precedence of shots when buffering

[Rkc51246]

When taking multiple shots using "bulb" for longer exposures in very short periods of time (meaning buffer may be filling up or totally full) is there an order that the 5d miii uses?  First in, first stored and if buffer full, the the next picture may not be saved at all.???

Example.  Shooting RAW , tripod exposures of fireworks, with a remote wired shutter release.  Held down shutter release for approx 3 seconds, then a 1-2 second pause, then next shot of 10 seconds, then 4 secfonds, them 3 seconds.....over and over and over.  If could have seen the view screen it probably would have said Busy.  In some of the instances there may have been only a second beween shots.   To complicate matters more, I forgot to take out the slower SD card!

Since one doesnt generally know the quality of the fireworks burst, I was trying to start the process when I first heard the shot then hold thru some finish, then almost immediately beging again. Would my SanDisk extreme pro 160 MB/s UMDA7 32 GB compact flash card even have been able to handle what I was attempting? 

[TTMartin]

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@Rkc51246 wrote:

When taking multiple shots using "bulb" for longer exposures in very short periods of time (meaning buffer may be filling up or totally full) is there an order that the 5d miii uses?  First in, first stored and if buffer full, the the next picture may not be saved at all.???

Example.  Shooting RAW , tripod exposures of fireworks, with a remote wired shutter release.  Held down shutter release for approx 3 seconds, then a 1-2 second pause, then next shot of 10 seconds, then 4 secfonds, them 3 seconds.....over and over and over.  If could have seen the view screen it probably would have said Busy.  In some of the instances there may have been only a second beween shots.   To complicate matters more, I forgot to take out the slower SD card!

Since one doesnt generally know the quality of the fireworks burst, I was trying to start the process when I first heard the shot then hold thru some finish, then almost immediately beging again. Would my SanDisk extreme pro 160 MB/s UMDA7 32 GB compact flash card even have been able to handle what I was attempting? 

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First in, first out, and that kind of shooting would not fill up the buffer as it would clear as the next shot was being taken.

If you ran into the camera being busy, it was most likely long exposure noise reduction. Long exposure noise reductions takes a second exposure of the same duration as the previous exposure, but, does so with the shutter closed. The camera then compares the two photos and automatically subtracts out the noise seen in the 'dark frame' from the original photo. Long exposure noise reduction can be set to on, off, or auto.

http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/long_exposure_landscapes.shtml

[TCampbell]

The buffer on the 5D III is fairly large.  Even if you put the camera into continuous burst mode you'll get between 15-18 RAW images before you fill the buffer (at which point you'd have to wait for one image to finish writing out before it would let you take the next shot.)

The buffer is actually large enough that if you shoot JPEG, the buffer is seemingly unlimited (it can write out images at about the same speed that you shoot.)  (This isn't true of all models, but the 5D III has a larger buffer than most.)

If you were experiencing a delay, it would almost certainly be from the Long Exposure Noise Reduction (you can disable that feature if you don't want it.) as TTMartin explained above.

[ebiggs1]

If I were to shoot jpg, which I never do, I doubt I can ever fill the buffer on my 1D Mk IV.  I don't as I only shoot RAW.  Shooting the fireworks, some of which are shown on the forum, the red light is on but the camera never stopped shooting.  Sometimes I hit the button 5, 6 or 10 times on each firework burst.

I sold my 5D Mk III and Mk II but I don't remember it having any problems keeping up either.  But my memory does fade.  Maybe it did.  I would also suggest you turning off long exposure noise reduction.  Leave high ISO NR at standard or low.  If that feature is on the 5D, that is.  Might speed it up a bit.