Nikon D7000 buffer

<p>I am not getting the advertised buffer depth on my D7000. They claim 15 frames in 12bit raw compressed. I'm seeing 11. I tried turning off all NR, long exposure NR, ADR (not that this should matter on raw) etc. <br>

Switching to jpg mode, any size gives me a buffer of 8 shots. Nikon claims 100. <br>

I called nikon and they claim that it's because I'm not using an approved memory card. <br>

<strong>According to everything I've read the buffer size should not depend on the memory card at all. </strong><br>

<strong> It seems like Nikon might be disabling the full buffer if a non-approved card is used.</strong><br>

<br />Wondering if anyone else has had this issue. BTW, I"m using transcend class 6 card 16gb.</p>

<p>Try a Lexar Class 10. Buffer size is actually dependent on read/write speeds to cards, by my understanding. So if it isn't writing to your card fast enough, then you won't be getting the full buffer.</p>

<p>Buffer size is the physical amount of memory inside the camera. A faster card will let you empty the buffer faster, but it will not change your buffer size. I always get 10 to 11 frames of RAW buffer on my D7000. My experience is that shooting 12 bit vs. 14 bit does not make a huge different, but shooting lossy compressed RAW will cut your file size down in half and the smaller compressed RAW files (vs. lossless compressed) will take less time to write.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Shun, you are exactly right on what a buffer really is, but the buffer size does not directly = the contonious frames you can take before a full buffer. If your card is fast enough to dump an image before the buffer fills, then you will get one more image in what Thomas is calling buffer. So, in fact, a slow card could influence the numbers he is seeing.</p>

<p>Buffer size and how many consecutive frames you can shoot before the buffer is completely full so that you have to wait for the buffer to clear to shoot another frame are two different issues, although closely related.</p>

<p>I have various class 6 and 10 SDHC cards. Even with class 10, the D7000 can write one lossless compressed RAW file in about 2 seconds. For lossy compressed, it is about 1 second. Whether it is 12-bit or 14-bit does not make a big difference. That was why I suggested lossy compressed earlier. It is very difficult to see any difference between lossy and lossless compressed. It is like 12 bit vs. 14, there are a number of studies about them.</p>

<p>What is an 'approved' Nikon card ... by manufactrer or (and?) speed? Class 10 vs class 6? </p>

<p>According to Nikon website here: http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcamera/slr/d7000/features03.htm#f02</p>

<p>The only approved brands are SanDisk, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Lexar. <br>

<strong>The thing I really can't believe is only 8 small jpgs before buffer is full. WTH?</strong></p>

<p>Thomas, am I reading it wrong or is the buffer for small JPG's 100, not 8?</p>

<p>In my experience, RAW(+Fine, but to 2nd card), (14-bit, Dist Corr on, ADL low, lossless) buffer is 7 shots; RAW+fine (again jpg to 2nd card) without distortion correction (but still 14-bit, ADL on low) is 9 shots. JPG shots with distortion correction on is 7 shots (I think); Without distortion correction is 17, but this depends on the composition (I've had as much as 40 while shooting the lens cap :o). Also note that these numbers are from the shot/buffer prediction shown in the viewfinder.<br>

I haven't found ADL or the number of bits to significantly contribute to the buffer shot count at all - only distortion correction seems to have any effect on the buffer prediction.<br>

Finally, I have two cards; a class 2 Sandisk Ultra 2 (slot 2), and a class 10 Sandisk Extreme. Both perform almost exactly the same with regards to flushing the buffer, which I was quite annoyed about. If anything, class 10 has a slightly faster buffer flush, but only with JPGs (probably due to the smaller file size), by about one or two frames.</p>

<p>If anyone else can elucidate on this whole SD card/buffer thing, I'd be very grateful as 9 shots go really quickly!</p>

<p>Check the auto-distortion control in the shooting menu. Turning it on can cripple the buffer with jpg. Try it - it makes a <strong><em>significant </em></strong>difference in jpg...<em>way</em> more difference than compression settings or the SD card or anything else. I can pretty well hold the shutter and blast away in jpg/L/fine with auto-distortion control off, but with it on, I get about 9 shots in Ch shooting before the frame rate drops. With raw/14-bit/lossless, it's about 1 shot difference (9 vs 8), but it absolutely <em>cripples</em> the buffer with jpg. It'll <em>noticeably </em>show up if you just press the shutter halfway and look at the remaining buffer shots on the top display or in the shooting menu, but those numbers don't match actual performance for jpg (real-world is better).</p>

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<p><strong>It seems like Nikon might be disabling the full buffer if a non-approved card is used.</strong></p>

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<p>I think it's the other way around. Nikon probably tests and validates cards for known good performance, and lists the best ones that are commonly available when the manual goes to press. They want you to be happy with your camera purchase, and make their recommendations based on things that they know will work well. If you think about it, no company would recommend cards that perform poorly.<strong> </strong></p>

<p><strong><br /></strong></p>

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<p>or in the shooting menu</p>

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<p>Whoops...I meant the viewfinder.</p>

<p>Thomas, I had the same problem you are describing until I put in a wazzzoooo 32 gig card in it...I do not shoot raw, but did notice it in the Jpeg fine mode. Now , all is good on planet earth. </p>

<p>As DB Cooper and others recommended I turned off the auto distortion control. Actually I was unable to turn it on or off because it was grayed out as I was using a non-nikon lens. I put a nikon lens on, turned the distortion control off and now I am seeing normal numbers for the jpg buffer (no difference for raw as expected.) <br>

I am still only seeing 11 shots for the buffer in raw with every noise reduction/ distortion control turned off. It may sound like I'm being over critical, but when I am literally waiting and searching for days to photograph an owl or rare bird and I only have about 5 seconds to shoot it those 4 extra shots of buffer make a huge difference. (I know I know I could shoot jpg instead) Are people with the approved cards seeing that 15 shot buffer in raw as advertised? I may just have to buy the cards blessed by Nikon.</p>

<p>Don, you're correct the advertised is 100 small jpgs, however, if you have distortion control on it dramatically drops to only 8.</p>

<p>My testing confirms your results Thomas. Manual focus, manual shutter 1/250, lossless compressed RAW, distortion control off, class 10 Kingston card (I don't think card is relevant), continuous high, the best I can get is 11 FPS. It would seem Nikon has some explaining to do! (Also with the battery grip).</p>

<p>I bought a 32G class-10 Lexar card shortly after I had bought my D7000, and I have a couple of Kingston 16G class 10 and an 8G class 6 Sandisk Extreme III. I get a buffer of 11 RAW files with any one of those cards, and write speed is about the same with any one of them.</p>

 

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<p>the best I can get is 11 FPS</p>

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<p>I am sure that Don Cooper meant 11 files in the RAW buffer. The D7000 is limited to 6 frames/second.</p>

<p>Right Shun, I meant 11 files in the RAW buffer (unfortunately).</p>

<p>I did some more testing. Using a Lexar 32gb 133x card, with the camera set to RAW/14-bit/lossless compressed/Adobe RGB/high ISO NR on/long exposure NR on/Auto distortion correction on, I got 8 frames before the burst rate slowed. With the camera set to RAW/12-bit/compressed/sRGB /long exposure NR off/high ISO NR off/Auto distortion correction off, I got 14. The same settings with a Sandisk 8gb Extreme III card got 15.</p>

<p>The camera settings affect the D7000's RAW burst rate more than anything else - bit depth, compression scheme, and particularly Auto distortion correction. The color space mattered (1 shot). Surprisingly (or not) long-exposure NR just being switched on mattered even if it wasn't used (also 1 shot - it makes no sense to me for the camera's firmware not to bypass LENR with Ch burst shooting). While not technically part of the camera's buffer, the card mattered.</p>

<p>Taken together it was the difference between 8 and 15 RAW burst frames in my testing. YMMV. Wonderful as it is (especially for the price), if burst shooting is the primary concern, a D7000 probably isn't the best camera choice. I believe I'll let LR3 do the distortion correction whenever possible from now on.</p>

<p>Just to throw flames on the fire, with Don Cooper's settings, I got 7 and 11 frame buffer sizes respectively on my C4 Sandisk 4gb Ultra II and 16gb C10 Extreme cards, based on the viewfinder reading (I don't know where the other four frames went!). I don't discount that there is a buffer benefit from using the faster card, but the difference is too small to make a change on my camera.</p>

<p>I didn't see any difference when changing colour space, but there was a difference of about 1 frame when changing the compression. I can also confirm that, for reasons unknown to me too, turning off Long NR noise gets me an additional frame.</p>

<p>Exactly why I'm four short I don't know, but I do know that I'm using the older firmware. Don, did you upgrade the firmware on yours?</p>

<p>Kevin, the testing I did above was with firmware 1.0, missed the upgrade. I just installed V1.01, ran the same test and got 14 into the buffer. Ran it again, and again, and again, and could not repeat the 14 frames, just got 11. What the heck is going on?</p>

<p>I am using the original firmware. The most I can get is 11 raw in buffer.<br>

I wonder if the battery charge affects this at all.</p>

<p>This may be of interest (found this after reading about them at KR's site):</p>

<p><a href="http://glamourphotography.co/gear/did-a-little-memory-speed-test-with-some-sdhc-memory-cards-including-sandisk-extreme-pro-class-10-45mbsec/">http://glamourphotography.co/gear/did-a-little-memory-speed-test-with-some-sdhc-memory-cards-including-sandisk-extreme-pro-class-10-45mbsec/</a></p>

<p>While the faster cards don't increase the buffer size (it stays at 11), they allow the buffer to clear significantly faster. I am going to give one a try.</p>

<p>I decided to call Nikon Tech support about this matter. They had me reset the custom settings (top menu option under CUSTOM MENU SETTINGS) and also do a 'soft' reset (two green buttons). My camera's buffer prior to doing this only stored 11 images. It now holds 15 compressed RAW images as advertised. I am not sure what setting caused the reduction. It will be interesting to see if the ultra fast memory card has any effect on the buffer (as far as clearing a shot or two before you hit 15). I will let you know. I should receive the cards on Friday and will post my results.</p>

<p>Elliot, could you check your settings after the two-green-button reset? Out of curiosity, I tried that and the buffer shows 22 shots, but then I realized that image quality is set to JPEG normal. After I switch that back to RAW, my D7000 is down to a 10 or 11-frame buffer again.</p>

<p>Moreover, I have several different SD cards, including a fairly expensive Lexar 32G 133x. Write speed from the D7000 is about the same on those class-6 and class-10 cards. If you need frame rate, buffer size, and write speed, I would get a DSLR that uses CF cards, such as the D300, D700, and D3 series (and hopefully soon their successors). The D7000 and its SD cards are not exactly designed for speed. My suggestion is not to spend a lot of money on high-end SD cards, and we'll see Elliot's findings.</p>

<p>Well, to come at this from the other side, I tested actually shooting a generic scene (as opposed to just looking at the viewfinder number or shooting the lens cap) with ADC off, Long Exp NR off, compressed 12 bit. Viewfinder said 11 frames, but I got 14 before I ran the buffer out. Average file size was 17.5mb, for a total of 241mb.<br>

This suggests that, if Nikon uses powers of 2, that the buffer in the D7000 is between 192mb and 256mb, which roughly corresponds to buffer capacity given the average file sizes listed on the previous link to the Nikon D7000 stats website. From my little survey with Nikon's average file size, I'd tend toward 192mb.<br>

I did a couple other tests with different settings (including shooting the lens cap) and a couple of times I came up way short of where the expected buffer limit that I suggested above is (10 shots of lens cap at about 13mb per file with uncompressed 14 bit).<br>

It'll be interesting to note how this works with UHS-I cards. Until then, I think I'm going to lay this one to rest for a while - spent the whole morning shooting nothing trying to figure it out, so I guess it's time to stop dwelling on it and go shoot something worthwhile that isn't the lens cap =)</p>

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<p>Viewfinder said 11 frames, but I got 14 before I ran the buffer out.</p>

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<p>Kevin, once again you are talking about the difference between buffer size and how many consecutive shots you can capture. I already discusseed that on my earlier post above, on March 8, 1:58pm.</p>

<p>The D7000 shoots max 6 frames/sec. Therefore, it takes about 2 seconds to fill up the (roughly) 11-frame buffer. During those 2 seconds, the camera can also write a couple of frames into the memory card to free up a little space. That is why you notice that you can capture some 13, 14 frames before the D7000 cannot shoot any more until it writes another image to the SD card. After that, you can capture one frame and you need to wait again.</p>