I am re-charging both batteries (original Pentax) as we speak. The camera has shown full on the batteries, but I'll let you know if of makes a difference.
I am sorry if my first post to this GREAT forum is a pain, but I am greatful for the help so far.
Flyer you may have solved t. I just had a look at mine and realized it was set at 3 stars. It will do 38 frames that way without issue. At 4 stars. It slows down a lot and will only do 19-20 frames. At 2 stars I stopped at 50 and it was still shooting.
Since I shoot Raw + and only use the Jpegs a quick previews I had never checked the rating which is the default setting I think.
What quality setting do you have set? The manual specifies up to 38 frames can be shot in one sequence at quality level ***. I've heard people say that **** jpegs are almost as big as RAW files, so if you're on that highest quality (least compression) **** setting, that could be the cause.
EDIT: oh! there's a page two. Now I look dumb!
Last edited by heliphoto; 12-19-2008 at 05:04 PM.
Reason: i'm dumb.
What quality setting do you have set? The manual specifies up to 38 frames can be shot in one sequence at quality level ***. I've heard people say that **** jpegs are almost as big as RAW files, so if you're on that highest quality (least compression) **** setting, that could be the cause.
EDIT: oh! there's a page two. Now I look dumb!
No... not dumb. More like great minds think alike. However, it seems like I need a GENIUS mind to solve my problem!
What kind of SD card are you using? If your card is very slow (like a model dating from the dinosaur era), it might not clear the buffer fast enough to allow the camera to keep on going. It might also be a defective card. You might want to try another card. Just a wild guess.
Exactly... what card is it? My 2 Gig card allows for much faster writing than my 8 Gig card. Also realize, the K20D has about 47% (is it) more pixels to push than the K10D... I don't remember the site but there was a huge SD card speed comparo. Some budget cards are ridiculously slow. The camera buffer will fill-up if the card speed is too slow to keep-up with the write speed.
Transcend 8GB Class 6
PNY 4GB Class 6
Sandisk 8GB Class 2
I'll head out today and buy a Sandisk Extreme lll 4GB. I had assumed that the buffer in the camera was able to hold 38 JPEGs before it needed to record them to the card.
I reset the camera to initial settings in the setup menu and I now get 40 frames on my class 6 cards and 37 frames on my class 2 card @ 14.6MP JPEG ***. I also get 16 frames in RAW, even after re-applying all of my preferred settings.
I have no idea what changed. Is it possible that a reset is like rebooting a computer?
That's good to hear. I have no idea what the issue was but glad to hear it's cleared. Yes the camera does reboot like a computer and fix a number of issues. I just never thought that would fix this. I was begining to think it was a bad buffer memory.
The card was a basic run of the mill Sandisk SD 4 Gb (the blue ones that are nothing special). Cheap slow but a solid card. I tried a slower card to see if that was the issue.
I'm glad your problem is solved. I thought about a reset too, but I rejected it , thinking it was a buffer problem, so next time I have a problem (I've been lucky so far), I'll give this a try.
Originally posted by nostatic 
