Nikon D7000 buffer

[elliot1]

<p>Shun, if the setting you are referring to relates to RAW or JPG, yes, it is RAW, compressed (not lossless compressed) - I only shoot RAW (not RAW + JPG). If you are referring to some other setting please let me know and I will be happy to check for you.</p>

<p>Prior to the reset, I had all the in-camera 'correction' options off (NR, etc.) Frankly, I am baffled as to what setting changed.</p>

<p>I currently have 3 types of cards - Sandisk Extreme III, Lexar Professional (not sure the speed rating but they are the Gold labeled ones and similar in speed I believe to the Extreme IIIs) and an older, pretty slow Sandisk. I tested all 3. The Lexar and Extreme both gave me a buffer of 15. The old Sandisk only 12. I tested each card 3 times. I am 100% certain I am getting 15 in the buffer (or at least I can shoot 15 before the camera slows down). Hopefully someone else will be able to confirm they are getting the same rate. I am guessing that with the new UHS-1 SD cards that the rate will increase by 1 or two shots. More importantly is that the buffer will apparently clear out in 1/3 the time of other cards (according to the person who did the test I linked to above). I will test the cards myself and report the results once I receive them tomorrow.</p>

<p>FWIW, the R display always starts out at 11 but I do get 15 buffered shots but I suspect that Shun is correct that during the 2 second burst, a shot or two is being written to the card.</p>

[kevin_chow1]

<p>Shun & Elliot, I understand and concur that my earlier comment was counting not just the buffer but also additional space made by writing, which it looks like you're getting that as well Elliot. I did my testing with plain old RAW only as well.<br>

Interestingly, it still writes JPGs into slot 2 (if this was slot 2's assignment) even if you don't specify RAW+JPG. I didn't notice it to make a difference.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Kevin, I think you need to double check your 'Quality' setting. When I have the Quality setting to RAW and the 'Role play by card in Slot 2' set to RAW Slot 1 and JPG Slot 2, I get a RAW file recorded to each card. I only get a JPG in slot 2 if I have the Quality setting to RAW + JPG.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>I received the SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB cards I ordered and after testing it briefly, it does appear to be a bit faster, but the difference is not huge. I rechecked and believe I am only getting 14 with my Extreme III card (Class 6) before the buffer fills, not 15 as reported earlier. I get 2 more shot in a burst, 16, before the buffer fills with the Pro card.. Overall performance is improved a bit. If you continue to shoot once the buffer is full with the Pro card, you get off additional shots at a slightly faster pace than the III. </p>

[thomas_lozinski]

<p>I decided to purchase a sandisk extreme pro UHS-I card to see if this would change the buffer. I again called Nikon support after the buffer was only reading r11 and they couldn't help me except by saying that number is an estimate. One other piece of info though, when shooting a white wall with the new memory card, I get 18 or 19 shots before the shooting slows. And then I still get about 2 fps continuous. Not too shabby. I would still like to know how (or if) people are actually seeing r15, I tried doing the two green button reset and reseting the custom settings along with the other stuff.<br>

TIL: r11 is the most I can see on display with UHS-I although I can shoot 18/19 before it slows.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>After further testing, I perhaps have solved the mystery of the frame rate issue, at least for me. I recently discovered that the D7000 applies NR to ISO 1600 and higher images automatically, even if you have NR off. The NR processing reduces the buffer's speed slightly. Shooting below ISO 1600, I am getting 15 with my Extreme III card as I originally reported. With the the Extreme Pro card, I am getting 18, again, below ISO 1600. The buffer capacity is reduced slightly at ISO 1600 or above.</p>

<p>Thomas, I don't think anyone has reported seeing r15 as opposed to r11. I have never seen anything higher than r11 myself.</p>

[szrimaging]

<p>Elliot, are you happy with the Extreme Pro cards? I am thinking of ordering a pair of 8GB today.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Hi Zach. Yes I am happy with them. They are not as fast as I had hoped buy they are noticeably faster. And are the fastest currently available that are fully compatible with the D7000. As they are only marginally more expensive than a typical high speed quality card, they are probably the best choice for anyone shooting a lot of shots over a short period of time.</p>

<p>I did notice a bit of price variation from dealer to dealer so doing a bit of comparison shopping can save you some money. </p>

[szrimaging]

<p>Yep. B&H and Adorama are pretty close, and with UPS shipping some of the best pricing. Probably just order from B&H since I trust them.</p>

[j michael sullivan]

<p>I just purchased a D7000 + Sandisk Extreme Pro 32Gb card. One of the first things I wanted to do was determine how many RAWs I could shoot before the buffer caused a slowdown.<br>

<strong>D7000 Settings:</strong></p>

<ul>

<li>Auto ISO</li>

<li>NR off</li>

<li>12-bit lossless compressed RAW</li>

<li>AF-A</li>

<li>Continuous low</li>

<li>24-120mm f/4 VR</li>

</ul>

<p>Shooting directly at my kitchen cabinet lit by warm fluorescent lighting (auto ISO = 1800, 1/30th f/4) I was able to consistently get 19-20 images before I could hear the frame rate slow down indicating that the buffer had filled. I tried this several times and was consistently rewarded with 19-20 images before slowdown.<br>

However, what I did notice was that if the autofocus system (remember, it was set to AF-A) started hunting for whatever reason (e.g. due to subtle camera movement and/or ambiguous, low-contrast subject matter), the effect on speed was IMMEDIATE and IDENTICAL to the buffer "slowing down" -- even though the buffer was totally empty!<br>

As such, this leads me to believe that some of the complaints of "slow buffer" might in fact be the AF system slowing things down and not necessarily the buffer being slow or even filled up.<br>

I'll be testing more over the next week and if I have any more data points I'll add them to this thread.<br>

But I must say, I am very happy with getting 19-20 images in a row -- that will be sufficient for 99.9% of my shooting.<br>

Michael</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Continuous low has a maximum speed of 5fps, 1 less than what the camera is capable of. That is why you are getting an extra few images over those shooting RAW with continuous high.</p>

<p> </p>

[j michael sullivan]

<p>yes I can confirm that at Continuous High you only get about 6 shots in a burst before the buffer slows down. Seems to have a pattern after that of two "fast" shots followed by a lull, then a single shot, then a lull, then two more "fast" shots, etc.<br>

However all that is mitigated by the AF system -- if it starts to hunt, then your burst speed goes to hell, no matter what the settings.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Buffer size for the D7000 in NEF (RAW), Lossless compressed, 12-bit is 11 shoots. Shooting compress will give you 15 or 16.</p>

<p> </p>

[j michael sullivan]

<p>so what is happening then is that the buffer is "filling up" slowly while at the same time it is "emptying out" to the card simultaneously. That makes sense. It also explains the Continuous High behavior I am seeing in that the camera is able to shoot faster than its buffer can accept new images and write them out. Well, I think the complaints are valid for professionals who would not stand for this behavior. It also seems to me that Nikon will have no choice and address this in the replacement for the D300 (especially given the new Sony A77 blistering speed). In fact, it wouldn't surprise me that next year we will see both a D9000 (higher price point than Sony A77) and an updated D7100 (lower price point than Sony A77)</p>

[szrimaging]

<p>Michael, the higher up the food chain, the bigger the buffer. Compared to the likes of the D3s, the D7000 has a smallish buffer. It's part of the way they get you to buy higher-spec cameras.<br /><br />That said, with the new processing engine and dual-core architecture from the J1 and V1, I wouldn't be suprised to see some major boosts in this arena on all the upcoming models. </p>

[j michael sullivan]

<p>It still seems to me that Sony had thrown down the gauntlet: a $1300 "mid level" camera that has many of the characteristics and features of "pro level" gear. At some point, "mid level" will adopt pro-level features as the market matures. For their current line-up, the D7000 is clearly not "pro level" (which is perhaps why the complaints against it are not valid) but will have to improve in the next iteration (i.e. D7100) lest it fall by the wayside with regard to its competition.<br>

Must be a tough place to be a small specialty manufacturer going up against mega-corporations like Canon and Sony!</p>

[szrimaging]

<p>Well, if you compare a D7000 agains a D2, the D7000 already is a better camera in almost every respect (not sure on buffer). So yes, consumer gear now is better than pro gear from years ago. There is a definite trickle down effect. And as tech improves, so will the cameras.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>The problem is not that the buffer is filling up slowly - it is that it is not emptying out quickly or at least not quick enough.</p>

<p>Shooting almost 3 seconds of 16mp RAW files into a buffer is pretty darn good considering the cost of the camera. When the D3 first came out, its buffer capacity wasn't all that much more than that.</p>

<p>The D7000 produces pretty good JPGS if you carefully set the picture control settings - and you can shoot plenty more of those before the buffer fills up than when shooting RAW. For those few instances where more capacity is needed, shooting JPG is certainly an option.</p>

<p>Sony's newest entries certainly raise the bar a bit.</p>

[gavin_ah_now]

Hi there in South Africa we were provided Lexar 133 cards with the D7000 and my rates were as follows 5 frames for Raw, 11 frames for

Jpeg fine. I purcased a Scandisk Extreme Pro 93 MB/s 633k well it is like night and day 15 frames raw befor it slows to 1 frame per

second, 61 frames with active highlighting jpeg Fine and 81 continuous frames with most of the processing switched off. I hope this helps