Q2 Saving images, slow.

[kimaldis]

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Saving images to the card seems unnecessarily slow. I rattle off ten shots and it’s taking over 30 seconds to save. I appreciate these are big files but it still seems excessive. I’ve used 40mp Sony cameras and I’m sure they saved quicker. I’m using a 128gb SanDisk extreme pro, 170mb/s. Is it worth coughing up for something faster?

Edited December 23, 2021 by kimaldis
Clarify

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[Bazookajoe]

Yes, buying a faster card is definitely worth it. I use 300mb/s cards only. And, the occasional times I use a burst when shooting, it's usually only for about 4-6 shots.

Do you have the latest firmware installed?

[kimaldis]

Awesome. Thanks 

[Ba Erv]

Faster cards should help but you might want to also test the actual speeds of the cards.  I’ve been through a number of alleged 300mb/s cards that were no where even near their rated write speed.  

[SrMi]

This site has benchmarked many SD cards:

https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/sd-cards/

You want sufficiently fast Seq. Write Speed.

[antigallican]

Ive always imagined this might be a problem with big file cameras. You know, the couple walk down the aisle towards you and the camera decides it’s busy. 

[kimaldis]

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14 minutes ago, antigallican said:

Ive always imagined this might be a problem with big file cameras. You know, the couple walk down the aisle towards you and the camera decides it’s busy. 

I used an A7RIII for some time. It has similar file sizes but I don't recall it being quite so slow. Although the A7RIII buffer holds 28 RAW images against the Leica's 14; maybe I just never noticed it.

[_Michael]

Faster cards do make a difference. I used the SD card test page here as a starting point and bought the second one on the list. It’s been great, and it even came with a small reader.  https://www.l-camera-forum.com/sd-card-leica/  

 

[Bazookajoe]

54 minutes ago, _Michael said:

Faster cards do make a difference. I used the SD card test page here as a starting point and bought the second one on the list. It’s been great, and it even came with a small reader.  https://www.l-camera-forum.com/sd-card-leica/  

 

That's what I use too! Really zippy card, without getting gouged on the price.

[ravinj]

On 12/23/2021 at 7:52 AM, kimaldis said:

Saving images to the card seems unnecessarily slow. I rattle off ten shots and it’s taking over 30 seconds to save. I appreciate these are big files but it still seems excessive. I’ve used 40mp Sony cameras and I’m sure they saved quicker. I’m using a 128gb SanDisk extreme pro, 170mb/s. Is it worth coughing up for something faster?

I tried very high speed continuous burst mode and got about 40 shots in 30 seconds written to the card. Full-size DNGs. The buffer would fill up every 11 shots.

This was with Lexar Professional 128GB 1667x card. 

[SrMi]

On 12/23/2021 at 7:06 AM, kimaldis said:

Awesome. Thanks 

As Bazookajoe asked: do you have the latest firmware installed? 

[Ba Erv]

Just for funs I pulled out my new MacBook M1 with a Apple USB-C card reader and tested two cards.  A Lexar 2000x 64GB and ProGrade 300MB/s 64GB.  The Lexar averaged 182MB/s write and 247MB/s read speeds.  The ProGrade averaged 219MB/s write and 232MB/s read.  The test was performed using Black Magic Speed Test on a 1GB file.  However, another identical Lexar card only managed 109MB/s write speed while duplicating the mid 250MB/s read speed; that one went in the garbage.  

[kimaldis]

On 12/23/2021 at 2:46 PM, Bazookajoe said:

Do you have the latest firmware installed?

Good call, I should have caught that. 1.1, latest is 3.1. Upgrading has made a difference, nearly halved the save time new card arriving in a day or two.

 

thanks.

[antigallican]

On 12/24/2021 at 11:21 AM, kimaldis said:

I used an A7RIII for some time. It has similar file sizes but I don't recall it being quite so slow. Although the A7RIII buffer holds 28 RAW images against the Leica's 14; maybe I just never noticed it.

Interesting. 28 is a decent number of shots. No problem with my SL, but the possibility of the buffer clogging up does put me off having a camera with bigger files. That and storage.

[kimaldis]

1 hour ago, antigallican said:

Interesting. 28 is a decent number of shots. No problem with my SL, but the possibility of the buffer clogging up does put me off having a camera with bigger files. That and storage.

Storage really isn’t a problem these days. 

[SrMi]

7 hours ago, kimaldis said:

Good call, I should have caught that. 1.1, latest is 3.1. Upgrading has made a difference, nearly halved the save time new card arriving in a day or two.

 

thanks.

Great! From Q2's firmware 2.0 description:

The DNG and DNG+JPEG writing speed is now improved by the factor 2x.

[kimaldis]

18 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Great! From Q2's firmware 2.0 description:

The DNG and DNG+JPEG writing speed is now improved by the factor 2x.

My tests, not quite twice. What took 30 seconds now takes around 18. Still, any improvement. 

[antigallican]

13 hours ago, kimaldis said:

Storage really isn’t a problem these days. 

Since I’m the one paying for the storage and the backup and the offsite backup and the father, son, grandson rotation of terabyte after terabyte I hope you won’t think me snippy if I say in this case ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ 🤔

Edited December 27, 2021 by antigallican
Clarity

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[jaapv]

Well, given that a Seagate external 6 TB hard disk cost me 129 Euro last week, money must run tight. 

[antigallican]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

Well, given that a Seagate external 6 TB hard disk cost me 129 Euro last week, money must run tight. 

In that case I’m badly out of date Jaap and I apologise to you and kimaldis. Last time I bought replacement drives for my LaCie it cost so much it really stung. But I guess that’s a while ago.