6D accessory question

[sagittariansrock]

Finally got the 6D, thanks to B&H's awesome offer. However, I wish I had gone with Adorama, if only for the appalling service from UPS in my neighborhood (I believe Adorama uses FedEx). So they delivered the printer (which is already sold ;D ) but not the 6D, which was in the truck all that time :

Anyway, with that rant out of the way- I have two questions:
1. How fast a card do I need for the 6D? I am guessing the fps will not be a problem, but if I (ever) shoot video, I don't want it to stutter. On the other hand, I don't want to spend unnecessarily on a higher end card. So can you let me know what cards work without a problem?
2. Will the 5D classic's L bracket work with the 6D? I wouldn't expect so, and wouldn't have asked the question- but someone who owned both had once told this and I wanted to verify before selling the L bracket with my outgoing 5D and spending $$$s on another L bracket.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Marsu42]

1. How fast a card do I need for the 6D? I am guessing the fps will not be a problem, but if I (ever) shoot video, I don't want it to stutter.

You are sure you've got the right camera for the job? The 6d video is not only hindered by moiré, but by a very slow sd card interface which makes it impossible to shoot raw (with Magic Lantern) at any meaningful resolution.

The max. speed the 6d can do is just 40mb/s - just be sure to get a card that has this speed until it's full, see specific card reviews for that as it's changing a lot for various brands and card sizes.

 

[sagittariansrock]

1. How fast a card do I need for the 6D? I am guessing the fps will not be a problem, but if I (ever) shoot video, I don't want it to stutter.

You are sure you've got the right camera for the job? The 6d video is not only hindered by moiré, but by a very slow sd card interface which makes it impossible to shoot raw (with Magic Lantern) at any meaningful resolution.

The max. speed the 6d can do is just 40mb/s - just be sure to get a card that has this speed until it's full, see specific card reviews for that as it's changing a lot for various brands and card sizes.

Hi Marsu, thanks for your response. I don't shoot video much, which is what I implied by "if I (ever)...". As a matter of fact, I never shot any video with my 7D or my current 5DIII- only with my phone and recently with the Eos M. Shooting high quality RAW videos is pretty much out of the question as I don't know the first thing about post-processing videos.

I just wanted to make sure that the card speed isn't a bottle neck. It was interesting to know that the 6D maxes out at 40 Mb/s, as I thought it had the newer (than 5DIII, that is) UHS-I SD slot.

 

[Marsu42]

I just wanted to make sure that the card speed isn't a bottle neck. It was interesting to know that the 6D maxes out at 40 Mb/s, as I thought it had the newer (than 5DIII, that is) UHS-I SD slot.

Gotcha: The sd card standard doesn't have anything to do with the implementation. The 6d can use uhs-1, but it's still crippled to a slow speed by the internal controller. It's like a sd card claiming to support whatever standard, it doesn't mean anything about how fast it actually is.

Btw about the same goes for the 5d3, it has a very slow sd controller, too, so for shooting video it's cf. Afaik the 5d3 even has a bug that writing to the sd in parallel limits the speed of the cf slot.

 

[sagittariansrock]

I just wanted to make sure that the card speed isn't a bottle neck. It was interesting to know that the 6D maxes out at 40 Mb/s, as I thought it had the newer (than 5DIII, that is) UHS-I SD slot.

Gotcha: The sd card standard doesn't have anything to do with the implementation. The 6d can use uhs-1, but it's still crippled to a slow speed by the internal controller. It's like a sd card claiming to support whatever standard, it doesn't mean anything about how fast it actually is.

Btw about the same goes for the 5d3, it has a very slow sd controller, too, so for shooting video it's cf. Afaik the 5d3 even has a bug that writing to the sd in parallel limits the speed of the cf slot.

Wow, Canon must have hired geniuses to put a few completely unnecessary flies in the ointment! :
Yeah, the 5DIII SD slot is pretty sucky. If I want higher fps and a decent buffer, I just write to CF. I cannot understand why neither Canon nor Nikon just goes ahead and puts two CF cards in all cameras like the 1D X... (or why Nikon doesn't put two XQDs, for that matter)

 

[Marsu42]

I cannot understand why neither Canon nor Nikon just goes ahead and puts two CF cards in all cameras like the 1Ds...

There's your answer ... and the 5d3 should probably appeal to upgraders from cheap sd-card cameras, so they can still use their investment.

Personally, I'd like to have a 2x sd slot card camera with an up-to-date standard and write speed, this should be sufficient for what 90%+ of the photos do.

 

[sagittariansrock]

I cannot understand why neither Canon nor Nikon just goes ahead and puts two CF cards in all cameras like the 1Ds...

There's your answer ... and the 5d3 should probably appeal to upgraders from cheap sd-card cameras, so they can still use their investment.

Personally, I'd like to have a 2x sd slot card camera with an up-to-date standard and write speed, this should be sufficient for what 90%+ of the photos do.

I actually updated my post because even 1D cameras didn't get two CF slots and they were the top of the line! And that was when SD slots were far slower than CF, so a 1D IV would be seriously compromised with dual card writing. This is pretty silly, as is Nikon's decision to straddle the fence with one CF and one XQD, meaning you have to carry two adapters and can't use the cards interchangeably. And they do this with their flagship D4S!
I wonder what influences these decisions at Canon/Nikon HQ.
Ah well, I guess that means I am spending less on SD cards...

 

[dgatwood]

I just wanted to make sure that the card speed isn't a bottle neck. It was interesting to know that the 6D maxes out at 40 Mb/s, as I thought it had the newer (than 5DIII, that is) UHS-I SD slot.

It does support UHS-I. Without UHS-I, the maximum speed would be 133x, which is about 20 MB/sec. With UHS-I, the 6D's can push 40 MB/sec. It's way short of what UHS-I should be capable of, which strongly suggests that they are still using USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 for talking to the SD card controller.

 

[Marsu42]

It's way short of what UHS-I should be capable of, which strongly suggests that they are still using USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 for talking to the SD card controller.

You're thinking that they're using usb to talk to the controller? I never thought of this, but as far as trusty Wikipedia is concerned usb2 wouldn't even manage 40mbps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_2.0

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The main reason I purchase faster cards is to upload 30-60GB from my card to my computer using my USB3 card reader as quickly as possible. I don't like having to wait forever for the card to complete the transfer.

If you are doing this frequently, then a faster card will save you time.

 

[e17paul]

Even for still photography I have noticed a significant difference between 30MB/s and 90MB/s cards

 

[sagittariansrock]

Thanks for the SD card related info, all.
Any idea about whether the RRS 5D one works for the 6D as well?

Update about shipping: UPS claims they have delivered the item, while clearly they haven't. Have emailed B&H about this, will have to contact UPS in the morning when they open. Quite a bit worried. It was "signature required", and of course no one could have signed for it...

 

[Marsu42]

Even for still photography I have noticed a significant difference between 30MB/s and 90MB/s cards

That would be because your 30mbps card is slower than the 6d's interface, and it's probably not even 30mbps all the card through. However, an older 45mpbs sandisk extreme will make no difference to a flashy and expensive new 95mbps version.

 

[dgatwood]

It's way short of what UHS-I should be capable of, which strongly suggests that they are still using USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 for talking to the SD card controller.

You're thinking that they're using usb to talk to the controller? I never thought of this, but as far as trusty Wikipedia is concerned usb2 wouldn't even manage 40mbps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_2.0

You must be thinking of USB 1.1 (12 Mbps). The maximum speed of USB 2.0 is theoretically 480 Mbps, but in practice it tends to hit a wall at about 320 Mbps, IIRC, mainly because of USB 2.0's excessive CPU overhead. The reason I think they're probably using USB 2.0 is that 40 MB/sec. works out to 320 Mbps. That's the most likely explanation for a bottleneck at that particular speed.

 

[Nethawk]

The 6D I believe tops out at around 40mb/s. From very informal testing done with various cards laying around the Sandisk Extreme Plus cards have hit upon the write peak of the camera. They were recently on sale everywhere for about $20 for the 32GB version. This would be my recommendation.