More re Crops

ozdean wrote:

I wonder why the buffer and write speed don't Change? The file is smaller.

Not having the camera I'm guessing.

You had a theory that what is read from the sensor in crop mode is different,

I believe this for the K1 because in crop mode the FPS goes up. This suggests to me that the time to reset the sensor for the next frame reduces. The mechanical parts will go at 7 fps but the read out from the chip will only go support 4 fps in full frame mode, but the will go faster in crop mode. Since the chip can be told to give a video res frame at more frequent intervals, there must be ways of asking it for different things.

I've also wondered about where in the pipeline the buffer is.
There is a pipeline of sensor (A-D converter) , Prime chip, memory card. There's no real lower limit for the speed of the memory card, so it has always seemed the sensible thing to have the buffer after the prime chip, and what we see in the specs backs this up. It looks like frames arrive in the buffer as fast as they are shot, so the prime can process something like 160MPixels / sec.

However I've wondered if there is a way of doing it the other way around. Slow the prime chip down (and generate less heat and use less power) to match the write speed of the memory card, and buffer the unprocessed frames, although frames in buffer doesn't change with different file options, the number of frames to stall the buffer does. (if the buffer is 10 frames, and you can write 1 in the time it takes to shoot 10 you stall at 11, but if you can write 5 in the time it takes to shoot 10,  you have 5 still in the buffer after 10, and you'll have shot 20 by the time the buffer is full).

If the crop happens in processing AND an "early" buffer is imposing a limit, that would explain it. It might be more simply explained by something in the firmware not raising a limit when the mode changes.