max real continuous (until shutter is released) frame rate for D600 in JPEG mode w/ 45MB/sec Sandisk Extreme?

<p>Anyone know if the 5.5FPS "continuous" spec is really "burst speed until buffer fills"? I.e., is it 5.5FPS until I get tired of holding the shutter button?<br>

I have a hard time believing it can get that frame rate w/ SD cards...thought you needed CF cards and JPEG mode for that speed because I've only seen that kind of speed on Canon DSLRs w/ fast CF cards...</p>

<p>Nikon has made it very clear that the D600 can capture at 5.5 frames/sec until its buffer is full. There are some settings that can potentially reduce the frame rate, such as Active D Lighting, high ISO noise reduction, etc. I am not taking those settings into account here.</p>

<p>So I set up this iPhone in the stop watch mode and the D600 capturing 14-bit compressed RAW, where its RAW buffer is 15 frames. With the D600 set to Continuous High (Ch), I managed to capture 16 consecutive images. The first image shows the stop watch at 40.5 seconds and the 16th (and final) image shows 43.4 seconds.</p>

<p>In other words, in 43.4 - 40.5 = 2.9 seconds, the D600 managed to capture 16 frames. That is about 5.51 frames/second. I know, this is not entire accurate as you can argue that there are only 15 new frames in those 2.9 seconds. In any case, it is clearly over 5 frames/sec.</p>

<p>In case you still have doubts, as long as you have a D600, it is very easy to repeat this test yourself. BTW, I used a slow SD memory card in this case, but only the buffer size matters here.</p><div></div>

<p>Shun, may I ask a question about your RAW setting? Is that the maximum resolution setting for the D600? (I hope I got the language right. I'm trying to understand the different RAW settings.) I'm thinking about buying a D600, and pondering the 5.5 fps. Most likely, when I need the faster frame rate, I will also need the extra megapixels of a larger RAW file. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Lisa, by definition, a RAW files means everything the sensor captures. Therefore a (true) RAW file is always the maximum resolution. On some Canon cameras, they have this "small RAW" option by down sampling the RAW file; strictly speaking, that is no longer RAW.</p>

<p>The D600 always maxes out at 5.5 frame/sec (or slower depending on some settings, as I mentioned above), regardless of whether you capture RAW, JPEG large or small, 12-bit or 14-bit, DX crop, or battery you use. Likewise, the D800/D800E maxes out at 4 frames/sec if you capture the entire FX frame. There is no way around those hard limitations.</p>

<p>If you need a faster frame rate, among Nikons, you need to get a DSLR with fewer pixels.</p>

<p>Shun, what speed SD card did you have in slot 1 when you did your test? My non scientific test on my D 600 told me that a 95 MB/s SDHD card generated a faster fps rate/more images in and out of the buffer before it slowed down than a 45 MB/s SDHD card, other things the same. Auto and/or AF-A is one of those settings that slows down the fps on a D 600.<br>

Joe Smith</p>

<p>Again, the speed of the SD card is completely irrelevant in this case. The D600 has a 15-frame RAW buffer, and I am only considering the period when the D600 was filling up its buffer. As soon as the buffer was full and the frame rate began to slow down, I stopped the test and only counted the first 15, 16 frames when the buffer was not yet full.</p>

<p>See a related comparison on the following thread: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00avV3<br />Memory card speed would affect the amount of time to write the image files onto the card, but it does not affect the frame rate before the buffer is full. In this case I happened to use the slowest card on the image on the other thread, the 133x 32G Lexar, but again, I would have gotten the same result with any one of the other cards.</p>

<p>Shun, concerning the RAW files, that's what I thought. But the tech specs state NEF (raw): lossless compressed, compressed 12- or 14-bit. I guess I need to do more reading in order to understand it. (I think I've decided that 5 fps is sufficient. I only wanted to confirm that shooting RAW would not slow it down.) And thank you for the link to the other thread. I will go read that next.</p>

<p>We are getting fairly off topic, but Lisa, on the D600, you can independently choose RAW compression options and 12/14-bit capture options:<br>

For RAW compression, the options are:</p>

<ol>

<li>Lossless compressed</li>

<li>compressed, i.e. lossy compressed</li>

</ol>

<p>The D600 does not offer the uncompressed RAW option. And there are 12-bit or 14-bit capture.<br>

In other words, you can select any one of these four combinations:</p>

<ol>

<li>Lossless compressed and 12 bit</li>

<li>Lossless compressed and 14 bit</li>

<li>Compressed and 12 bit</li>

<li>Compressed and 14 bit</li>

</ol>

<p>However, the RAW buffer on the D600 remains at 15 frames regardless of which one of those four combinations you choose, but lossy compressed RAW at 12-bit will yield the smallest image files so that the buffer will clear a little faster than lossless compressed and 14 bit.</p>

<p>Thanks for the explanation, Shun. I'm going to take the time to read more today.</p>

<p>Thanks, Shun. But I was really curious about the "real" continuous (ignore buffer size) rate. Use the smallest JPEG and run that test up to 100 shots is what I was interested in. It should hit 5.5fps for a while, then it'll hit the real continous rate.<br>

I guess I could just ask Nikon too...should have done that before posting :-)</p>

<p>lol...so I asked Nikon and got...</p>

<p>"I'm sorry but we don't provide the sort of testing you're requesting. The D600 can take up to 100 frames at 5.5 fps and then will slow down some based on the speed of your card - beyond that info we can't do individual testing. Sorry we can't help more."<br /><br /><br>

I was just asking what the max was. They should have tested it w/ whatever was the fastest available in their development process already :-P</p>