The Nikon D5500 is capable of up to 5fps continuous burst shooting performance. Using a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-I SD memory card the D5500 was able to buffer 10 frames in 14-bit RAW (compressed) and 14 frames in 12-bit RAW (compressed) mode. Switching to any of the JPEG modes (including Large, Fine) the camera was able to reach a full 100 frame burst. The 100 frame number is limited by the camera in continuous shooting when holding the shutter (interestingly, when the shutter speed is manually set to 4 seconds or longer the limit no longer applies).

Settings on the camera that may reduce the buffer capacity include high ISO, noise reduction and auto distortion control. The above numbers are quoted for a scene of average detail at ISO 100 and RAW file sizes of 24MB for 14-bit and 20MB for 12-bit. A memory card with slower write speed may reduce the number of frames the camera can buffer. The SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s card provides up to 90MB/s write speed.