So I found out why you might *not* want your D300 in 14bit mode...

[manaheim]

I was taking pictures of my daughter jumping into the pool today and figured I'd try to get a quick action series...

-click-
<delay>
-click-
<delay>
-click-
<delay>

I was like "Good god my camera has died! What do I do?!?!!"

Then I was like "oh waaaaaait a second..." (switches back to 12 bit)

-clickclickclickclickclickclick-

The woman sitting in the chair next to me thought I was on crack taking 40 pictures of the concrete in front of me.

 

[Moglex]

The woman sitting in the chair next to me thought I was on crack taking 40 pictures of the concrete in front of me.

If you do want to photograph concrete, it's always worth going the extra mile to get that perfect shot! :mrgreen:

 

[prodigy2k7]

Are you sure its the bit thats making the delay? What camera btw? Also, your memory card must be fast enough since its probably storing a larger image.

 

[djrichie28]

You nailed it, it says in the manual that the fps drops dramatically when shooting larger bit Raw format.

 

[Overread]

And to be honest 14bit to 12bit you probably cannot tell any difference in quality

 

[manaheim]

And to be honest 14bit to 12bit you probably cannot tell any difference in quality

I was going to play with the "sturdier" image for post-processing.

You nailed it, it says in the manual that the fps drops dramatically when shooting larger bit Raw format.

That's quite interesting... a drop wouldn't surprise me, but that was amazing. Esp. since I figured the buffer would still be a significant part of the speed of the camera... must just be that much more coming off the sensor. I suppose 2 bits times 12 megapixels... that is quite a bit(s)!.

Are you sure its the bit thats making the delay? What camera btw? Also, your memory card must be fast enough since its probably storing a larger image.

Well, I turned it off and it went back to normal, so I'm pretty sure. It's a Lexar Pro 300x.

If you do want to photograph concrete, it's always worth going the extra mile to get that perfect shot! :mrgreen:

hahahahaha...

 

[Garbz]

As a matter of interest can you tell me if the buffer itself fills faster in 14bit mode? This doesn't sound like it's buffer related since it will still burst out a few frames at full speed. Plus 2 bits would not make the difference between 9+ (I say plus because I can only imagine the D300 supports at least the same buffer capacity as the D200 for RAW), and 1 frame.

Sounds to me like an internal bandwidth issue. When you consider the data moving around that doesn't surprise me at the least.

 

[manaheim]

As a matter of interest can you tell me if the buffer itself fills faster in 14bit mode? This doesn't sound like it's buffer related since it will still burst out a few frames at full speed. Plus 2 bits would not make the difference between 9+ (I say plus because I can only imagine the D300 supports at least the same buffer capacity as the D200 for RAW), and 1 frame.

Sounds to me like an internal bandwidth issue. When you consider the data moving around that doesn't surprise me at the least.

I don't know that I could say faster, but I seem to recall it showed that the buffer would hold fewer pictures. It would be a little hard to say faster just because its taking bigger pictures at a significantly slower rate (like I would guess around 1/2 its usual speed).

If you are super curious, I can try to time it tonight when I go out shooting.

 

[kundalini]

This may help.

Reference: bythom

14 bits-per-pixel (the extra 2 bits) tonal range may not seem like much, but it translates into the ability to render 16384 shades (using 14 bits) of individual color versus 4096 (using 12 bits) or 256 (using 8 bits). While the capability of most human eyes is close to what 8-bit capture contains (our eyes are usually said to sidtinguish about 16 million colors, which approximately what 8-bit RGB produces; 256x256x256=16,777,216), the extra tonality of 14-bit captues is still useful.

When we "sharpen" and apply other corrections to an image in post processing, it is usually easier to keep such manipulations from becoming visible with the extra bits (i.e. we can "hide" some of our manipulation in the extra tonality, and rounding errors have less visible consequences).

*****************************************************

Why does the camera speed drop when you shoot with 14-bits instead of 12-bits? The most likely explanation is this (Nikon isn't saying): it takes longer to count when you count by one instead of counting by four. Try it

Count to 40 by 4's: 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40 and done.

Now do it by 1's: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 and phew! Take you four times as long? I thought so.

As it turns out, Nikon's 14-bit count speed is almost exactly one-fourth (2.5 fps) the maximum speed Sony claims for the transfer (10.39 fps)

 

[prodigy2k7]

dpreview.com says:

&#8226; With built-in battery: up to 6 fps
&#8226; With AC adapter or MB-D10 pack and batteries other than EN-EL3e: up to 8 fps
&#8226; 12-bit RAW at full speed, 14-bit RAW only 2.5 fps

 

[table1349]

dpreview.com says:

• With built-in battery: up to 6 fps
• With AC adapter or MB-D10 pack and batteries other than EN-EL3e: up to 8 fps
• 12-bit RAW at full speed, 14-bit RAW only 2.5 fps

Huh, My 40D does 6.5fps with or with out the grip or AC adapter in 14 bit raw. The 1D MIII does 10fps with or with out the grip or AC adapter in 14 bit raw.

Must be a Nikon thing.

 

[MarcusM]

The woman sitting in the chair next to me thought I was on crack taking 40 pictures of the concrete in front of me.

That's awesome!!

You should have told her you were taking action shots of ants...you wanted to be sure not to miss the perfect pose.

 

[Joves]

The woman sitting in the chair next to me thought I was on crack taking 40 pictures of the concrete in front of me.

Hey I take pictures of concrete all the time! Well atleast of my concretepump at jobs.
Yeah 14bit is not for general use.

 

[kundalini]

Yeah 14bit is not for general use.

I think maybe the opposite. Unless you need shot bursts greater than 2.5 fps, then 14-bit would be quite useful in the post process.

 

[Joves]

I think maybe the opposite. Unless you need shot bursts greater than 2.5 fps, then 14-bit would be quite useful in the post process.

Which is usually the case for me.