K100D questions

Hi there,

Just a couple of quick questions on the K100D (one of which I'm hoping to get hold of this week!)

Both questions relate to the speed at which it transfers files from the buffer to the card (I've read a review that said the camera is not the fastest in this respect). I'll be using it to take pictures of a series of short plays, & expect to be taking about 100 or so RAW files for every 8 minute play. Is the camera likely to lock up & stop me shooting while it clears the buffer at any point, and if so is this going to be for a negligible amount of time (say, 2-3 seconds) or for much longer than this (which could be frustrating)? I'll either be using Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme III cards - on the same subject, will I notice much difference in speed between the two?

I appreciate that not many people have this camera yet, but would be grateful for performance information on other Pentax DSLRs, just to give me an indication of what to expect.

Many thanks for any help,

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Here's a link to timing information on the K100D:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/K100D/K100DA6.HTM

The bottleneck in performance will probably be the K100D itself, rather than the card. But at your quoted amount of images (about 1 every 5 seconds) you should be just fine.

The *ist-D is pretty slow when it comes to RAW, but I haven't had any problems in real life, shooting gigs, plays and shows. Almost certainly not fast enough for sports in RAW, but the K10D will sort that out in JPG mode...

Matt

Just tried an extreme III sandisc card in my DL, it`s no faster than the standard card when transfering RAW files from camera buffer.

However, it is amazingly fast transfering from card to computer.




regards

Rick

I regularly shoot fencing matches with my DL2. The action comes in quick bursts at fencing and while it would be nice to have a bigger buffer with faster FPS, the DL2 handles it fairly well even in continuous drive RAW mode.

Thanks a lot for the replies, which have been really useful. Thanks especially for the link, Matt - that was just the information I needed to know.

Jonathan

The buffer is small but I've not found it a problem, even for sports (although obviously timing your burst of shots is fairly important). The only thing I've really found to be a problem is the noise reduction that doubles the wait time after each shot with long exposures... but the solution to that is simple, just turn off in-camera noise reduction and do it in NeatImage later if necessary.