I've moved this thread from Tea Rooms to this forum, as it makes more sense.
The number of times I've used RAW burst can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I always forget it's there, and it takes time to set up on R7. RAW burst also generates massive files.
A combination of Mike B and Billysdad piqued my interest by mentioning CRAW files - Compressed RAW files. Mike B pointed them out, and Billysdad pointed out they are available on a Canon R7.
I decided to give CRAW and CRAW burst a go. Anything to reduce file sizes and decrease the time taken to write to a SD file.
Caveats, as always. I shot the following sequence through manky double glazed windows (why does it always rain shortly after I clean them?), with the subject under a large oak tree, with the added bonus of overcast conditions.
Findings.
Best used on bright sunny days or bright light, probably best in Tv mode, rather than my favoured Program mode.
DPP4 is pants when it comes to extracting images from RAW and CRAW burst files. Firstly, it produces image 1620x1080 pixels in size rather than 6960x4640 pixels of the original RAW image. There might be a setting I've missed to stop this, but I haven't invested the time to RTFM - I'm allergic to reading manuals. DPP4 doesn't appear to page or swap. All images are held in memory, resulting in 'out of memory' error message. It also screws up Windows 11, as I don't think it releases memory correctly when I close it down. Plus it's slow, and the extraction tool has a rubbish UI.
I found it far easier and quicker to extract images in camera. This process also leaves the image at its original size.
The resulting CRAW burst file seemed much smaller than the RAW burst file, about 50-60% smaller. Writing to SD card was definitely faster - as it's a smaller file. I think the individual CRAW files were smaller. Difficult
Anyway, enough faff, on with the results. These are uncropped images. You'll also see No Mow May in full bloom.
That's it. Over and done with so quickly. Nine frames out of 48 images saved in burst mode.
One tiny issue with this sort of shot. The bird moves so fast, I can't track it. This means the focus point remains pretty much on where the bird started off. One reason the grass, buttercups and daisies are so crisp and clear. OK, another reason for the slightly blurred Jay is that it is moving fast, and I was using Program mode in less than ideal light. Tv mode with bright sun might have resulted in better sharpness.
Personally, I can't see much signs of rolling shutter. I also photographed a Magpie taking off and flying. Although there wasn't apparent signs of rolling shutter, the test was inconclusive as the bird was a fair distance away. However, Jays and Magpies are not noted for their fast wing beats. You would, though, expect fast movement when taking off, therefore more chance of rolling shutter. The last time I tried RAW burst (a year ago) I did get very bad rolling shutter with a Blue Tit.
Mike B did hint that he had read that rolling shutter had largely been removed by firmware upgrades. I hoped it would, but was unsure. Especially as certain learned gentlemen on the internet said it was impossible due to it being caused by hardware. Well, I shall have to try RAW burst on subjects like Tits or small ducks, whose wing beats are much faster.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
We actually had sun and warmth on Sunday 2nd June. After a long day of sorting out the garden, I settled down for some me time at about 15:00.
I set up a tripod near our house to make raw burst mode easier to handle. My R7 was tuned to Shutter Priority (Tv) mode, with a minimum shutter time of 1/5000. I felt I had a fighting chance of getting decent action photos.
The photographing arena was well lit with bright sunshine, with no prospect of cloud. I had tinkered with some AF settings on my R7 to make focusing better, perhaps. Camera on tripod to reduce arm strain and camera shake. Lens cap off, zoom set to something reasonable, camera on with burst mode enabled. What could possibly go wrong?
I sat back on a garden chair and waited. And waited. And waited. I looked up some stuff on t'internet for my old lady. I waited. Eventually, a Robin appeared and made a great photographic opportunity.
This is my overall field of view. Not too close, not too far away - zoom on my Sigma 150-600mm lens was set at 275mm.
Cropping out, it looks like the camera is focused on the Robin. Animal and eye tracking were on, I could see the focus rectangle on the Robin - though it did shift a bit as usual. I had Case 2 for tracking: track animal even if obstruction gets in way temporarily.
It is possible the camera is focused on the green cane eye protector. Hard to tell.
Off the Robin goes. Pre-flight warm up. Too your marks.
Get set.
Geronimo!
Note how all is in focus.
Robin and cane top still in focus, possibly. The cane is swaying quite markedly.
Hmmm, focus on Robin is a little soft. R7 isn't tracking it. Cane top looks good. Perhaps that is what the R7 has been locked on, and is now tracking.
Robin way out of focus. Cane top looking fuzzy. Is the Rhododendron getting in focus?
Cane top more out of focus. Rhododendron flower coming into focus.
Focus is now on Rhododendron. This remained so for the next 20 photos in the image roll.
I'll do more testing, but I still reckon the R7 just hasn't got enough umph, processor wise, to track very fast moving objects in CRAW burst mode. I didn't try RAW burst mode, which would have required less processing power.
I did not think I'd managed to react quickly enough to catch this sequence. Too used to taking single frame photos, leading one to know that if you press shutter release immediately after seeing a piece of action then no way will one get a photo of it. Not always so with raw burst, so always worthwhile taking a look through the image roll.
I was concerned about rolling shutter so decreased the shutter release time to 1/16000 of a second - the lowest my R7 will go. Camera/lens is still mounted on tripod, me on garden chair (a great way to photograph) and bright afternoon sunshine. Lens is at 150mm, the lowest it will go. AF is full area. Bird feeder is about 15 yards in front of me.
Long tailed tits in a new light.
Tally ho!
Power dive.
Flare out.
Eat keratin, you bounder.
Not really. I was always after the wire.
I want a word with you.
Allo Darlin'
How's this for in your face? Though I think I've overdone my power dive.
The birds spent the next six frames untangling themselves. The upper bird recovered its balance and hauled itself up. The lower bird dropped down to a lower wire.
This entire sequence was about 0.15 seconds long. Literally a blink of any eye.
It is possible to get this sequence with a very fast motor drive. The problem with that is you never know when any action will take place, and would have to shoot continuously and fill up your SD card. Burst mode gets round this issue, but does require a new set of skills and lightning reactions.
Great sequence Angus. Love the 'In your face' stuff ...
After a few days of playing with RAW/CRAW burst mode on a Canon R7, I have some very positive views, less positive view, and some very negative views.
I'll also explain what subjects I think are suitable for burst mode, and how I use it and the Canon software.
Let's start with the very negative views. Canon's software design is absolute rubbish, when it comes to processing RAW burst image files; known as image rolls. I scoured the internet, and came to the conclusion that there are two ways to extract image files from an image roll. Either in camera or by using Canon's DPP-4 image processing software.
Quite why Canon's software designers didn't write files to an uncompressed zip file is beyond me. Such a file can be opened by any number of applications, some native to an operating system. Instead, users of other image processing software (e.g. Lightroom, photoshop, Faststone, etc) are left high and dry with no way to extract files but by using Canon's software.
Using the in camera software to extract image files is tedious and slow. Each image has to be extracted individually, a process requiring one to press up to five buttons for each image. This process also suffers from the camera LCD being tiny, thus not allowing you to see each image clearly to decide if it is worthwhile extracting.
DPP-4's RAW burst extraction tool is appalling. Talk about ancient, first generation user interfaces. This thing looks like it was cobbled together, late on a Friday afternoon, by someone eager to push off for the weekend. The tool does allow you to extract either one, a selection or all the images in an image roll. What the stupid thing then does is incomprehensible. It will reduce the resolution of an image!!! As an example, it will reduce my 6960x4640 pixel image files to roughly 1640x1210 pixels. Go figure.
Another annoying feature of DPP-4 is that RAW burst image files and RAW burst images extracted from an image file show the same RAW burst mode icon in thumbnail displays. Thus, you have no idea if a file is an image file (containing lots of images) or an extracted image file. I wonder what genius in Canon thought that one up.
In photo below, can you tell the difference between an image roll or an extracted image file? I haven't put a circle around every RAW burst mode icon - too tedious. The only sure way to tell the difference between the two file types is to look at their size. An image roll will be many hundreds of megabytes in length.
The not so positive views.
The R7, being the penultimate base model of the new R series, does not have enough processing power to track fast moving objects, like a small bird taking off. This limits what you can photograph when using RAW burst mode. You want to photograph something that stays parallel to the camera i.e. in the vertical plane of focus. It shouldn't prevent you from restricting yourself to this sort of shot. Just be prepared to have a large percentage of shots being fuzzy or completely out of focus.
The positive views.
My God, you get some fantastic imagery when using RAW burst mode. All sorts of body positions and behaviours you can never get normally. I will definitely be using this feature. Provided I can remember to use it.
What would I photograph with burst mode?
Obviously action sequences over in he blink of an eye, but where you cannot anticipate when the action will occur.
I'd love to return to Wales, around Cardigan bay and New Quay in particular, to photograph porpoises.
Hares boxing would also be good for this technique. Or a Swift/Swallow popping out of its nest.
Obviously birds taking off, landing or having a tussle.
Modus Operandi
Sunny bright day or with subject well lit. Fairly normal for most photography, but more so for burst mode. The reason? I'd set shutter speed to be fast. A minimum of 1/200. I'd recommend 1/5000 to 1/16000 or the fastest your camera can achieve for the lighting conditions.
Tripod or monopod or resting on a wall if you can. Holding the camera, with shutter release half depressed, while trained on a subject is very hard on the arms.
You must examine image rolls even when you think you have missed a piece of action. I thought I'd had missed a lot of action, but then found the required sequence in an image roll.
The reason is simple. We know, through experience, that if we press shutter release when we see a piece of action then we will not have photographed it. Whereas burst mode stores the previous 1/2 second worth of photographs. Up to 37 or more on an R7.
To get around the limitations of Canon's software, I do the following.
1. Copy image rolls to a computer.
2. Open image roll in DPP-4.
3. Go through image roll to decide if there are images worth extracting. Do not extract them.
4. Go back to the camera. Use its editing software to extract images from image rolls.
5. Copy extracted images to computer for further processing if needed.
Personally I think you should try one of the other focus modes. In your Robin example the focus took a long time to leave the cane top - perhaps that was where focus was locked as it certainly provides the best contrast and as you know case two wants to make sure it sticks with the target and works better on a moving target and one that's on a more predictable path as it has to try and work out where it is going to be when itches back into shot. Perhaps one of the other cases that are expecting sudden movement would be a better option.
Also preshooting buffer seems fairly new to Canon so maybe they are still trying to get it right - it hasn't been added to the R3 or R5 yet, both of which have a burst mode. I don't know about the R5 but at. least with the R3 the burst mode does produce standard RAW images, no image roll to decipher
"Quite why Canon's software designers didn't write files to an uncompressed zip file is beyond me. Such a file can be opened by any number of applications, some native to an operating system. Instead, users of other image processing software (e.g. Lightroom, photoshop, Faststone, etc) are left high and dry with no way to extract files but by using Canon's software."
They may have to pay Canon (with related NDAs and contracts) to have access to the specifics of the internal file structure. It's a concept in law under the name of Intellectual Property.
With regard to the finite tech, I'm still very much at the start of the learning ladder, so not able to fully assist. What I can do is share a screengrab of DPP4 with a brief explanation of the exposure settings used.
The 'R' is not displayed on any R5 RAW files in DPP4. I have many times tried a search on the symbols used, to no avail. What I can tell you is
The burst is utilised on all the remaining thumbnails in view.
To get a full thumbnail breakdown, using Ctrl+I, you can view the full data, burst or not etc.
I may be off grid for a few days, I've a few fully loaded schedule coming up, but I hope the above image gives some input from the R5 perspective..
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
Flaming June!
Its flaming, alright. Flaming freezing.
A bright evening sun, lit up the back of our garden. With chores done, body knackered from swimming, and with nowt on tele I figured I'd sit out in garden and have a play with burst mode.
I also decided to try out remote shooting. A couple of problems with using the R7's view finder or LCD at back of camera is that firstly I tend to have rigid, awkward postures using them for long periods waiting for my subject to do something, and secondly you can't see a great deal of detail to decide when to take the shot.
Ah ha, I thought. Use remote shooting.
I'm comfortably sat on garden seat, swaddled in a parka jacket to ward off the freezing cold northerly wind. Camera on a tripod pointing at bird feeder. Laptop on lap, hooked up to R7. EOS utility fired up, with a nice large image of what the R7 'sees'.
I place the laptop's pointer on the shutter button in the EOS utility. I am then informed by Canon's EOS utility that it wont work with RAW burst mode. It even greys out the options on the camera body. Argh! Seriously?
As an ex-software engineer who has developed systems which interact with hardware, I am totally baffled. EOS utility obviously has full control of the R7, how else can the burst mode options be greyed out. Perhaps, just possibly, it might be a limitation of the R7 - I remain to be convinced.
Totally mystified, I went old school and squinted through the view finder.
Angus M said:I place the laptop's pointer on the shutter button in the EOS utility. I am then informed by Canon's EOS utility that it wont work with RAW burst mode. It even greys out the options on the camera body. Argh! Seriously?
Have you tried using the Canon App on Smart Phone - it probably won't work nut int might be worth a try. I can confirm that the R3 will tae its 50 shot burst using the canon App but I realise I don't have the pre shooting buffer. Presumably the app won't work because there is no half press on the shutter button.
I think the link between laptop and camera would simply be too laggy to work with Burst, so I suspect it's disabled simply to avoid people trying it and complaining. If the burst recorded 2 or 3 seconds it might work, but as it is I'm guessing it would always miss the action. You could try an old-fashioned remote switch plugged in to the camera, that would probably work. Maybe with the laptop showing you remotely what the camera is seeing (though the video on laptop will be delayed from that showing on camera screen methinks). At least the button would remove one direction's delay!
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