550D Irregular Intervals

[zukenukem]

I have recently noticed a problem with my ML intervalometer when shooting intervals of 1 or 2 seconds. The shutter seems to choke and the interval constantly is irregular in between pictures. I first noticed when shooting with an interval of 1 second and a shutter speed of 1/3 of a second. Thinking that maybe the shutter speed was too slow for a 1 sec interval, I then started troubleshooting and tried a 1 second interval with a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second (which should be no problem for the camera to be ready for the next picture I would imagine?), yet the same thing happened. I have searched all over for a solution, but haven't found any other users that have posted about this issue. I figured maybe my card might have been too slow, so I attempted shooting it with the same shutter speed/interval with JPEGS and it continued to give an irregular interval. Does anyone have an idea of what could be going on? Thanks ahead of time.

[dmilligan]

1 sec is probably just too fast, I'd use raw video with fps override = 1 for speeds that fast (otherwise you are just going to kill your shutter), but I rarely use intervals less than 15s for timelapse.

Try longer intervals, is there a point where the intervals become stable? That should tell you there's nothing wrong with the intervalometer, the camera is just simply not able to keep up.

You could also try disabling Image Review and any ML settings that run in image review mode (AutoETTR, histogram, zebras, etc.) Also, what drive mode are you in? see if changing it makes any difference.

[zukenukem]

I am trying to shoot time lapses of traffic going by so I need a much shorter interval than 15s. There is a point where the intervals seem stable, and that is a 3 seconds and beyond. I just don't understand why 1 and 2 second intervals would be an option if it isn't possible? I had tried disabling image review and the histogram but it didn't help at all. With fps override, the only thing is that I don't get as much room to play in post as I would with a CR2 sequence so I would rather not resort to that if I don't have to. I wil troubleshoot more after work today. Thanks