D90 continuous shooting

Jay30 · Mar 1, 2010

For some reason I can't get it to work. I've had the camera for a week or two and I'm wondering if my SD card is to slow. I have a SanDisk Extreme 3 4gb.

I set it on continuous mode and it shoot the same speed as single shot. I read the owners manual and I think it should be working.

Crazydad · Mar 1, 2010

Could be the card, but it could also be the noise reduction and active D-lighting settings. If the camera is having to do a lot of stuff to the photos, that will slow it down. Try turning off the D-lighting and see what that does.

Jay30 · Mar 1, 2010

Crazydad said:
Could be the card, but it could also be the noise reduction and active D-lighting settings. If the camera is having to do a lot of stuff to the photos, that will slow it down. Try turning off the D-lighting and see what that does.

Still slow.

The more I read the more I think it's my card. It's just a SD not HC

Montana · Mar 1, 2010

Extreme III should be plenty of card. I use them in all of my cameras.

anm90 · Mar 1, 2010

I've had an issue with my D90 as well where sometimes it will shoot very slow continuous. When I first got it I could fire off 20 frames at full speed before the buffer would fill and that was on jpg normal. For some reason I just can't replicate that now... same settings as before even. I turn active D-lighting off and noise reduction off and I still only get 5 pictures in the buffer. This is all with the same memory card too. It's not a very fast memory card to begin with, but I don't know what would explain getting 20 pictures in the buffer at one point vs. 5 pictures in the buffer later. If I understand it correctly.. shouldn't the memory card's speed only come into play after the buffer fills?

Occasionally I get full speed continuous for those 5 frames in the buffer but it seems to be random and I can't reproduce the change in speed reliably.

iAstonish · Mar 1, 2010

Idk about the d90, but on the d5000 you can't use burst mode with the cameras flash.

gardy90 · Mar 1, 2010

what mode is it in? i hav the same camera and have figured out it it can affect the speed, say if your in Apeture pri. and the camera choses a slower shutter speed... try going to Shutter pri. and set a fast shutter speed and see if it works just to make sure thats not your problem

Aggressor · Mar 1, 2010

Also, instead of deleting photos, try formatting the card. That helps make the file system more efficient.

Another thing you can try is switch to JPG-Fine mode to rule out any mechanical issues.

Keep in mind too that due to different content in the frame, the size of the files may vary. Try shooting a solid color to keep the size of the image more similar.

Not sure about the D90, but there may be a CH (continuous high speed) and a CL (continuous low speed) setting on your camera. It may be set to CL. Also, keep in mind that CH on a D90 is 3fps, IIRC...

anm90 · Mar 1, 2010

I usually shoot in manual and was using the same settings with a pretty quick shutter speed for all of them. It was surely more than 1/5 of a second (seeing as the d90 can get 4.5 fps). The flash is not raised. Also shooting in continuous high speed mode.

gardy90 · Mar 1, 2010

Aggressor said:
Also, instead of deleting photos, try formatting the card. That helps make the file system more efficient.

Another thing you can try is switch to JPG-Fine mode to rule out any mechanical issues.

Keep in mind too that due to different content in the frame, the size of the files may vary. Try shooting a solid color to keep the size of the image more similar.

Not sure about the D90, but there may be a CH (continuous high speed) and a CL (continuous low speed) setting on your camera. It may be set to CL. Also, keep in mind that CH on a D90 is 3fps, IIRC...

the D90 in CH shoots 4.5, and for CL you can ajust the rate you want

mdtusz · Mar 1, 2010

Use S mode, set shutter speed to 1/100, focus on blank wall, switch to manual focus, shoot away. It shouldn't have a problem. The reason it is most likely not shooting at 4.5fps is because it is focussing between shots or the shutter speed is too low.

gardy90 · Mar 1, 2010

yes i forgot i had a time fiddleing with that make sure its not on continous AF

Jay30 · Mar 1, 2010

I've tried putting it in M focus in M mode and S mode and no change.

I used this card in my D40 with know problems at all. (I know this is know D40) It really shouldn't be this hard to put in count mode and fire away.

dhilberg · Mar 1, 2010

I use the same card in my D90 and get full-speed continuous shooting whether shooting in RAW or JPEG. SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) has nothing to do with speed, it refers to a specification that allows Higher Capacity cards. It shouldn't matter anyway as high-speed shooting uses the camera's buffer, so you should get high FPS until the buffer fills, and at that point you're waiting for the buffer to be written to the card, which will slow down your FPS rate.

A few things to check:

Make sure you have the camera set to continuous high-speed mode, not continuous low-speed mode.
Make sure long-exposure noise reduction is turned OFF. This will slow your FPS rate whether you are shooting fast or slow shutters.
Not sure about active D-lighting (never used it) but turn it off and see.
Are you shooting in AF-A mode and tracking subjects? In AF-A mode the camera will track subjects but the shutter will only release if focus has been obtained. So if your camera is having trouble focusing this will slow the FPS down. In AF-C mode the shutter will release whether the image is in focus or not.

Camera mode won't affect how many FPS the camera will shoot.