San Disk CFast Card Corruption on 1DX II

[unfocused]

I know that there has been some discussion about this, but I'm not finding a single thread that pulls all the comments together.

I wrote CPS and got the following response:

Dear ,

Thank you for contacting Canon product support. I understand you're having trouble with some corrupted images from your EOS-1D X Mark II. I would be happy to help you with this.

In certain limited cases we've seen that SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast cards can produce some distortions similar to what you are experiencing. As far as we can tell this distortion only happens when shooting stills, not videos. The image distortion seems to happen infrequently, so it might help to fire bursts of images at a time. Otherwise, you can try shooting images onto an older CF style card, or to a CFast card made by a different manufacturer. We are exploring this situation and hope to have more details about it available to our customers soon.

I hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

XXXXX
Technical Support Representative

Not the most reassuring response, but I imagine that the unpredictability of the issue might mean it will take some time to narrow down exactly what the problem is. I have a Lexar CFast card, that I think I will start using more frequently and see if the problem occurs with it. For jobs where I don't want to risk any spoiled frames, I'll stick to the CF card until this gets straightened out.

As near as I can tell, I only had one frame corrupted on the card and it was the first time I experienced it with the card. It was when the card was well over half filled. I format my cards in camera before each use.

Curious what others have been experiencing.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I suspect timing issues between the camera and the card ends up corrupting a file occasionally, but too frequently to ignore.

I hope the 5D MK IV does not use CFast, but I'm 90% sure its going to happen.

If its a firmware fix in the camera, they will fix it, but a hardware error will take longer to implement. If the problem only happens with Sandisk, the card controller may be the issue, and cards will have to be swapped out.

 

[Click]

Looking forward to seeing if Lexar CFast cards have the same problem or not.

 

[scottkinfw]

Thank you for the post. Please keep us updated on the Lexar cards.

Sek

 

[East Wind Photography]

Looking forward to seeing if Lexar CFast cards have the same problem or not.

Im using a lexar 256gb 3500x and no problems that I have run across.

 

[Click]

Thanks for this info, East Wind Photography.

 

[unfocused]

Where did the corruption show up? When you reviewed the image in-camera or on your computer?

Since I don't review all 2,000 to 3,000 images on a 64 GB card in-camera, that would be hard to know.

 

[TeT]

Sounds like a card problem not a camera problem... maybe San Disk QC let a bad batch(s) through...

 

[Don Haines]

Where did the corruption show up? When you reviewed the image in-camera or on your computer?

Since I don't review all 2,000 to 3,000 images on a 64 GB card in-camera, that would be hard to know.

If you ever find an image corrupted after copying it to your computer, always check it in the camera with the card plugged into the camera.

I thought I had a similar problem with the 5D Mark II but it turned out to be a problem with the card reader that I was using.

I had the same problem.... The camera read the image properly, but the computer would not. I tried a different CF reader and the computer was able to read the image properly.... and it only happened with one image on a shoot of about 500 images.....

 

[unfocused]

Where did the corruption show up? When you reviewed the image in-camera or on your computer?

Since I don't review all 2,000 to 3,000 images on a 64 GB card in-camera, that would be hard to know.

If you ever find an image corrupted after copying it to your computer, always check it in the camera with the card plugged into the camera.

I thought I had a similar problem with the 5D Mark II but it turned out to be a problem with the card reader that I was using.

I had the same problem.... The camera read the image properly, but the computer would not. I tried a different CF reader and the computer was able to read the image properly.... and it only happened with one image on a shoot of about 500 images.....

Not the card reader. I checked.

This is a known issue. Sounds like there are problems with the "free" 64 GB cards from SanDisk. Once they figure out what is causing it, I expect there will be either a card exchange program and/or a firmware update. I'm surprised though that they haven't tried to get ahead of the issue by issuing a product advisory. I was lucky because it only affected one image (as near as I can tell) and it wasn't irreplaceable, but I've got some portrait sessions coming up and I'd be extremely upset if this had happened to images from a shoot of that nature.

 

[Don Haines]

Where did the corruption show up? When you reviewed the image in-camera or on your computer?

Since I don't review all 2,000 to 3,000 images on a 64 GB card in-camera, that would be hard to know.

If you ever find an image corrupted after copying it to your computer, always check it in the camera with the card plugged into the camera.

I thought I had a similar problem with the 5D Mark II but it turned out to be a problem with the card reader that I was using.

I had the same problem.... The camera read the image properly, but the computer would not. I tried a different CF reader and the computer was able to read the image properly.... and it only happened with one image on a shoot of about 500 images.....

Not the card reader. I checked.

This is a known issue. Sounds like there are problems with the "free" 64 GB cards from SanDisk. Once they figure out what is causing it, I expect there will be either a card exchange program and/or a firmware update. I'm surprised though that they haven't tried to get ahead of the issue by issuing a product advisory. I was lucky because it only affected one image (as near as I can tell) and it wasn't irreplaceable, but I've got some portrait sessions coming up and I'd be extremely upset if this had happened to images from a shoot of that nature.

OUCH!

I can't see using a card that was known to be flawed.... that's playing Russian roulette with your livelihood!

And from Sandisk! They are very reputable, you can bet that there will be a fix or a replacement... Hopefully, once they get the bugs out, they will give you a properly working 128G card as a way to say sorry....

 

[GuyF]

HKFever who posts here now and again has a post over at POTN saying Canon are to release a firmware update at the start of July:

"Update for the corrupted raw files with CFast, just received call from CPS: - Canon will release firmware in the beginning of July; - It is targeted to Sandisk CFast (64 & 128), other brand is OK (CPS mentioned no need to update firmware if you are not using Sandisk); - Due to power usage with Sandisk CFast (so camera knows which brand you insert in?); - Affect file size larger than 16MB (humm, most of the raw file are over 20MB), don't understand; - Video file is not affected"

 

[Mario]

I have over 11.000 shots now with the 1DXII, about half of it with the Sandisk 64GB CFast card and I haven't found a corrupted file yet. Keeping my fingers crossed though.

Mario

 

[RGF]

Glad to hear that mario

 

[Click]

A firmware update is coming, therefore it's not a card problem?

 

[Don Haines]

A firmware update is coming, therefore it's not a card problem?

Apparently not..... looks like they goofed when programming the parameters for the Cfast controller.....

 

[TeT]

A firmware update is coming, therefore it's not a card problem?

There will be a few firmware updates flying about after a new body release...

 

[helpful]

The camera froze for me, turned it off, then it very quickly dumped all the images to the CFast card, counting down from about 50 to 0 in about one second.

Later the same day, it froze again. This time, turning it off did nothing.

I had to take the battery out. Then the camera seemed to work again.

Of course, after that I downloaded all my images from the regular compact flash card since it is almost a given that some of the images were corrupted from one or both of these incidents.

On the same day.

There are definitely issues with the camera and/or the cards at this time.

Originally, I was one of those who thought it was very much the wrong decision not to go with dual CFast card slots, but seeing how there are clearly bugs present, it was obviously a smart decision of Canon to retain one reliable compact flash slot. I wonder how much of this issue Canon was aware of, and if perhaps experience with the problems on prototype bodies led to their decision not to go with dual CFast slots just yet.

 

[kaihp]

A firmware update is coming, therefore it's not a card problem?

There will be a few firmware updates flying about after a new body release...

According to the Product Advisory Detail that HKFever posted in another thread (here), it's a SanDisk card problem. However, Canon is considering to release a firmware that works around the issue.

Direct link to Product Advisory: Service Notice: EOS-1D X Mark II: image corruption with some SanDisk CFast cards

 

[Click]

Thanks kaihp.