Olympus E3 write speed test




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This is a survey of the Olympus E3 write speeds to different memory cards.


To report the write speed of your E3:
  • Set the camera to manual focus and choose a short exposure time.
  • Place the camera in Sequential shooting mode.
  • Keep the shutter pressed and shoot RAWs until the buffer fills.
  • Measure the time the camera takes to write the RAWs to the memory card. Measure the time since you started pressing the shutter and when all RAWs have been written.
Please report the total write time, what memory card you used (brand, type, size, speed  rating), how many RAW images you shot and the total filesize of all RAWs. Post the results in the box below. Leave your email address in case you want some feedback.







Detailed results (unsorted)

These are preliminary results which have been reported.


Card brand and type Type Size Speed Time
 (s)
 Number of RAWs
 Total size (MB)
 Speed (MB/s)
 Comment
Sandisk Extreme III
 CF
 4GB
13.7
 18


Transcend
 CF
 8GB
 133x
 19.7
 16


Kingston Elite Pro
 CF
 16GB
 133x
 14.7
 15
 158
 10.7
 The Kingston card is about a month old. The Transcend is more than a year, and the Lexar is almost two years old. I am curious is there would be any difference depending on what the images contain. If Olympus Raw files are compressed, I would assume that the amount of detail in them would be a separate factor. I shot all of mine in precisely the same way, and focused on a light bulb about 18" away from my 14-54mm lens, at 54mm. Shutter speed was approximately 1/500, as I pushed the ISO to 2000.
Transcend
 CF
 4GB
 133x
 21.3
 16
 161
 7.6
Lexar Professional
 CF
 2GB
 133x
 15.5
 17
 181
 11.7
Lexar Professional
 CF
 4GB
 300x
 10.8
 18
 209
 19.4
SanDisk Extreme IV
 CF
 8GB
10.3
 23
 430
 18.7
 SanDisk Extreme IV w/ UDMA CF (rated for 45 MB/sec)





Copyright 2009 Alfred Molon