Digital Camera -- tired of the slow flash recharge

[C-Dub]

We have a Nikon Coolpix 5600. It takes great pictures, the only problem is it takes forever to recharge between pictures. I think this is the flash recharging. Is there any solution to this? A different setting I could use? I saw on ebay an external flash ("Sunpak Digital Slave Grip with Hi Power Digital Auto Bounce Flash" around $60) that says it will help, will it & is it worth the money (versus buying a new camera)? Or is this just something I have to deal with unless I want to buy a $1,000 camera?

Any thoughts are appreciated and I love that I can ask non-cigar related questions and get great advice.

 

[Wasch_24]

Are you sure it is the flash? COuld be the write speed of the memory card. I got a new card this fall and the camera performs a ton better all around...much faster.

 

[smokem94]

I agree with Todd.....doesn't sound like the flash. What does it do on the auto setting??

 

[C-Dub]

Maybe I'm a little confused. We have a pretty large memory card (I think around 560 MB or 1 GB). What happens is I take the picture, it flashes and the screen is then blank for about 5-6 seconds. I can't do anything with the camera and I can then take another picture after waiting a while. I have had the memory card for a while and it has always worked fine (as far as I know).

 

[Wasch_24]

The newer cards have a very noticeable improvement in their read/write speed...i.e. the amount of time it takes for the data to be applied or removed from the card.

Flash memory cards have a specific life span...yours could be getting too old/or used.

It really does sound like you are having to wait for the camera to write the image to memory.

My new card is a SanDisk Ultra II...it is really fast.

 

[C-Dub]

Thanks. I didn't even know that the memory cards would get old and worn-out. We take quite a few pictures and have had this card for about 1 1/2-2 years, so maybe that is it.

On-line there are a lot of complaints about the flash speed for this particular camera, but maybe I can eliminate at least some of the lag with a new memory card.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[joshua]

The slave flash would help you get better lighting, but you will still need the regular flash so it wont help much. The flash on modern cameras doesn't really need to recharge as long as old cameras I don't think.

You can see about getting a high speed memory card, they have ones particularly for cameras.

How about batteries. Are you using alkalines, rechargables, or a battery pack type thing?

 

[C-Dub]

We're using rechargeable batteries (Monster I think) and those are pretty old too.

 

[cvm4]

Time to upgrade the memory card and get new batteries