How often do you use your maximum frame rate?

[GeoffRG]

A very simple question really, high frame rates are a feature of most mirrorless cameras, great for those who need that, but how often do you use it?

In 1996 I bought the, then, fastest SLR with 8 fps but in nearly 30 years I've never used continuous shooting on any camera, never having found the need to do so. Then I don't shoot fast moving sport.

 

[MoreorLess]

A very simple question really, high frame rates are a feature of most mirrorless cameras, great for those who need that, but how often do you use it?

In 1996 I bought the, then, fastest SLR with 8 fps but in nearly 30 years I've never used continuous shooting on any camera, never having found the need to do so. Then I don't shoot fast moving sport.

Very rarely even with a gripless D850 with 7 fps, mostly taking pictures of dogs.

Seems to me its one of those things you either need a lot of or not much at all.

 

[A74Me]

shooting 200 image extreme macro stacks of live subjects all the time, shooting events 5 frames is plenty

 

[Chris R-UK]

Quite a lot, but I have always shot wildlife and some sports.

My first SLR with continuous shooting was a Minolta maximum which, I think, was 3fps (maybe slower). I found this very limiting for shooting airshows.

My first digital camera with continuous shooting was a Sony R717 which managed about 1fps. The only time I used it in continuous mode was shooting a polo match with (the then) Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry all playing in the same team. I found that it blacked out during shooting which caused me to miss some crucial shots!

I then bought my first DSLR, a Canon 20D with 5fps shooting rate, which I found adequate for most wildlife, including whale breaches but not dolphin jumps. I later upgraded to a Canon 7D with 8fps. I kept the 7D even after I had switched to mirrorless because it had much better continuous AF and faster shooting rates than the earlier digital cameras.

With mirrorless, maximum shooting rates went through the roof but with limitations: the fastest rates were fixed focus only, not all lenses could support the fastest rates and, with electronic shutters, rolling shutter effects now come into play.

My current mirrorless camera can shoot at 50 fps with AF and has a stacked sensor so minimal rolling shutter. The fastest fps rate that I use is 25 fps for soccer matches. I had been shooting at 10fps before but at that rate I found that in goal scoring situations in a soccer match the ball moved around 6 ft between shots. 25 fps gives me a greater chance of capturing the moment when a player's head has just deflected the ball towards the net.

As somebody else has mentioned, the other advantage of high fps rates is for computational photography, e.g. HDR. A very high fps rate means that there is less movement between images in the burst.

 

[yardcoyote]

Never. One shot at a time for me.

 

[Hal Wilson]

A very simple question really, high frame rates are a feature of most mirrorless cameras, great for those who need that, but how often do you use it?

In 1996 I bought the, then, fastest SLR with 8 fps but in nearly 30 years I've never used continuous shooting on any camera, never having found the need to do so. Then I don't shoot fast moving sport.

I very rarely use anything other than single frame shooting. Certainly in my film days, even with the Nikon F4 and F5, I didn't use Continuous shooting mode because it got through expensive film very fast! So I suppose I'm much more about capturing the right moment, rather than 'spraying and praying'. It's a good discipline that has worked well for me over the decades. Never really felt I've missed a shot, and I have shot action and sports (even with a fully manual Nikon FM2).

I did use a continuous shooting mode recently, when photographing some drummers in action, as the movement really was much too fast to try to anticipate, and C mode is a very useful tool in such circumstances. But I was alongside some pro photojournalists I know the other day, and I could hear them all firing on very high frame rate continuous, but I was still on S. People work in different ways. I'm not sure if they got any better pics, but I do know they've got a hell of a lot more frames to have to churn through in post...

 

[John Crowe]

Most of my summer photography is of motor racing events. I have found that for shooting vehicles head on that manual focus is more effective than autofocus. With my system, at least. Shooting at 10 fps using trap focus methods provides up to two sharp frames in a burst of five frames.

When I photographed my kids' soccer with autofocus eight fps allowed me to choose the best composition out of a burst of four to eight frames. I was also able to combine photos to create a multiple exposure freeze frame stop motion sort of panoramic.

I found 5 fps to be much less effective for sports.

I find 10 fps to be ideal for my purposes. Anything more would be a waste of time, shutter life, and aperture life.

The other three seasons I shoot primarily landscapes and I do that one photo at a time. I do a lot of focus stacking and shifting/stitching so a deep buffer is more important.

I bought my 10 fps APS-C camera specifically for sports. My 5 fps full frame is primarily for landscapes.

 

[ahaslett]

My maximum with AF is 50fps but 25fps is plenty for birds. ProCapture is essential to limit total frames around the moment.

8-10fps works for a granddaughter on a trampoline.

Everything else is single shot, maybe several shots to get one with no-one pulling a face in group shots.

A

 

[GonnaSnap]

A very simple question really, high frame rates are a feature of most mirrorless cameras, great for those who need that, but how often do you use it?

In 1996 I bought the, then, fastest SLR with 8 fps but in nearly 30 years I've never used continuous shooting on any camera, never having found the need to do so. Then I don't shoot fast moving sport.

NEVER. I press the shutter button when I know I have the shot. I don't need to spray-and-pray like so many others that I know. I can even shoot street at 1/15s and time the blurs of moving people and traffic perfectly. I never need more than the one shot.

 

[IagoZ]

Routinely for subjects that benefit from high frame rate. No need to shoot landscapes at 20fps but for things like dog agility courses, birds in flight, sports, I use the 50fps mode on my OM1. It can shoot higher (120fps raw) but AF is fixed at the first frame in that mode.

 

[Bill Ferris]

I'm a wildlife and bird photographer. My camera is always set to the maximum 20 fps for raw exposures. The more keepers there are, the more options I have to choose from for wing, body, head, eye, etc. position.

 

[ajr images]

My Z9's are set to 20fps for airshows, surfing, motor sports, etc. I'll change to single shot if the occasion requires it.

I need a high frame rate to get this type of image.



--
Alan

 

[IagoZ]

I'm a wildlife and bird photographer. My camera is always set to the maximum 20 fps for raw exposures. The more keepers there are, the more options I have to choose from for wing, body, head, eye, etc. position.

It's remarkable how fast those variables change from frame to frame even at 20 or 30 fps. Easy enough to pick the best and delete the rest.

 

[Rodenmg]

10fps frequently, 20fps sometimes, 30fps rarely, and to answer the question 120 fps never.

--
... Mike
... https://www.flickr.com/photos/198581502@N02/

 

[tclune]

A very simple question really, high frame rates are a feature of most mirrorless cameras, great for those who need that, but how often do you use it?

My D500 will shoot up to 10 fps. I'm a birder, but I have never used the fast continuous rate. I will use the slow continuous rate, which is around one fps. But I just don't want to contend with that many photos in post. Since I am shooting purely for my own enjoyment, and being in the field is often the most enjoyable part of my photo outings, I have never felt the need to subject myself to a huge deluge of photos when I get home.

 

[Leonard Migliore]

I don't even know what it is.

 

[GonnaSnap]

Never. I compose and click. I capture exactly what I want in a single exposure. I do not shoot sports or wildlife.

 

[AWG_Pics]

Always for BIF, and any in-motion subjects. Never for landscapes or flowers, still subjects.

Needed 20 fps for these:









Did not need more than single shot for this:

 

[WilyKit]

Almost never, because of 4 reasons:

1: 60 photos per second is the maximum but the focus is fixed, based only on the first shot.

2: Buffer limitation. It's very short, it's not possible to actually get 60 photos at a rate of 60 per second in a single burst, only 49.

3: Electronic shutter with rolling shutter is used, not mechanical shutter, and I'm not interested in risking having visible rolling shutter artifacts in photos. Same with the 18 frames per second mode which does have continuous autofocus.

4: 60 photos per second may be useful for some people, but for me it's far, far, far, far too many, and 10 photos per second (with mechanical shutter and continuous AF) is enough, and usually more than enough.

The single case I have for using it: Super high quality very short video (816 milliseonds). Instead of a video file, I have a full quality (no subsampling, downscaling, lossy stuff or fake "lossless") raw file for each frame, which I can process with much higher quality, and then compose an ideal video file in whatever format I want.