Burst Mode on Olympus E510

[overturn]

I've been using my Olympus E510 while skiing and it seems to be shooting really slow. It's rated to 3 frames/sec up to the card capacity with a SanDisk Extreme III, which is what I'm shooting with. I set the camera to "sport" mode and it takes pictures way slower than 3/sec. I'm using the 14-42 that came with the camera. Is there anything that could be causing a much slower burst mode speed?

[OhSnapPhotos]

Random guess here, but what is your auto focus set on? If it's on continuous and the lens is trying to re-find a focus point between frames it could maybe slow your shoot speed.

Maybe?

[overturn]

so on the auto-focus selector, I want to set it to AF-S or AF-C. I would guess AF-C would be continuous and AF-S would be single?

[OhSnapPhotos]

Yes - C=continuous, S=single.

Try that and see if it works. If you are panning with the skiier and the distance between them and the camera isn't chaning much then maybe that will help.

I'm still majorly in learning mode and have had my 510 over a year, soon to be 2!, so I'm definitely no expert.

[overturn]

what kind of speed have you been able to get out of the burst mode on yours? i'm just wondering if I'm overestimating what 3 fps should feel/sound/look like. My friend's XSI certainly seemed to be taking pictures more rapidly and it's rated the same.

[OhSnapPhotos]

Mine will shoot pretty much continuously as long as I hold the shutter button down. I haven't actually timed it, but I've been able to get many shots in a short period of time.

I've mostly shot weddings using it. Trying it out to make sure I get a good shot of people walking down the aisle, slipping the rings on, the kiss, etc.

These are often lower light situations, so I would think that in the snow with sunlight reflecting you'd have plenty of light.

I do have a series of my 'little' brother coming down a slide though. If I remember I will try to post them tonight (a link) so you can see and examine the exif to figure out fps.

It occured to me to ask a stupid question. You are making sure to turn on continuous shooting each time, right?

[overturn]

Originally Posted by OhSnapPhotos

It occured to me to ask a stupid question. You are making sure to turn on continuous shooting each time, right?

I've been putting it in sport mode, so I assume it's going continuously. I've also tried just putting it in burst mode under other settings and the same thing happens.

thanks for your help.

[OhSnapPhotos]

Try putting it in auto mode, turning on continuous shooting via the button on the top left, and see what happens. If that works try each of the other modes. Some of the pre-programmed modes don't work with all the options, unfortunately.