D800 write to card delay

Sean,

It sounds like you have long-exposure noise reduction activated on your camera. Shoot long exposures manually - you should see a similar relationship. You can deactivate this feature via menus, but you will get long-exposure noise.

Tom

Is this normal for a camera to take 30 seconds to write after a 30 second exposure?... It pretty much seems to take a second to write each second of exposure.

Sean

 

 

I have noticed a particularly long write speed on the D800 with time lapse photography. Is this normal for a camera to take 30 seconds to write after a 30 second exposure?... It pretty much seems to take a second to write each second of exposure. In normal light, it seems just fine... I bought the D800 very recently because I wanted an upgrade in mega pixels but I realized that I needed an exceptional lens to match this camera. The Zeiss 21mm has proved to be that lens. Very impressive indeed...

 

Sean

 

 

Your long exposure noise reduction is on.

I have had the same issue with my D800 since I got it in April 2013. I used the pop up with optical until it fried the little flash. ( don't think it was designed for 20k repeated fires.) now use elec sync which I much prefer and still have the prob. Only occasionally but always at an inapproproiate time.

Eiko

I have had the same issue with my D800 since I got it in April 2013. I used the pop up with optical until it fried the little flash. ( don't think it was designed for 20k repeated fires.) now use elec sync which I much prefer and still have the prob. Only occasionally but always at an inapproproiate time.

Eiko

simple problem easily solvable.. check your card's reading and writing speed in a computer..and shoot raw only. D800's file size is huge so a fast writing UDMA7 card is needed.

Everyone still having this issue? I got a D800 a few days ago and it didn't happen to me yet, I have been shooting with a single SD card (CF slot empty).

The writing speed of a card is crucial to D800 that my single file can be as large as 60Mb. So I got around by using CF only trying to buy one with fastest writing speed. As a budget user I found the Transcend 400x UDMA 7 64Gb version....with measured writing speed approaching 70MB/s. As for SD card, you need to buy those listed as writing >90 but I cam quite sure there should be a delay.

Any updates on this issue?

I just got back from my first trip with a D800 and experienced the "hourglass" on a very intermittent basis. Sometimes 2-3 times per dive, sometimes not at all.

The camera is a late 2013 build with all updated firmware.

Cards were Sandisk Extreme SDHC-1, 32GB purchased from B&H photo. One is listed as 80MB/s, the other 45MB/S.

It did not seem to matter which card was used - both demonstrated this issue.

I use Lexar CF professional 1000x UDMA 64GB cards, and have never had a write speed issue. These cards have a write speed of 95MB/s. A disclaimer that it don't usually do long bursts of shots.

Just to circle back on this.

The issue is not related to card write speeds, nor a buffering issue with bursts of shots. It seems to happen most frequently when the camera has not been used for a minute or two, and happens after taking a single shot. With my (and many other) D800s, it is unaffected by using faster (or slower) cards.

Nikon have still not come up with an answer, although I m still pressing them. Nikon engineers seem quite oblivious to issues with their cameras!

I have found that I don't have the problems if I do not have an SD card inserted.

Adam

Adam, as I said, I have not had this problem ever with my D800, but interestingly enough, I only use CF cards and do not have an SD card installed.

I think Nikon have addressed the issue with the firmware update issued today.

http://nikonrumors.com/2014/05/13/major-firmware-update-for-the-nikon-d800d800e-released.aspx/

I can't update mine to test it at the moment but they mention an issue about the card writing light staying illuminated.

Thanks for posting Adam!
Wewhere waiting a looong time for this update ...

Chris

Has the new firmware update solved the problem

Dava

Has the new firmware update solved the problem

 

Dava

Not for me. I updated the firmware last month and went on 2 trips with the issue occuring numberout times. I only ever had 1 card in at any time, used a Sandisk CF extreme 32gb on trip 1 and SD extreme pro 64gb on trip 2. I was recording RAW + basic JPEG to the card. I am wondering is it the writing or RAW and JPEG simultaniously? Alternately, I saw on the web an issue in 2012 with D800s locking up when histograms and RGB info was being displayed. I did have the LCD displaying this info. Anyone else still having the issue?

I updated the firmware and have had no issues since

It seems somewhat anecdotal, but the issue hasn't recurred since I updated the firmware.

Adam