HELP ! Memory card compatibility for 1D mark III ?

[Bohns]

Hello all ! And happy New Year  (just 2 hours remain in France to start the New Year…) !

I just booked a 1D mark III to use it as a back-up body for my 5D mark III, especially for wildlife when environmental and climate conditions are bad. But I thought too late that my memory cards might not be compatible for this old venerable camera.
I have CF UDMA7 (1000x, 32 GB and 16 GB), CF UDMA6 (600x, 16 GB) and SDHC class 10 (600x, 32 GB and 16 GB).

Are they compatible ? If not, what shall I buy for CF and SDHC ?

Thank you for your help. I am getting really anxious…

Regards,
Stef.

[Valvebounce]

Hi Stef.
I can understand your confusion, I thought I would have a google! Some say the cards are backward compatible, others not specified. That is with respect to the speed rating of the cards. Of course if the camera handbook says there is a hard limit on the size it can accept that is different, the handbooks can be downloaded as PDF files from canon sites.
I think if it was me I would try them before worrying if they work, they should not harm anything if they don't work as they are passive devices.

Happy new year to all. I get there in 2 1/2 hrs!

Cheers Graham.

[dgatwood]

In the worst case, if you use a high-capacity card, you might have to reformat it as FAT32 instead of exFAT if your camera doesn't support the newer format, in which case you'll get less effective capacity than you otherwise would (because of wasted space at the end of each file).  Either way, they should work.

I haven't heard of anyone hitting any hard capacity limits in a looong time (since circa the turn of the century, when many cameras supported only FAT16, which had a 2 GB limit).  The next hard limit is about 8 TB for FAT32, so we have a while before that becomes a problem for anyone. 

[privatebydesign]

They take 64GB CF cards for sure and all SDHC cards, they do not take SDXC format SD cards.

[dgatwood]

They take 64GB CF cards for sure and all SDHC cards, they do not take SDXC format SD cards.

They should actually take SDXC cards as long as you reformat them.  The only real difference between SDHC and SDXC is that the latter is formatted as exFAT, where the former is formatted as FAT32.  They use exFAT for larger cards because FAT32 gets less and less efficient at dealing with small files and small file fragments as the volume size gets bigger.  Thus, some 32 GB cards and nearly all cards bigger than 32 GB come preformatted as exFAT (SDXC), but there's nothing stopping you from reformatting them as FAT32 volumes and using them with an older device (as long as the device supports SDHC and FAT32, i.e. not a device that is limited to 2GB flash cards and smaller).

[Mt Spokane Photography]

SDXC Cards are backward compatible, they might have to be reformatted.  The MK III will seem very slow in writing compared to a newer camera.

[Hannes]

It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.

[privatebydesign]

It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.

Not in my experience, unless I need an SD card like when I use the WFT- E2, I don't use the MkIII's with anything in the SD slot as it slows the camera down.

How many of you guys are actually shooting MkIII's on a daily basis?

[Bohns]

Thank you to all of you.

If I try to summarize :

• My current cards should work with the 1D mark III
• Per precaution, I should reformat the ones I would use with this "Old Guy" (maybe directly from the camera menu ?)
• SD cards might slow down the camera, and it might be preferable to favor use of CFs. Seems not agreed by all...

All my best wishes for this New Year !

[dgatwood]

Thank you to all of you.

If I try to summarize :

• My current cards should work with the 1D mark III
• Per precaution, I should reformat the ones I would use with this "Old Guy" (maybe directly from the camera menu ?)
• SD cards might slow down the camera, and it might be preferable to favor use of CFs. Seems not agreed by all...

All my best wishes for this New Year !

You shouldn't need to reformat them unless they say SDXC on them.  But if they do, then when you put the card in, the camera should tell you that the card is unreadable, and you should be able to reformat it at that time.

[Hannes]

It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.

Not in my experience, unless I need an SD card like when I use the WFT- E2, I don't use the MkIII's with anything in the SD slot as it slows the camera down.

How many of you guys are actually shooting MkIII's on a daily basis?

I am. I can't remember the exact details but I believe CF maxed out at about 10mb/sec and SD at 15mb/sec

[privatebydesign]

I'd like to know the details, I'd also like to know what SD cards you are using that are faster than your CF cards and what firmware version you have installed.

[sanj]

It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.

Not in my experience, unless I need an SD card like when I use the WFT- E2, I don't use the MkIII's with anything in the SD slot as it slows the camera down.

How many of you guys are actually shooting MkIII's on a daily basis?

Not in my experience either!

[kennephoto]

I have a 1d mark iii and wondered too but im using SanDisk extreme 16gb 45mbs and 60mbs cf cards and ive used a microcenter 16 anf 32gb class 10 sdhc and they all worked fine. Ive also read that the sd slot was faster than the cf.

[privatebydesign]

I think the "reading that an SD slot is technically capable of faster speeds" is very different from the actual user experience. My camera slows down when I have an SD card in it, I have the latest firmware. I'd like to know specifics regarding actual user experiences that support the theoretical assertions re SD and CF speeds.