5DIII Fastest SD Card

[jmac1]

Reading the interview with Chuck Westfall I want to know what are the fastest SD cards that the 5DIII supports.

I will be getting a couple 16gb Lexar 600x (90mb/s) CF cards for the camera but am wondering what are the fastest SD cards after seeing that "The EOS 5D Mark III supports Class 10 SDXC and SDHC memory cards, but not the UHS standard."

I prefer Sandisk and Lexar cards.

For example at B&H the have a 16GB SDHC Memory Card Professional Class 10 UHS-I. 600x (90mb/s)

Does that mean I am not going to get full speeds from the SD card as it is UHS-I?

What SD card is the fastest that the 5DIII will support?

 

[Old Shooter]

The 5DIII supports CF UDMA 7 cards. To my knowledge, only SanDisk and Lexar offer them. If you want maximum performance, that is the card you should look for...

I like SanDisk cards myself... I had a Lexar Professional card corrupt right in the middle of a shoot and completely lock up my camera... I have been leery of them ever since...

The way I understand UHS-1 cards; if your camera does not support them, you do not get the 90MB/s they are capable of... I believe/am pretty sure they default down to Class 10 speeds; which is 45MB/s for SanDisk...

So, to answer your question based completely on the inference of the interview, a Class 10 SDXC or SDHC...

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The 5DIII supports CF UDMA 7 cards. To my knowledge, only SanDisk and Lexar offer them. If you want maximum performance, that is the card you should look for...

I like SanDisk cards myself... I had a Lexar Professional card corrupt right in the middle of a shoot and completely lock up my camera... I have been leery of them ever since...

The way I understand UHS-1 cards; if your camera does not support them, you do not get the 90MB/s they are capable of... I believe/am pretty sure they default down to Class 10 speeds; which is 45MB/s for SanDisk...

So, to answer your question based completely on the inference of the interview, a Class 10 SDXC or SDHC...

+1

I believe you are correct.

 

[jmac1]

Thanks for the response. Looks like the Sandisk 45mb is the best SD. I have approx 8 Sandisk CF cards. Only one I had fail was in my 10D where it only took about 36 pictures and then I would get and error any any others would be corrupt. Was replaced under warranty.

The lexar 600x and 1000x (UDMA 7) have good reviews. Now just to decide how many 'bursts' I plan on shooting!

Thanks again!

 

[V8Beast]

Any of you tech heads know of the lack of UHS-1 compatibility is a hardware limitation, or something that can possibly be attained with a firmware update?

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Any of you tech heads know of the lack of UHS-1 compatibility is a hardware limitation, or something that can possibly be attained with a firmware update?

I did find this. It is possible that the hardware does not support the 1.8v mode..

Cards that comply with UHS show UHS-I or UHS-II on the label, and report this capability to the host device. Use of UHS requires that the host device command the card to drop from 3.3-volt to 1.8-volt operation and select the 4-bit transfer mode.

 

[Stephen Melvin]

The 5DIII supports CF UDMA 7 cards. To my knowledge, only SanDisk and Lexar offer them. If you want maximum performance, that is the card you should look for...

I like SanDisk cards myself... I had a Lexar Professional card corrupt right in the middle of a shoot and completely lock up my camera... I have been leery of them ever since...

The way I understand UHS-1 cards; if your camera does not support them, you do not get the 90MB/s they are capable of... I believe/am pretty sure they default down to Class 10 speeds; which is 45MB/s for SanDisk...

So, to answer your question based completely on the inference of the interview, a Class 10 SDXC or SDHC...

Yeah, I had a full 32 GB Lexar card fail completely. Can't format it or access it at all. It was about eight weeks old. Sent a complaint to Lexar and never heard back from them. I'm done with this company.

 

[briansquibb]

I wonder if the 5DIII needs the fastest cards? I have 30mb/s cards in the 1D4 and they keep up fine.

So what is the real world need for 95mb/s? will you notice the difference?

If you are machine gunning the 5DIII then perhaps but that is not what the 5DIII is about as it will fill its buffer rather than wait on the card write.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I prefer Sandisk and Lexar cards.

If the pricing is anywhere near equivalent, I'd go with Sandisk. Some years ago I also had a problem with a Lexar card in my 20D. It would record but it couldn't transfer the data to my computer using Photoshop's download. Although the card was "guaranteed for life," I couldn't get a response or a replacement from Lexar. It was probably just some firmware-software compatibility issue, and I'm sure my experience was idiosyncratic and doesn't reflect that of millions of Lexar users, but I've since stuck with Sandisk and have never experienced a single problem with their cards.

 

[WarStreet]

I wonder if the 5DIII needs the fastest cards? I have 30mb/s cards in the 1D4 and they keep up fine.

So what is the real world need for 95mb/s? will you notice the difference?

If you are machine gunning the 5DIII then perhaps but that is not what the 5DIII is about as it will fill its buffer rather than wait on the card write.

Faster card will help take more photos before the buffer gets filled when your are machine gunning the camera, since the buffer is transferring data faster to the card. If I remember well, canon claims that the 5D iii buffer fills up after 13 shots with a normal card, and 18 shots with a fast cf card.

 

[briansquibb]

I wonder if the 5DIII needs the fastest cards? I have 30mb/s cards in the 1D4 and they keep up fine.

So what is the real world need for 95mb/s? will you notice the difference?

If you are machine gunning the 5DIII then perhaps but that is not what the 5DIII is about as it will fill its buffer rather than wait on the card write.

Faster card will help take more photos before the buffer gets filled when your are machine gunning the camera, since the buffer is transferring data faster to the card. If I remember well, canon claims that the 5D iii buffer fills up after 13 shots with a normal card, and 18 shots with a fast cf card.

Yes I know what it does - but when was the last time anyone took more than 13 shots at high speed continuous on a non sports camera?

 

[ereka]

I've never had any problems with Lexar cards (touch wood) but I'm guessing that quality control can never be absolutely 100% and therefore there will be a small number of failures whichever brand of card you use?

 

[WarStreet]

I wonder if the 5DIII needs the fastest cards? I have 30mb/s cards in the 1D4 and they keep up fine.

So what is the real world need for 95mb/s? will you notice the difference?

If you are machine gunning the 5DIII then perhaps but that is not what the 5DIII is about as it will fill its buffer rather than wait on the card write.

Faster card will help take more photos before the buffer gets filled when your are machine gunning the camera, since the buffer is transferring data faster to the card. If I remember well, canon claims that the 5D iii buffer fills up after 13 shots with a normal card, and 18 shots with a fast cf card.

Yes I know what it does - but when was the last time anyone took more than 13 shots at high speed continuous on a non sports camera?

If you are shooting sport requiring continuous shooting, what difference is going to make if the camera is a non sports one ? The only difference is that the poor guy (me) will have more limitations. I shoot sports with a 500D which fills it's buffer after 9 shots. I hit this limitation often, even although I try to economise on the shooting if I believe I will need more shots on the next second. Once the buffer is full, it will take longer to clear it completely with a slower card.

The 5D iii with it's sport af, 6 fps, and better buffer, will be a fantastic improvement for me, but I will need to get the 18 shot buffer limit, to match with the 500D continuous shooting time (3.4 fps with 9 frames buffer limit)

 

[gragusha]

Quote from the EOS 5D Mark III Manual (Page 376):

Card reading/writing speed necessary for movie shooting:

CF Card: IPB: at least 10 MB per sec / ALL-I: at least 30 MB per sec
SD Card: IPB: at least 6 MB per sec / ALL-I: at least 20 MB per sec

Did not find any reference to stills burst shooting.

 

[Old Shooter]

Quote from the EOS 5D Mark III Manual (Page 376):

Card reading/writing speed necessary for movie shooting:

CF Card: IPB: at least 10 MB per sec / ALL-I: at least 30 MB per sec
SD Card: IPB: at least 6 MB per sec / ALL-I: at least 20 MB per sec

Did not find any reference to stills burst shooting.

I found these on the Canon website...

JPEG Large/Fine 65 / 16270

RAW 13 / 18

RAW + JPEG 7 / 7

First numbers are for an unspecified 8GB CF card...

Second numbers are for a UDMA7 - 128GB CF card... Must be a SanDisk because Lexar doesn't have them out yet...

 

[noxious_nasties]

I thought lexar brought out udma 7 before sandisk:

http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-professional-1000x-compactflash-card

 

[ereka]

I thought lexar brought out udma 7 before sandisk:

http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-professional-1000x-compactflash-card

On Amazon at least, these are only available for preorder (last time I looked).

 

[Old Shooter]

I thought lexar brought out udma 7 before sandisk:

http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-professional-1000x-compactflash-card

I should have said SanDisk had the only 128GB UDMA7 card at the time; the largest Lexar 1000x currently available is the 32GB - both the 64GB and 128GB are in pre-order status according to B&H...

 

[briansquibb]

If you are shooting sport requiring continuous shooting, what difference is going to make if the camera is a non sports one ?

The 5DIII is not designed for lengthy high speed shooting. From a 500D a 7D might be a better upgrade.