Slot setting and processing time

[Golf1025]

I'm wondering if the chosen setting for slots 1&2 influences processing time, especially with low light photograhy and long exposure times. I have slot 2 set as backup for slot 1, both slots zre filled with teh same Sony M v60 64Gb cards. I have my image quality set to RAW-compressed plus JPEG Normal. I notice a processing time -dependant on shutter speed- of up to 20 seconds (blinking ED).

When I use slot 2 as backup for slot 1, is the image copied in parallel or sequentially from slot 1 to slot 2 and does this setting impact the over all processing time? I.e. do I have to wait longer before I can take the next picture?

Any suggestions would be really helpful, as I take many nighttime photos.

[Greybeard]

4 hours ago, Golf1025 said:

I'm wondering if the chosen setting for slots 1&2 influences processing time, especially with low light photograhy and long exposure times. I have slot 2 set as backup for slot 1, both slots zre filled with teh same Sony M v60 64Gb cards. I have my image quality set to RAW-compressed plus JPEG Normal. I notice a processing time -dependant on shutter speed- of up to 20 seconds (blinking ED).

When I use slot 2 as backup for slot 1, is the image copied in parallel or sequentially from slot 1 to slot 2 and does this setting impact the over all processing time? I.e. do I have to wait longer before I can take the next picture?

Any suggestions would be really helpful, as I take many nighttime photos.

My understanding (and experience) is that Fujifilm cameras write to the cards in parallel - so in backup the speed is dependent on the slowest card (although I don't believe Fujifilm actually documents anything on the subject).

Can you explain the 20 second issue? Are you saying that the camera takes that long to write to the card after the exposure is complete? And this is single exposure (rather than long continuous bursts?). Perhaps you have Long Exposure NR set to ON which will double the exposure time for low light / long exposure shots - this is for processing the noise reduction rather than anything to do with card write speeds.

[jchabalk]

+1 to this.

Something else to consider regarding write volumes - although i think it'd be minor:

Shooting RAW + JPG and backing up across cards you're writing ~100mb to each card (~200mb total) for each exposure. Each raw is about 80mg and each "Fine" is around 20mb.

You could try the RAW to Slot1 and JPG to Slot2 and see if you notice a difference at all. That would reduce your write volume to a max of ~80mb to slot one, and 20mb to slot 2, per exposure - a 20% reduction to the largest although I doubt it would make a noticeable difference.

FWIW i do this with mine. I have 2 identical V60 cards in each slot. The buffer fills after 22 frames and then starts writing out. It doesn't take more than about 2-3 second to empty the buffer to the SD cards. I don't shoot that many frames but i was trying to figure out what the limits were and it happened at 22 frames the 2 times i tried it. The write out was much slower on an older SD card (1066x)

 

[Golf1025]

Thanks for the tip! As I always shoot RAW, I moved my slot setting from "Backup" to "Sequential" so that a write is only to the active slot.  I have two Sony M v60 64Gb cards installed. I will try the new setting when I take night pictures next time.

[jchabalk]

Did you see the note greybeard mentioned too, about Long Exposure Noise Exposure? That could definitely be the thing that's causing your delay as well. And if it does address your problem try to make a few frames the next time you're out - both with it on or off and then you can decide if it's worth the added exposure time.

The only other thing that i'm aware of that would do something similar, but for nowhere near 20 seconds, would be having "clarity" turned on in the IQ settings. But that would add 1-2 seconds tops to each frame.

If you don't do this already, freshly format both of your cards in your camera. With these few things i think you should be in good shape.