SD card refresher for 5D3

[ahsanford]

Gang,

I shoot a 5D3 exclusively with SD for convenience sake. My home Mac and work comp both have an SD reader onboard, and when I'm traveling around/with family they tend to have the same thing going on.

I'm not a big Black Friday type, but there are some deals I'm seeing on SD cards and I think I'll get it on one as one of my cards' outer shells is cracked and may die before too long.

Just curious, so I don't accidentally get some ancient SD technology that will limit my 5D3 functionality or future overkill SD technology that my 5D3 can't use to the fullest, please remind of what I should / shouldn't be looking for an SD card.

If it helps:

• I'm not a pro and I don't need some bombproof thing made out of unobtanium.
  
  
• I have shot video on on my 5D3 all of three times in five years. I don't really care if I need to go to a less demanding video spec because the card can't cut the 1080P recording.
  
  
• I do, however, dabble with 6 fps burst shooting. It's not often, but when I need it, I'd like it to be there. I don't need a huge buffer where I'm leaning on the shutter button for 4-5 seconds, but I'd like the full 6 fps. (I seem to recall reading at TDP that 6 fps is card independent and the speed of the card drives buffer fill timing instead, is that accurate?)

Given all that, what SD specs are ideal for a 5D3 again?

Thx.

- A

 

[LDS]

Just curious, so I don't accidentally get some ancient SD technology that will limit my 5D3 functionality or future overkill SD technology that my 5D3 can't use to the fullest, please remind of what I should / shouldn't be looking for an SD card.

It's the 5D3 to use some ancient technology, since it doesn't support UHS. AFAIK a "Class 10" speed is the best it can support.
IIRC it's also OK for HD recording.

Still, because UHS cards are backward compatible, even if you don't take advantage of them while shooting, you could still take advantage of them when culling/downloading images, if your reader support them, and you have many images on them.

 

[slclick]

I've been using the Lexar Pro 1000x , fast, always a deal available and solid construction (for an SD cards that is)

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Choose SD-HC (or SD-XC) with UHS-I U3. The 5D Mark III will not benefit from UHS-II.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Its a waste of money to buy a fast SD card for a 5D MK III. The camera limits the write speed, you cannot make it faster than a standard class 10 card.

The UHS card speeds are somewhat of a gimmick in any event, the rated speeds are for new empty cards. once you write to them, they slow down to the same speeds as non UHS cards, about 10 Mbps.

I write RAW to my CF card and jpeg to the SD card. The smaller jpeg files write faster, so it helps to balance things out.

The 5D MK IV will use UHS speeds, but the issue with cards that have already been used is still there. A low level format is needed to erase the card and bring speeds back up.

 

[unfocused]

As an aside, you might want to try a compact flash card for a change. As I recall when I had the 5DIII there was a pretty significant difference between the two cards. Not so much with the 7D II.

 

[ahsanford]

As an aside, you might want to try a compact flash card for a change. As I recall when I had the 5DIII there was a pretty significant difference between the two cards. Not so much with the 7D II.

Non-starter for me as it requires a separate card reader (I hate clutter), I already own an SD dongle for my iDevices, and SD is simply more common in family households, on their laptops, etc. It's just easier for me.

But I do appreciate the advice. I fully understand I'm using the second best card option on my 5D3.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

Can someone give me the sales pitch on an overkill card that might write slowly but could scream when downloading to my current / future PC? Worth the extra investment?

- A

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

In order to get super fast download speeds, you need a super fast card reader, at least USB 3. Then a new computer, ect ect.


I usually get one of these, 95 Mbps UHS3. Plenty fast, and pretty much the best buy, even if they are gross overkill. They top the speed tests for the 5D MK IV SD cards as long as they are new anyway.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-UHS-I-Memory-SDSDXXG-064G-GN4IN/dp/B01J5RHD58/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1511573933&sr=1-3&keywords=sd+card&refinements=p_n_feature_two_browse-bin%3A6518305011


Speed Test Web Site
https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/canon-5d-mark-iv/sd-cf-card-speed-test/

 

[bhf3737]

Can someone give me the sales pitch on an overkill card that might write slowly but could scream when downloading to my current / future PC? Worth the extra investment?

- A

Usually, SD cards have faster read and slower write.
Older cards have their Speed Class (e.g. class 10) or Speed Rating (e.g. U3) standardized which is for the read rate, like U3 that means 30MB/s (mega-byte per second) read rate.
Sandisk Pro 95 MBps has the best price-performance right now. I've several Lexar 1000x and Sandisk Pro cards. Sandisk read and write rates are somehow close (read 90, write 80 MB/s) but Lexar has read of around 80 and write of 30 MB/s (tested using SpeedOut ver. 0.5).
The newer SD cards are rated for sustained write, i.e. V30 means sustained write 30MB/sec. Current burstXmegapixels data rate in DSLR/MILCs is much less than that and that is why we can get away with the UHS-I drives most of the time. Even those who shoot 4K, need typical 150Mb/s (less than 20 MB/s) that is still manageable by the above mentioned Sandisk Pro and Lexar cards.
For future proofing, we should buy cards that have sustainable write speed for both megapixels and bursts. Therefore, I usually look for a compromise between price and V-rating. From reliability perspective I definitely prefer Sandisk.

 

[Zeidora]

As an aside, you might want to try a compact flash card for a change. As I recall when I had the 5DIII there was a pretty significant difference between the two cards. Not so much with the 7D II.

Non-starter for me as it requires a separate card reader (I hate clutter), I already own an SD dongle for my iDevices, and SD is simply more common in family households, on their laptops, etc. It's just easier for me.

But I do appreciate the advice. I fully understand I'm using the second best card option on my 5D3.

- A

You can use your camera as a card reader. Just plug in the the USB cable in camera and computer, and that's it. Works like a charm for me on a 5DsR.

 

[LDS]

You can use your camera as a card reader. Just plug in the the USB cable in camera and computer, and that's it. Works like a charm for me on a 5DsR.

If your camera is just USB2, previewing, selecting, downloading a lot of images will be far slower. Many internal readers are faster, and USB3 ones can be quite compact today, even for CF cards.