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Timings & File SizesThe D2X responds instantly, there's really no other way to define its performance. Power on is instant, focusing immediate and direct and the softest press of the shutter release results in a shot, that very instant. Viewfinder blackout is very short, this means that you're never distracted from composing the next shot. Other performance metrics such as continuous shooting speed and especially CF write speed are equally as impressive. In continuous shooting mode the camera delivers over five frames a second at 12 MP or eight frames per second at 6.9 MP, truly the best of both worlds. CF write speed is the fastest we've seen and appears to be at the limit of performance for the cards themselves (at least as hard as we can push them). When we consider that from the D2H to the D2X there has been a trebling in the amount of data which has to be transferred and processed each time a shot has taken the performance of this camera seems all the more remarkable. Timing Notes: All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a 4288 x 2848 JPEG Fine (approx. 4,400 KB per image). The media used for these tests were:
Continuous Drive modeThe D2X has two different drive speeds, Continuous Low (CL) and Continuous High (CH). In CL mode the camera limits its shooting speed to a specified rate between 1 and 7 frames per second (although for full size images the maximum is 4 frames per second in CL mode). In CH mode the camera shoots as quickly as possible, this is specified as 5 frames per second in full size mode and 8 frames per second in High-speed crop mode. For our test we chose to use CH mode in both full size and High-speed crop modes. Camera settings: Manual Focus, Manual Exposure (1/400 sec, F5.0), ISO 200, Continuous High (CH) mode. Media used were the same as above. The tests carried out measure the following:
2 GB SanDisk Extreme III
4 GB SanDisk Ultra II
4 GB Lexar Pro 80x
Considering the size of the files (the amount of data) the D2X performs remarkably well, over five frames per second for up to 17 RAW or 22 JPEG frames in full size (12 MP) mode. Switch to High-speed crop mode (6.9 MP) and you can shoot at eight frames per second for up to 29 RAW or 35 JPEG frames. My only disappointment must be that the D2X blocks the shutter release once a burst of shots has been taken, this means you have to re-press the shutter release to take more images (although in all image modes you can fire off another shot almost immediately as the camera begins writing the burst during shooting). File Flush TimingTimings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the storage card. Timing was taken from the instant the shutter release was pressed to the time the CF activity indicator beside the LCD monitor went out. The D2X will begin writing images approximately one second after the shutter release and will continue 'in the background' while you take further shots / change settings. Media used were the same as above.
It's fair to say that the D2X is capable of pushing most Compact Flash cards to the limit of their performance, as you can see from the graphs below the camera's RAW throughput was as fast as our fastest device (the Delkin CardBus CF adapter). Best card was the SanDisk Extreme III which very nearly hit 10 MB/sec in RAW mode. Overall an extremely impressive performance which we expected from Nikon's range-topping digital SLR, and is especially important considering the size of files it generates. Card performance: JPEG Fine continuous burst write
Card performance: RAW continuous burst write
Cardbus 32-bit CF Adapter benchmark
The results above were produced by measuring the write time for a burst of shots, this gives a more accurate measurement of actual throughput. The difference in performance between SanDisk's Ultra II and Extreme III cards is clear to see, the Lexar 80x almost as fast as the Extreme III apart from in-camera RAW write. Battery lifeThe EN-EL4 Lithium-Ion battery has a capacity of 1900 mAh at 11.1 V (21.1 Wh). As with the D2H we found that the D2X just goes and goes on this battery. These two battery life tests are from the Nikon D2X manual (reproduced with permission):
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