5D mkIII SD cards good enough for video? And IBP/ALL-I Q

[bluegreenturtle]

So after hours of reading, I'm still not sure about the answer to 2 questions about the 5D mkIII, both of which are probably known by anybody who's been shooting a lot of video with one:

1) Are SD cards good enough for video? There is endless discussion about CF being faster, yada yada, raw burst rates, etc - I don't care, I only shoot video. Are SD cards (assuming class 10) fast enough for video use in either video codec mode?

2) Has the ALL-I vs IPB thing been resolved? All the reading I see shows a lot of disagreement as to which codec to use generally; All-I is better on paper but many people are getting same or better results with IPB. Anybody know? I generally have to shoot hours of interviews per day and so would rather have a more compact codec if there is no difference in quality.

 

[Policar]

So after hours of reading, I'm still not sure about the answer to 2 questions about the 5D mkIII, both of which are probably known by anybody who's been shooting a lot of video with one:

1) Are SD cards good enough for video? There is endless discussion about CF being faster, yada yada, raw burst rates, etc - I don't care, I only shoot video. Are SD cards (assuming class 10) fast enough for video use in either video codec mode?

2) Has the ALL-I vs IPB thing been resolved? All the reading I see shows a lot of disagreement as to which codec to use generally; All-I is better on paper but many people are getting same or better results with IPB. Anybody know? I generally have to shoot hours of interviews per day and so would rather have a more compact codec if there is no difference in quality.

There are rumors that CF cards (the fastest ones) can record to 100mb/sec instead of 90mb/sec.

I'm not buying it.

ALL-I is a lot better for fast motion, but IPB might be a little better for relatively static scenes. I'd go with IPB in your situation, though I use ALL-I for some stuff.

 

[risc32]

I only shoot fun videos of my kids, but i have some exp here. I use a sandisk ultra 30mb/s 64GB SD card. it's not fast, but it's roomy and it's fast enough for me. from what I've seen the 5dmk3's SD card slot is heavily handicapped, so i don't think any faster SD cards will show their potential. actually, my relatively slow card is beyond the 5dmk3's scope. On 2 occasions my camera stopped recording when iwas using this card and pushing it hard, ie 720 at 60fps all-i and 1080i at something all-i. I was just foolin around. now that i don't use all-i i haven't had a problem at all. as for flushing a load of RAW files, that's a different story, but not one any video shooter should worry about.

 

[DanThePhotoMan]

This may help.

90% of this footage was shot on my 5dmk3, IPB, and a few Sandisk Extreme 8gb SD cards.

Matthew and Marielle

I've tested out All-I and I haven't seen any problems with it, but with all the errors everyone else is saying they're having I wouldn't chance it. I'm more than happy with the quality of IPB and SD cards. And besides, you have no pens to worry about getting bent as you do with the CF cards.

 

[enraginangel]

I have a couple 64GB Sandisk Ultra 30mbps cards and a 16gb Sandisk Extreme 45mbps card, both cards cannot handle 1080p All-I or IPB. I have to knock it down to 720p if I want to record long videos on the SD cards. I can record up to 5 minutes tops before it automatically stops recording on those SD cards.

 

[gjones5252]

Thats pretty lame to know that the 45mbs cards are not able to handle the video rates. I am disappointed. I am really considering the 5d mark iii as a replacement for the 60d and that makes me nervous. I wouldn't mind using a CF but i just purchased a 128gb sd card for that very reason....ugh.

 

[DanThePhotoMan]

I have a couple 64GB Sandisk Ultra 30mbps cards and a 16gb Sandisk Extreme 45mbps card, both cards cannot handle 1080p All-I or IPB. I have to knock it down to 720p if I want to record long videos on the SD cards. I can record up to 5 minutes tops before it automatically stops recording on those SD cards.

I have had quite the opposite experience. I have quite a few Sandisk Ultra and Extreme 8gb cards and they work flawlessly shooting 1080p at 24p, 30p, 50p, and 60p with IPB. As a matter of fact, I did three quick time lapse videos the other day and had my mkiii record at 1080p 24p with IPB for 27 minutes each onto different Sandisk Extreme 8gb 30mb/s cards, and not once did it give me a problem.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The issue with SD cards is the extreme slow write time when overwriting previous data. A regular in-Camera format of a card does not erase the card, but merely marks it as empty in the fat table. Then, when you record a video, the card must first erase a block of memory before it can record to it. This slows the write time to about 10mb/sec on many cards.
The 5D MK III offers a low level format option for your SD cards (not needed with CF cards) which completely erases the card, and allows 3 or even 4 times faster record speeds. This is a workaround, and Canon was obviously aware of the issue with slower cards.
This is why some have no issue and others run into problems. I'd get the 95mb/sec card, it can erase blocks fast enough to allow recording over existing files.

 

[cayenne]

My primary cards to shoot on, both for still and video is the SanDisk EXTREME COMPACT FLASH CARD(60MB/s)32GB.

I've had no problems with this....video on full HD is great.

I think of my SD card slot mostly as a failover as that it takes over when slot 1 is full.

I used SanDisk 32GB 45MB/s cards there. It works pretty well, but I have had a time or two when my camera would 'glitch' when these were being used for video and I had to stop/start the camera.

Usually as soon as I can see the CF card is full, I stop when I can, and swap in another one.

But for me, these work great for video or stills.

cayenne

 

[jondave]

The 5D3's SD interface is handicapped, testing shows the fastest you can get from it is ~ 19mb/sec, and that's with the fastest UHS-I class 10 cards. Slower cards will get you less than that. This is because the 5D3 Is not compatible with the latest write protocols, unlike its CF interface.

 

[bluegreenturtle]

So I got my camera and it seems to work fine with generic class 10 SD cards in all modes. I have 4 CF cards already but I'm reluctant to buy more as I suspect any future cameras I buy won't be using CF (I'm a video person). I haven't tested extended recording times though, and that would be my concern - I shoot hours of interviews and losing part of the footage would be very bad.

 

[Maze]

I have a couple 64GB Sandisk Ultra 30mbps cards and a 16gb Sandisk Extreme 45mbps card, both cards cannot handle 1080p All-I or IPB. I have to knock it down to 720p if I want to record long videos on the SD cards. I can record up to 5 minutes tops before it automatically stops recording on those SD cards.

I have had quite the opposite experience. I have quite a few Sandisk Ultra and Extreme 8gb cards and they work flawlessly shooting 1080p at 24p, 30p, 50p, and 60p with IPB. As a matter of fact, I did three quick time lapse videos the other day and had my mkiii record at 1080p 24p with IPB for 27 minutes each onto different Sandisk Extreme 8gb 30mb/s cards, and not once did it give me a problem.

Hi DanThePhotoMan, i'm prety sure you haven't try with the 64gb version. Eventhough the same speed, but different size. Analogy: speed is the speed of vehicle and the Gb is the address of houses to go. Going to all 8 houses ( 8gb) is faster than going to all 64 houses (64gb) even the vehicle goes at the same 90 mph speed!

 

[gbenjamin]

it works fine u just need a 45mbs card

 

[tpatana]

I have a couple 64GB Sandisk Ultra 30mbps cards and a 16gb Sandisk Extreme 45mbps card, both cards cannot handle 1080p All-I or IPB. I have to knock it down to 720p if I want to record long videos on the SD cards. I can record up to 5 minutes tops before it automatically stops recording on those SD cards.

I have had quite the opposite experience. I have quite a few Sandisk Ultra and Extreme 8gb cards and they work flawlessly shooting 1080p at 24p, 30p, 50p, and 60p with IPB. As a matter of fact, I did three quick time lapse videos the other day and had my mkiii record at 1080p 24p with IPB for 27 minutes each onto different Sandisk Extreme 8gb 30mb/s cards, and not once did it give me a problem.

Interesting. I don't know what's the bitrate on 5D3 codec, but my Panasonic camcorder which records 1080p60, requires Class 4 SD cards (or better), which means 4MB/s is good enough.

 

[cocopop05]

I have a 16GB Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s SD card which I have never had any issues with recording video to on my 5D Mark III. I also have a 16GB Lexar 1000x CF card that just for the sake of paranoia I use now when recording video.

Regarding All-I vs IPB, this passage comes from Canon themselves:

However, if you are in need of the highest quality video and file size is not an issue, use ALL-I compression. The main benefits to ALL-I include less computer processing power which results in smoother playback and easier, faster editing.

I got this from the following link:
http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/ipp_ipb_all_i_compare.htmlp

 

[cocopop05]

The 5D3's SD interface is handicapped, testing shows the fastest you can get from it is ~ 19mb/sec, and that's with the fastest UHS-I class 10 cards. Slower cards will get you less than that. This is because the 5D3 Is not compatible with the latest write protocols, unlike its CF interface.

+1

I have a Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s SD card but the 5D Mark III handicaps it to a theoretical maximum of just 20MB/s. While obscene that in this day and age Canon can release a new camera with a slow SD slot, nonetheless I have had no issues recording 1080p 30fps or even 720p 60fps to the card, in All-I and IPB.

I bought the faster card for faster transfer speeds to my workstation, which is older than the 5D Mark III but for some reason HP decided not to handicap the speeds the way Canon decided to do

I also have a Lexar 1000x CF card and I have noticed no difference with it and with the SD card for video recording.

There is a huge difference though when shooting still in burst. I get 20-23 photos with AF on and IS before the buffer is full. I get 12-13 on the SD card. And the SD card takes a lot longer to clear the buffer once full. The Lexar clears the buffer within seconds.

 

[Axilrod]

I wouldn't bother with ALL-I, there is no difference in image quality and the file sizes are ridiculously huge. Yes they play back faster in an editor, but the H.264 IPB files play back just fine in FCPX or Premiere with no transcoding.