D300 shutter lag?

[cary]

I do all sorts of photography, but lately I've been shooting sports events, specifically soccer.

For some reason, the last two weeks (two weekend tournaments) my D300 has been having some shutter lag/delay when I hold down my shutter button in high speed shooting. I've actually missed a few shots.

What is weird about it, is that this is new. I've had my camera for about a year now and never had this problem. I thought maybe the battery was low so I charged it full and the same problem occurred.

Hmmm???

 

[Slaphead]

I don't have a D300 but:-

From what I gather, if you're shooting in 14 bit RAW and you don't have the latest firmware than there is a significant slowdown in continuous shooting.

Try shooting in 12bit RAW or JPEG (if your not already) and see if the problem continues.

If you are shooting in JPEG then turn off Active D-Lighting and High ISO noise reduction (Although I can't imagine these two options having a significant effect with a D300)

 

[Jeff Canes]

Changed cards lately? Card write speed? I seen similar when using slow cards shooting wake boarding with my 1Dm2n

 

[dcclark]

Have you perhaps changed to a different focusing mode, such as AF-S, where the camera refuses to take a shot until it has confirmed focus? That's probably a bad choice for high-speed shooting, so that may be the cause.

 

[JerryPH]

Changed cards lately? Card write speed? I seen similar when using slow cards shooting wake boarding with my 1Dm2n

In theory, this would not have anything to do with it. All modern dSLR cameras have a buffer that lets you take many pictures before anything even begins to get written to the card.

Focus mode, d-lighting, and always having the latest firmware (especially when it directly has fixes that apply to the lag associated to shooting speed) are the more logical suggestions.

 

[Dao]

What about the shutter speed? Would it be the shutter speed is slow. Such as 1/10 instead of 1/1000.

 

[JerryPH]

What about the shutter speed? Would it be the shutter speed is slow. Such as 1/10 instead of 1/1000.

He is talking about shutter lag. The time from the moment he presses the button to the time the camera shutter opens. Not the duration that the camera keeps the shutter open.

 

[Dao]

He is talking about shutter lag. The time from the moment he presses the button to the time the camera shutter opens. Not the duration that the camera keeps the shutter open.

Thanks Jerry for the clarification.

I thought he meant he is not able to get the desired fps that the camera is capable of.

 

[SpeedTrap]

Here is a question, do you have the grip on the camera.
I find wit my grip, sometime the connection fails and it drops to 5 frames per sec even when the battery is fully charged.

 

[Jeff Canes]

In theory, this would not have anything to do with it. All modern dSLR cameras have a buffer that lets you take many pictures before anything even begins to get written to the card.---

Sorry but you are wrong. If the buffer is full the camera will not fire until space opens up. This is why a slow card can and does cause a lag.

--- I've seen similar when using slow cards shooting wake boarding with my 1Dm2n

The lag go away when I switch to a faster card

 

[kundalini]

Damn, so far, most of my first guesses have been given already.

One more thing to try. Reset the camera to factory defaults. You may have inadvertently set something and forgot. Also, if you have set up the various shooting banks, make sure they do not have anything that may have an affect (mentioned in above posts) have been set to those banks.

Lastly about the memory card. The D300 supports UDMA, so you can benefit from the Sandisk Extreme IV cards (or equivalent). It is a faster write speed and clears the buffer quicker. Great for sports and burst shooting.

 

[cary]

I'm a "she", but that's okay, it's my Dad's fault for naming me after "Cary Grant"!

Anyway, you know what? I did get 3 new Memory Cards, but they seemed to be nicer/higher quality than the original one I got with the kit.

Also, I am shooting in JPEG mode. I have shot in RAW recently, but switched back. But, when I switched back, it still says that I only have just over 500 pictures available to shoot on a 4GB card whereas previously it said that I had over 1K pictures available on my card???? I'm doing something wrong.

Thank for all the help. You guys are awesome!

I also LOVE my D300!!! This is just surprising to me so I have to figure this out before I miss the big shot!

 

[kundalini]

On a 4GB card, I get 197 RAW images or 369 Fine JPEG images.

Unless there is a specific reason, I would suggest to NOT use less than Fine setting for JPEG. (Basic = 1.4K, Norm = 734 images) I don't shoot TIFF images.

 

[TamiyaGuy]

Hmm, is it a permanent problem (i.e. there is always a specific lag-time between you pressing the shutter), or is it more occasional?

One suggestion I might make is that, with my D40, the shutter only "likes" being pressed a certain way. I soon learnt the right way, though, so it doesn't bother me. As has already been suggested, a 2-button reset would probably be a good idea.

 

[cary]

Well, this does seem to be a constant problem, not just sporadic. I'm going to try resetting to all the original default settings. I probably did something playing around with it. Not sure what though.