The beauty of CF cards.

[Ozarker]

I've been learning a little more each day. Yesterday the skies opened up and the angels began to sing.

I've been disappointed in the buffer on the 5D3 as it seemed very shallow and slow to write files to the cards.

I don't make money from my hobby. So I thought I would see the difference it makes to remove the SD card and shoot with just the CF card.

The results? WOW!!!! I can hold the shutter button down for what seems like an eternity. In fact, I never hit a point that required me to stop shooting and wait for the camera to catch up. That was shooting in the largest RAW file size the camera makes! I never hit the red light that tells one to wait on the camera to finish writing.

It didn't speed up the framerate, of course, but it did instill a huge amount of confidence in the camera as my primary for shooting sports and birds.

This is a great discovery for me personally. Now I see why the 1DX Mark II has that CFast slot.

The next iterations of the 7D (Mark II) and the 70D (Mark II) would really benefit from at least a CF card or better yet... CFAST

 

[Loswr]

There are faster SD cards...but your 5DIII can't use the extra speed. My 1D X does fine at 12 fps writing RAW to both CF.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi CanonFanBoy.
I'm really quite surprised that you haven't picked up on that before, it has been mentioned here quite frequently, including the debate on whether it does or does not make a difference. I think a part of the problem is what class of SD card you are using and whether it has had a low level format recently.
As for the 7D, the original had a CF and the 7D II has CF and SD, I doubt canon will go back to CF on the XXD range, up to the 50D they had CF, 60D has SD ??? :'( unless of course it is like AFMA which wasn't (40D) was (50D) wasn't (60D) is 70D! ;D

Cheers, Graham.

 

[Ozarker]

Hi CanonFanBoy.
I'm really quite surprised that you haven't picked up on that before, it has been mentioned here quite frequently, including the debate on whether it does or does not make a difference. I think a part of the problem is what class of SD card you are using and whether it has had a low level format recently.
As for the 7D, the original had a CF and the 7D II has CF and SD, I doubt canon will go back to CF on the XXD range, up to the 50D they had CF, 60D has SD ??? :'( unless of course it is like AFMA which wasn't (40D) was (50D) wasn't (60D) is 70D! ;D

Cheers, Graham.

Don't be too surprised at my slow absorption of the knowledge found here on the forum. I've had some cognitive problems of late related to blood clots.

This new revelation (for me) has me thinking about selling my 70D and 400 f/5.6L to switch to the 7D Mark II.

However, a !DX Mark II is 3 years down the road for me.

For those who doubt it makes a difference, I most certainly does. My SD Card is the SanDisk Extreme Pro and class 10. I'll only be shooting with the CF card from now on. Amazing.

 

[Ryan708]

Out of curiosity, Had you done a "Low Level" format to the SD card prior? My cameras only have the SD card option, but I am curious if I should upgrade to a newer SDXC card with 95+ Mb/Sec write speed...

 

[Deleted member 91053]

Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe the problem with the 5D3 and SD cards is SD card slot in the camera. From what I read it is of an older slower format so it cannot take advantage of the faster cards currently available. I don't have a 5D3, but in my 7D2 the SD card (Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 MB/s) gives up only a little to my CF card (Lexar 1000X) so I can only assume there is a newer/better SD card slot in the 7D2.
Pity they didn't fit it in the 5D3!

 

[pwp]

Canonfanboy you could consider only pulling out the SD in situations where you really need the deeper buffer. I'd always been CF only but a recent Lexar x1066 CF failure (with possible loss of a client) made me switch to SD/CF.

It's annoying in the extreme that Canon has put mixed card slots in EOS bodies, including the just released 1DX II. The one and only twin CF was the 1DX.

-pw

 

[dolina]

When you want to improve your CF slot's buffer then buy yourself a Sandisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s card or a Lexar 1066x card that are either 32GB-64GB or larger. It will outperform any SD card.

I think the inclusion of SD cards has to do with sheer popularity of the, slow, standard.

On BH there are less than 81 SDXC, 93 SDHC, 2 SD, 40 micro SDXC, and 57 micro SDHC SKUs on sale.

CF cards by comparison only have less than 71 SKUs.

The UHS-II standard of SD cards is supposed to allow for transfers of up 2,080x that would surpass the spec limit of 1,113x of UDMA 7 CF cards. By comparison CFast and XQD are limited to 4,000x and 6,666x respectively.

Sadly only a handful of cameras support it and none of them are Canon.

Another way to look at it is that there are less than 15 SLR bodies that use CF cards, less than 41 SLR bodies that uses SD.

Mirrorless has less than 60 bodies with SD and less than 3 bodies that uses micro SD.

I expect Canon, Nikon and Sigma abandoning CF cards by as late as 2020 in favor of CFast or XQD cards. Hopefully by then all camera brands will standardize their SD slots to UHS-II.

I really wished that the successor to CF cards was only one rather than two standards namely CFast or XQD. With the current decline of dedicated still cameras does not help in maximizing economies of scale that would result in cheaper cards, slots and readers.

 

[tcmatthews]

The sad thing is it did not have to be that way. The faster SD write standard had been out for a while before Canon released the Canon 5D III. The cards were rare but they existed. It was my main complaint beside the cost. My Sony A7II does take advantage of the faster SD cards. And the difference was noticeable compared the 6D I sold.

The 5Ds/5Dsr and 7DII do not have this issue.

 

[dolina]

The sad thing is it did not have to be that way. The faster SD write standard had been out for a while before Canon released the Canon 5D III. The cards were rare but they existed. It was my main complaint beside the cost. My Sony A7II does take advantage of the faster SD cards. And the difference was noticeable compared the 6D I sold.

The 5Ds/5Dsr and 7DII do not have this issue.

All the bodies mentioned do not support UHS-II at 2,080x. They are limited to UHS-I at 693x, at best.

 

[tcmatthews]

The sad thing is it did not have to be that way. The faster SD write standard had been out for a while before Canon released the Canon 5D III. The cards were rare but they existed. It was my main complaint beside the cost. My Sony A7II does take advantage of the faster SD cards. And the difference was noticeable compared the 6D I sold.

The 5Ds/5Dsr and 7DII do not have this issue.

All the bodies mentioned do not support UHS-II at 2,080x. They are limited to UHS-I at 693x, at best.

I know but the 5D III can not even reach full UHS-I.

 

[dolina]

I know but the 5D III can not even reach full UHS-I.

To think UHS-I was spec'd in 2009.

Let us hope that the 5D Mark IV will be CFast + UHS-II SD.

 

[SeppOz]

Rob Galbraith measured the speeds see ....
http://www.robgalbraith.com/camera_wb_multi_page7de5.html?cid=6007-12452
SD card speeds are limited to about 20MB/s

 

[[email protected]]

I believe there was a firmware update for the 5d3 that prevented the SD card slot from slowing down the CF card when an SD card was in the camera. I did not experience this myself. I bought a 5D3 only last year, and it came functioning in this correct way. But I read that early copies of the camera had both slots limited to the slowest card, even when the camera was not set to copy files to both slots. If true, perhaps the original poster had an old copy and could benefit from upgrading the firmware. He didn't mention what mode he was shooting in when he experienced the slowness.

 

[Busted Knuckles]

I do raw to CF and jpg to the SD - buffer is plenty deep for my needs. SD slot is slower. Not sure what the write speed on the Extreme Pro is - class 10 is really not all that fast if that is what the write speed is limited to (HD H264 speeds)

 

[dolina]

Rob Galbraith measured the speeds see ....
http://www.robgalbraith.com/camera_wb_multi_page7de5.html?cid=6007-12452
SD card speeds are limited to about 20MB/s

Data transfer speeds before UHS-I was limited to less than 25MB/s.

 

[drmikeinpdx]

I stopped using the SD card shortly after I got my 5D3 due to the slowing problem. It would be nice to use it as a backup to the CF card. Perhaps I should try that again and see if one of the software updates fixed the problem.

Fortunately, I have had no problems using Lexar 1066 CF cards. No data loss, no slowing. I've never had to replace one. Life is good.

 

[Pookie]

The only time I ever use the SD slot is for Eye-fi small image transfer to an iPad or laptop for pseudo-tethered shooting with clients. I have a few corporate clients that request files immediately afterwards and I will ask for SD card from them if this is required. Other than those situs it is never used.

 

[pwp]

Let us hope that the 5D Mark IV will be CFast + UHS-II SD.

I hope not. No more mixed card set ups. They're a darn nuicence. Nikon solved this nicely with their latest release offering either twin CF or twin XQD (is that what they're called?) cards. For a fee your choice is reversible at a later date. Thoughtful and clever. Historically mixed card set ups will be seen as a transitionary unfortunate blip.

-pw

 

[J.R.]

Let us hope that the 5D Mark IV will be CFast + UHS-II SD.

I hope not. No more mixed card set ups. They're a darn nuicence. Nikon solved this nicely with their latest release offering either twin CF or twin XQD (is that what they're called?) cards. For a fee your choice is reversible at a later date. Thoughtful and clever. Historically mixed card set ups will be seen as a transitionary unfortunate blip.

-pw

I couldn't agree more. Mixed card set-ups don't work for me either.

The only reason I've used SD cards in my cameras is that they offer the benefit of quick transfer of images to a computer - especially when shooting for friends and family who demand the photos then and there. Other times when I'm traveling with minimal gear and the CF card reader is just another thing I want to avoid carrying.