The Canon EOS 400D has the option to use a ‘Continuous Shooting’ drive mode in the following Modes: Sports Mode, Portrait Mode, Program AE (P Mode), Shutter Priority AE (TV Mode), Aperture Priority (AV Mode), Manual Exposure (M Mode) and Automatic Depth of Field (A-DEP Mode). So I thought it would be handy to write a brief article exploring how continuous shooting works and when and why it can be helpful to use it.
How Many Photos Per Second?
According to the Canon Manual, continuous shooting allows “up to 3 shots per sec” to be taken. I have just carried out a crude test of ‘continuous shooting’ speed in two modes (Program AE – P Mode and A-DEP Mode) and using two different AF (auto focussing) Modes – One Shot Mode (camera will focus only once during continuous shooting) and AI Servo (focusing will be continuous during continuous shooting). The results were were as follows:
Program AE – P Mode
• One Shot Mode
◦ Max duration of continuous shooting – approx 9 secs
◦ Number of photos taken – 24 photos
◦ Photos per sec – 2.6 photos per sec
• AI Servo
◦ Max duration of continuous shooting – approx 8 secs
◦ Number of photos taken – 16 photos
◦ Photos per sec – 2 photos per sec
A-DEP Program
• One Shot Mode
◦ Max duration of continuous shooting – approx 14 secs
◦ Number of photos taken – 34 photos
◦ Photos per sec – 2.42 photos per sec
• AI Servo
◦ Max duration of continuous shooting – approx 28 secs
◦ Number of photos taken – 43 photos
◦ Photos per sec – 1.5 photos per sec
So, it does seem that in some modes it would be possible to take up to 3 photos a second. However, the number of photos that can be take per second will be affected by various factors, such as:
1. The AF (auto focus) mode used – if you use AI Servo AF whilst doing continuous shooting the number of photos per second will be lower. This makes sense since in this AF mode the camera is continuously adjusting its focus for each shot, which will inevitably reduce the shot speed. You can see this in the above figures – within both P-Mode and A-DEP mode less photos per second were taken when AI Servo was used as compared to One Shot AF Mode. [Read more…]