5DIII dual cards

[mikejkay]

Being paranoid about about backup one of the advantages, to me, of the 5DIII is the ability to record two images -I save RAW to CF and JPEG to SD. I am just back from a long trip to the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. During this trip I bracketed my shots. At various times during the day I chose the shot which had what appeared to be the best exposure and deleted the others. It took me a while to realise that I was only deleting the redundant images on one of the cards. I now have to laboriously trawl through about 10,000 images deleting two thirds.

Does anybody know whether it is possible to set up the camera to delete the same image from both cards at the same time?

 

[3kramd5]

I don't believe so. You delete from whichever card you have selected for playback.

As an aside, if you are using dual cards for backup, shouldn't you have both record the same format? JPEG isn't really a backup to RAW, it's a compromised replacement. That way, you could delete whatever you want in the field, and never have to even remove the backup card from the camera as long as you don't have a failure with the primary (or accidentally delete the wrong image).

 

[dgatwood]

People use JPEG on SD on the 5D Mark III because the SD card is crippled (no 1.8V signaling), and thus can't do UHS-I speeds. It makes a less than ideal backup, but the alternative is massively reduced shooting speeds.

From this point onwards, any new cameras should be doing UHS-II, which requires about four times as many signal lines, IIRC (two channels of differential signaling instead of one channel of non-differential signaling). AFAIK, no DSLR manufacturer has adopted that standard yet, though (unless that has changed very recently).

 

[mikejkay]

3kramd5 - I shoot JPEG with the various adjustments and RAW in the hope that I've got something to work with if I cock up. Also, as you are probably aware, the SD card slot is crippled and it's faster to save JPEGs to SD.

 

[3kramd5]

3kramd5 - I shoot JPEG with the various adjustments and RAW in the hope that I've got something to work with if I cock up. Also, as you are probably aware, the SD card slot is crippled and it's faster to save JPEGs to SD.

Yah, I know. It's not crippled, it just pre-dated faster SD. I personally haven't run into buffer issues (I shoot RAW to both cards), but I don't burst often, so perhaps that's why.

Personally, I do a lot of things out of ease, so with that in mind:

Once you're out of the field, if you haven't have a failure in the CF card, do you keep the JPEGs?

If so... why?

If not, then just keep them on the SD card as you delete from CF. They're small enough relative to RAW that you aren't likely to fill a card with them with the balance of space freed by deleting RAWs, right? How big is the best quality JPEG relative to RAW? Let's assume they are 66% as big. Suppose you can fit 99 JPEGs or 66 RAWs. You'd have to delete and re-shoot literally 1/2 of your RAW files (that is, shoot 66, delete 33, and shoot 33 more) before filling the card with JPEGs. And even if you would fill a card, just get an extra SD; it's cheap, and then you never have to think about synchronizing your deletions. Just replace the SD when it gets close to capacity so you don't fill it at an inopportune moment

It is a little weird that canon basically handcuffs us when it comes to accessing files on the secondary card. Sure, you can change the playback setting, but that's a PITA. But while weird, it's never been problematic to me.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Does anybody know whether it is possible to set up the camera to delete the same image from both cards at the same time?

No, its not possible. That makes it harder to accidentally delete your photos, you have to work at it.

I save jpegs to SD and RAW to CF. Since both are 64GB, I seldom have to erase the SD card because jpeg files are much smaller.

 

[mackguyver]

FYI, if you put both RAW & JPEG files in a single directory and sort your files by date, it should make identifying the JPEGs you need to delete easier. Some apps like DPP & Zoombrowser, I think, allow you to view RAW+JPG as a single file, which may be a way to identify which files are just JPEGs. I would move them to another folder before deleting, just to be sure, though.

 

[markko]

3kramd5 - I shoot JPEG with the various adjustments and RAW in the hope that I've got something to work with if I cock up. Also, as you are probably aware, the SD card slot is crippled and it's faster to save JPEGs to SD.

I used to have the same thought, but you might want to test if "it" is really true. With "it" I mean: is the JPEG-conversion plus writing to SD card really faster than writing a larger RAW file away to the SD card?

I did this test a long time ago, but I think writing RAW files to the SD card was faster, because the camera doesn't need to convert to JPEG.

However, I still use the SD card as the place to store the JPEGs and the CF for the RAWs. Not only for backup reasons, but also to have the JPEGs immediately available for easy sharing to others and I also really like the quality of the in-camera processing.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[mikejkay]

mackguyver - I've got 15 years worth of files. all with the RAW versions in a subdirectory. With file sizes so big now I'm having trouble finding space. The 2x1TB drives in my laptop are 90% full. I'm just waiting for a drive to fail. At least my data directories are backed up to a 3TB NAS drive.

 

[mikejkay]

markko - yes, that's another reason why I save both RAW and JPEG. RAW files often look a bit insipid without any processing and it's usefull to have something with a bit more punch to show people if they ask.

 

[dgatwood]

Yah, I know. It's not crippled, it just pre-dated faster SD.

Not even close.

• March 2010: UHS-I spec released.
• September 2010: First UHS-I flash cards shipped.
• March 2012: Canon 5D Mark III shipped

UHS-I had been final for two years when the 5D Mark III shipped, and UHS-I cards had been available on the market for a year and a half before the 5D Mark III shipped.

Not supporting UHS-II is justifiable, as the cards didn't hit the market until April of this year. But not supporting UHS-I? That's corner cutting at its finest.

 

[3kramd5]

Yah, I know. It's not crippled, it just pre-dated faster SD.

Not even close.

• March 2010: UHS-I spec released.
• September 2010: First UHS-I flash cards shipped.
• March 2012: Canon 5D Mark III shipped

UHS-I had been final for two years when the 5D Mark III shipped, and UHS-I cards had been available on the market for a year and a half before the 5D Mark III shipped.

Not supporting UHS-II is justifiable, as the cards didn't hit the market until April of this year. But not supporting UHS-I? That's corner cutting at its finest.

I am presuming the associated circuitry was finalised in advance of UHS because I don't see how intentionally leaving it off would benefit them. I could obviously be wrong, but I can not come up with a scenario where the program manager made a decision to go with a slow secondary slot when a better option was viable and cost effective. I understand the notion of crippling, but that seems like a silly way to do it. The second card is nice but not strictly necessary. If you want the fastest performance, pull the SD. The 5D3 demographic isn't going to buy a 1dx due to a slow secondary slot, nor is 1dx demographic going to buy a 5d3 instead had it a faster secondary slot. Ergo I have to assume a more practical reason, such as timing.

 

[dgatwood]

I am presuming the associated circuitry was finalised in advance of UHS because I don't see how intentionally leaving it off would benefit them. I could obviously be wrong, but I can not come up with a scenario where the program manager made a decision to go with a slow secondary slot when a better option was viable and cost effective. I understand the notion of crippling, but that seems like a silly way to do it. The second card is nice but not strictly necessary. If you want the fastest performance, pull the SD. The 5D3 demographic isn't going to buy a 1dx due to a slow secondary slot, nor is 1dx demographic going to buy a 5d3 instead had it a faster secondary slot. Ergo I have to assume a more practical reason, such as timing.

I would assume that the circuitry was copied straight out of the 5D Mark II, and that they just didn't bother to update it for the 5D Mark III because they figured nobody would bother to use the SD card anyway.

 

[tapanit]

FYI, if you put both RAW & JPEG files in a single directory and sort your files by date, it should make identifying the JPEGs you need to delete easier. Some apps like DPP & Zoombrowser, I think, allow you to view RAW+JPG as a single file, which may be a way to identify which files are just JPEGs.

Or if you are at all comfortable with the command line, it pretty trivial to copy just the JPEGs that have matching RAW in another directory. Something like this should work with Linux and MacOS (and other Unix-related systems), assuming JPEGs are in subdirectory called "jpegs":

for i in *.cr2; do mv jpegs/${i%.cr2}.jpg .;done

(It's been too long since I've used Windows to know offhand how to do it there, but I'm sure it could be done.)

 

[msatter]

The SD slot is hooked up to the internal USB so no real writing/reading speed implemented by Canon.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

Once you're out of the field, if you haven't have a failure in the CF card, do you keep the JPEGs?

If so... why?

That's a real good question.

 

[jabbott]

I am presuming the associated circuitry was finalised in advance of UHS because I don't see how intentionally leaving it off would benefit them. I could obviously be wrong, but I can not come up with a scenario where the program manager made a decision to go with a slow secondary slot when a better option was viable and cost effective. I understand the notion of crippling, but that seems like a silly way to do it. The second card is nice but not strictly necessary. If you want the fastest performance, pull the SD. The 5D3 demographic isn't going to buy a 1dx due to a slow secondary slot, nor is 1dx demographic going to buy a 5d3 instead had it a faster secondary slot. Ergo I have to assume a more practical reason, such as timing.

I've worked projects before that tried to implement SD card support (from scratch) and the amount and quality of documentation are bizarre at best... the official SD spec is 500+ pages of information, and yet there are various exceptions and trickery that one must play to get different cards to work. SD != SDHC != SDXC. My guess is Canon had to weigh the risk of it not working right (and potentially jeopardizing the reliability of non-UHS 1 cards).

In other news, my SanDisk Extreme 128GB SD card just fell apart by itself after copying photos from a European vacation to my computer. Three of the four edges delaminated and the write protection tab fell out! Initially SanDisk rejected my RMA request because the pictures of the card showed "physical damage" which they don't cover. After I insisted that the damage was the result of the card delaminating without mishandling it, they decided to honor their warranty and are swapping out the card. For those of you with the 5D3, definitely record your photos to both CF and SD!

 

[3kramd5]

I am presuming the associated circuitry was finalised in advance of UHS because I don't see how intentionally leaving it off would benefit them. I could obviously be wrong, but I can not come up with a scenario where the program manager made a decision to go with a slow secondary slot when a better option was viable and cost effective. I understand the notion of crippling, but that seems like a silly way to do it. The second card is nice but not strictly necessary. If you want the fastest performance, pull the SD. The 5D3 demographic isn't going to buy a 1dx due to a slow secondary slot, nor is 1dx demographic going to buy a 5d3 instead had it a faster secondary slot. Ergo I have to assume a more practical reason, such as timing.

I would assume that the circuitry was copied straight out of the 5D Mark II, and that they just didn't bother to update it for the 5D Mark III because they figured nobody would bother to use the SD card anyway.

erm, but the 5D2 uses CF only
The SD + CF combo is new to the 5D3, right? Or have they used it in other cameras (and if so: there's the practical reason)?

In other news, my SanDisk Extreme 128GB SD card just fell apart by itself after copying photos from a European vacation to my computer. Three of the four edges delaminated and the write protection tab fell out! Initially SanDisk rejected my RMA request because the pictures of the card showed "physical damage" which they don't cover. After I insisted that the damage was the result of the card delaminating without mishandling it, they decided to honor their warranty and are swapping out the card. For those of you with the 5D3, definitely record your photos to both CF and SD!

Yah, I hate how flimsy SD is. Even putting it into a card reader I'm always afraid of breaking it

The SD in my 5D3 only comes out if it absolutely has to (i.e. I need something off the camera, but I have neither a CF reader nor a USB cable handy).

 

[RustyTheGeek]

mackguyver - I've got 15 years worth of files. all with the RAW versions in a subdirectory. With file sizes so big now I'm having trouble finding space. The 2x1TB drives in my laptop are 90% full. I'm just waiting for a drive to fail. At least my data directories are backed up to a 3TB NAS drive.

15 years of files in 1TB? ???
Gee, I have 5 years worth of files that are using 4+ TB (and I'm on my third 2TB volume now). And I've done some serious cleaning a couple of times!

 

[dgatwood]

The SD slot is hooked up to the internal USB so no real writing/reading speed implemented by Canon.

If so, then Canon still chose what USB SD reader chipset to use, which defines the speed of the reader. And if it really is a USB-based reader, then there's absolutely zero excuse for Canon doing what they did, because upgrading to UHS-I would be as simple as swapping in a different chip, with little or no wiring or design changes on Canon's part....

I would assume that the circuitry was copied straight out of the 5D Mark II, and that they just didn't bother to update it for the 5D Mark III because they figured nobody would bother to use the SD card anyway.

erm, but the 5D2 uses CF only
The SD + CF combo is new to the 5D3, right? Or have they used it in other cameras (and if so: there's the practical reason)?

In that case, the only plausible explanation is that they deliberately crippled the SD card slot so that the 1DX with its dual CF slots would look more valuable by comparison. Which is just sad.