that long to save a picture. It's probably the buffer. Man! :mad: It's gotten to a point where it's hampering my ability to shoot pictures.

[mdwsta4]

how long of an exposure are you taking? a fast exposure or multiple seconds/minutes? like i mentioned previously, if it's a long exposure, that's expected. in those situations 1 minute of buffer time probably won't make a difference in setting up the next shot seeing as the exposure is long to begin with.

It takes that long to save a picture. It's probably the buffer. Man! :mad: It's gotten to a point where it's hampering my ability to shoot pictures.

[Fractal]

No I mean when I snap a picture @ 1/250 of a second it takes 4 to 5 seconds before I can take another one.

[smc1377]

Concerning the lag, it's not due to the camera recharging the flash or anything like that, right? You're just talking about taking a straight picture, no flash, in raw mode. But if the flash is also recharging, then that's pretty normal for a point and shoot camera.

Now that you've upped the wait time to 4 to 5 seconds and assuming that you're not waiting for the flash, that amount of time does seem to be a tad bit long, but then again, a 9MP camera taking a RAW photo is chewing up like what, 9 megabytes per picture? If so, that write speed is about 2 MB/Sec which isn't all that bad.