15s to write 440 images in cRAW and 154 in full RAW is pretty good too - as it took over a minute to write 60-75 shots when I tested my Transcend card!
What is "green icon" H+?
With your Lexar SD card in EFCS at H+ 12FPS are you getting anywhere my Delkin SD card numbers?
I have two versions of the Lexar V90 card (Micron and Longsys) so I'll test that card later today to see how it compares to my Sony and Delkin V90 SD cards. The Sony and Delkin usually test faster than the Lexar in the more modern cameras. Also my older Micron Lexar card is faster than the new Longsys.
Good point that the problem could be my R5 and not the CFExpress card. Will test my Delkin card when I get it, along with my Lexar V90 SD card.
arbitrage wrote:
I'm concerned that if two Transcend cards have had the problem that it may be a camera issue? I guess we shall see how your Delkin performs. I would think it should do as good or better than my Transcend if it isn't a camera issue. Of course it still could be some odd setting but I can't imagine what would drop writing so slow??
bobbytan wrote:
Good point that the problem could be my R5 and not the CFExpress card. Will test my Delkin card when I get it, along with my Lexar V90 SD card.
I tested my Lexar V90 card today and it performed as good as my Delkin and Sony.
Got ~325 shots in CRAW at 12FPS EFCS. Again about 15s to clear buffer.
I will run some more tests under a more controlled environment tomorrow. I only shoot cRAW in ES mode for wildlife. Too hard to track in any other mode for me.
I just need to pay attention to the EVF to note when it slows down.
arbitrage wrote:
Were your 100 shots in ES? CRAW? Seems ES is around 100 regardless of card even with a fast SD or a CFexpress in CRAW.
Thang wrote:
I will run some more tests under a more controlled environment tomorrow. I only shoot cRAW in ES mode for wildlife. Too hard to track in any other mode for me.
I just need to pay attention to the EVF to note when it slows down.
I found it to be quite difficult to catch when the FPS stutters in ES. As soon as I saw any slight change to the white flashing rhythm I stopped...but some times it seemed to just do the slightest stutter and then was back to full tilt again. I probably always got a few extra shots in my count because in ES it seems to recover quickly. In MS/EFCS it would come to a dead stop most times.
So I did one more test in ES.
This time I kept holding down the shutter until it totally stopped for a second or two.
There will be one or two slight stutters a second or so before it comes to a grinding halt.
If I measure that way I can get 144 CRAW files onto the CFExpress and 133 CRAW onto the Delkin Power UHS-II SD card.
With full RAW things pretty much just come to a grinding halt with none of the little pre-stutters in the FPS.
Full RAW onto Transcend CFExpress: 58
Full RAW onto Delkin SD: 58
What I've concluded is that if people already own fast SD cards and don't need to use dual-slots then there is really no reason to spend more on CFExpress cards. Unless you really care about download speeds to computer and have the proper ports and reader to take advantage of CFe transfer speeds.
Those numbers are seriously pathetic ... only 58 frames - that's only 3 seconds!
Aren't CFExpress cards supposed to obliterate SD cards in terms of speed?
But I am really surprised that if you shoot in cRAW you can get as much as 400+ frames before it stops. cRAW matters to me as I am not shooting full RAW. Full RAW at 20 fps or even 10 fps is just crazy ... to me. But I would certainly welcome the ability to shoot 12-15 fps in the ES mode ... in cRAW.
arbitrage wrote:
So I did one more test in ES.
This time I kept holding down the shutter until it totally stopped for a second or two.
There will be one or two slight stutters a second or so before it comes to a grinding halt.
If I measure that way I can get 144 CRAW files onto the CFExpress and 133 CRAW onto the Delkin Power UHS-II SD card.
With full RAW things pretty much just come to a grinding halt with none of the little pre-stutters in the FPS.
Full RAW onto Transcend CFExpress: 58
Full RAW onto Delkin SD: 58
What I've concluded is that if people already own fast SD cards and don't need to use dual-slots then there is really no reason to spend more on CFExpress cards. Unless you really care about download speeds to computer and have the proper ports and reader to take advantage of CFe transfer speeds. ...Show more →
bobbytan wrote:
Those numbers are seriously pathetic ... only 58 frames - that's only 3 seconds!
Aren't CFExpress cards supposed to obliterate SD cards in terms of speed?
But I am really surprised that if you shoot in cRAW you can get as much as 400+ frames before it stops. cRAW matters to me as I am not shooting full RAW. Full RAW at 20 fps or even 10 fps is just crazy ... to me. But I would certainly welcome the ability to shoot 12-15 fps in the ES mode ... in cRAW.
Given that the numbers are very close in CRAW and identical in RAW, I'd say it is an internal camera issue with how it writes out the data. It really isn't making use of the extra write speed of the CFe card.
However, if you do the test yourself you will see that it only pauses for a split second and then it gets back to firing in little 20FPS bursts. Lift your finger for a second or two and you can then fire for another couple seconds on full tilt.
Regardless, I've yet to see it stutter in CRAW in ES out in the field as I've never shot 140 odd shots in a row. I only use CRAW so I'm good to go with either card type. I just probably shouldn't have even bothered with getting a CFe card.
bobbytan wrote:
Those numbers are seriously pathetic ... only 58 frames - that's only 3 seconds!
Aren't CFExpress cards supposed to obliterate SD cards in terms of speed?
But I am really surprised that if you shoot in cRAW you can get as much as 400+ frames before it stops. cRAW matters to me as I am not shooting full RAW. Full RAW at 20 fps or even 10 fps is just crazy ... to me. But I would certainly welcome the ability to shoot 12-15 fps in the ES mode ... in cRAW.
My 3 Sony CF express Tough cards blow away all my SD cards. Lexar 2000 SD, ProGrade 300MB/s write SD, and Sony Tough card SD (tests fastest SD at 294MB/s write). I have two sizes CF Express Sony Tough cards 128GB and 256GB. For some reason both 128GB cards are slightly faster than the 256GB which is normally the reverse for other manufacturers.
I have everything off in the camera, no lens correction or CA removal.
I thought about that but you don’t want to be shooting with just 1 card in the camera, so even if your CFExpress card is no better than your V90 SD card, you need a card in that CFE card slot as a backup - just in case you walk out the door with no SD card in your camera!
arbitrage wrote:
I just probably shouldn't have even bothered with getting a CFe card.
arbitrage wrote:
So I did one more test in ES.
This time I kept holding down the shutter until it totally stopped for a second or two.
There will be one or two slight stutters a second or so before it comes to a grinding halt.
If I measure that way I can get 144 CRAW files onto the CFExpress and 133 CRAW onto the Delkin Power UHS-II SD card.
With full RAW things pretty much just come to a grinding halt with none of the little pre-stutters in the FPS.
Full RAW onto Transcend CFExpress: 58
Full RAW onto Delkin SD: 58
What I've concluded is that if people already own fast SD cards and don't need to use dual-slots then there is really no reason to spend more on CFExpress cards. Unless you really care about download speeds to computer and have the proper ports and reader to take advantage of CFe transfer speeds. ...Show more →
I don’t think that really captures the whole story.
I just performed this test using a Sony Tough CFExpress 512 and got 78 full raw files before it slowed down. I performed the same with a Hoodman v90 card and a Prograde CFExpress card, both got 64 and 68 respectively.
More importantly, clearing the buffer completely on the CFExpress card took under 5 seconds where as the SD card both took over 13 seconds.
In High Speed+ MS at 12 fps I got 91 frames on SD card before the buffet was hit. With CFExpress card I got tired of wearing out my shutter and stopped after a 1:28 and had shot over 934 images.
It seems likely to me that while shooting in e-shutter the camera is not prioritizing writing of files to disk.
Jesse Evans wrote:
I don’t think that really captures the whole story.
I just performed this test using a Sony Tough CFExpress 512 and got 78 full raw files before it slowed down. I performed the same with a Hoodman v90 card and a Prograde CFExpress card, both got 64 and 68 respectively.
More importantly, clearing the buffer completely on the CFExpress card took under 5 seconds where as the SD card both took over 13 seconds.
In High Speed+ MS at 12 fps I got 91 frames on SD card before the buffet was hit. With CFExpress card I got tired of wearing out my shutter and stopped after a 1:28 and had shot over 934 images.
It seems likely to me that while shooting in e-shutter the camera is not prioritizing writing of files to disk....Show more →
And just to clarify with the MS 12FPS, when you got to 934 were you in CRAW or RAW? And were you in FF or 1.6x?
934+ is way better than my CFExpress card is getting (440 was best I got, FF, CRAW). In 1.6x mode I can probably shoot forever so just wanted to make sure your numbers were in full frame mode.
Obviously my Transcend card is not top of the heap for CFe cards. Good to know that other ones must give better performance. That 512 Sandisk is certainly one of the top CFe cards. I'd be interested to see how good a 650GB Prograde Cobalt is with this sort of test.
But it is interesting that in ES the card speed doesn't affect the end results as much. Exactly what I found with my cards. As you say, the camera isn't doing much writing while bursting. I know for the scene/ISO I was shooting the R5 was saying 84 shots in CRAW for the internal buffer estimate and 41 shots in RAW.
Also we should always be mindful when trying to compare results from different people that the file size should be noted as it will differ depending on the scene tested and ISO.
For reference my test today was testing with ~24.8MB CRAW and 47.3MB RAW.
I believe my test yesterday was more 19.x MB CRAW...can't recall the RAW size. Another time I had 17.xMB CRAW files
bobbytan wrote:
I thought about that but you don’t want to be shooting with just 1 card in the camera, so even if your CFExpress card is no better than your V90 SD card, you need a card in that CFE card slot as a backup - just in case you walk out the door with no SD card in your camera!
I always just have one card in the camera anyways. If I miss a shot of a floating duck today, I'll go take it again tomorrow
Also I go out with 2-3 cameras so if I did forget to put a card in the camera I'd make due.
But yeah, when I can travel again I'll want to run mirrored RAWs so I'm happy to have my CFEx card for that.
arbitrage wrote:
And just to clarify with the MS 12FPS, when you got to 934 were you in CRAW or RAW? And were you in FF or 1.6x?
934+ is way better than my CFExpress card is getting (440 was best I got, FF, CRAW). In 1.6x mode I can probably shoot forever so just wanted to make sure your numbers were in full frame mode.
This was in full raw, not cRAW, full readout no crop. The file size was 44.1-44.2MB. arbitrage wrote:
Obviously my Transcend card is not top of the heap for CFe cards. Good to know that other ones must give better performance. That 512 Sandisk is certainly one of the top CFe cards. I'd be interested to see how good a 650GB Prograde Cobalt is with this sort of test.
But it is interesting that in ES the card speed doesn't affect the end results as much. Exactly what I found with my cards. As you say, the camera isn't doing much writing while bursting. I know for the scene/ISO I was shooting the R5 was saying 84 shots in CRAW for the internal buffer estimate and 41 shots in RAW.
Also we should always be mindful when trying to compare results from different people that the file size should be noted as it will differ depending on the scene tested and ISO.
For reference my test today was testing with ~24.8MB CRAW and 47.3MB RAW.
I believe my test yesterday was more 19.x MB CRAW...can't recall the RAW size. Another time I had 17.xMB CRAW files ...Show more →
Based on your comments and curiosities I went back and took some notes and performed the tests multiple times again. And I would just say the results are more complicated and more annoying than I suspected.
The test I did earlier was at ISO 640 and the files were about 44.1MB. I also had the shutter speed at 1/80, so the camera was shooting under 12fps (based on the 934/88 seconds it was shooting 10.6fps) so that probably accounts for the ability to shoot continuous.
I retested just now using a couple of different ISOs and higher shutter speeds to ensure I was hitting 12fps the whole time. For ISO 640 the files remained at 44.1-44.2MB but at ISO 6400 (a more common ISO to be shooting high speed bursts near sunrise/sunset) the files for these were 53.8MB.
For the ISO 640 test I achieved a maximum of 367 shots before the buffer was caught, but it also hiccupped once but I did not catch it in time so I just continued till a more noticeable hiccup. It is worth noting that I did this test 4 times in a row and on the 3rd test it only managed 80 shots. This points to the condition of the SLC cache state and thermal state of the CFExpress card playing in to the results pretty significantly.
For the ISO 6400 tests I managed significantly worse: 94, 132, 97, 208 shots in that order of testing.
I had more consistent results with the SD card, hitting between 72 and 74 consistently.
Jesse Evans wrote:
This was in full raw, not cRAW, full readout no crop. The file size was 44.1-44.2MB.
Based on your comments and curiosities I went back and took some notes and performed the tests multiple times again. And I would just say the results are more complicated and more annoying than I suspected.
The test I did earlier was at ISO 640 and the files were about 44.1MB. I also had the shutter speed at 1/80, so the camera was shooting under 12fps (based on the 934/88 seconds it was shooting 10.6fps) so that probably accounts for the ability to shoot continuous.
I retested just now using a couple of different ISOs and higher shutter speeds to ensure I was hitting 12fps the whole time. For ISO 640 the files remained at 44.1-44.2MB but at ISO 6400 (a more common ISO to be shooting high speed bursts near sunrise/sunset) the files for these were 53.8MB.
For the ISO 640 test I achieved a maximum of 367 shots before the buffer was caught, but it also hiccupped once but I did not catch it in time so I just continued till a more noticeable hiccup. It is worth noting that I did this test 4 times in a row and on the 3rd test it only managed 80 shots. This points to the condition of the SLC cache state and thermal state of the CFExpress card playing in to the results pretty significantly.
For the ISO 6400 tests I managed significantly worse: 94, 132, 97, 208 shots in that order of testing.
I had more consistent results with the SD card, hitting between 72 and 74 consistently.
I am so very jealous of how your ducks and shorties avail themselves to you! Although we do get our fair share of water fowls and avian species here in Southern California, it’s nowhere near as good as the wildlife in your neck of the woods. And besides, your air and light quality is significantly better than ours!
arbitrage wrote:
I always just have one card in the camera anyways. If I miss a shot of a floating duck today, I'll go take it again tomorrow
Also I go out with 2-3 cameras so if I did forget to put a card in the camera I'd make due.
But yeah, when I can travel again I'll want to run mirrored RAWs so I'm happy to have my CFEx card for that.
My test came out very similar to your results. Using Prograde Gold card, iso 1000, 1/1250 f4 afc zone on tree trunk I got the following
EFCS - full RAW 63; cRAW 120
ES - full RAW 61; cRAW 104 at the first blink of white light but recovery is extremely fast
arbitrage wrote:
So I did one more test in ES.
This time I kept holding down the shutter until it totally stopped for a second or two.
There will be one or two slight stutters a second or so before it comes to a grinding halt.
If I measure that way I can get 144 CRAW files onto the CFExpress and 133 CRAW onto the Delkin Power UHS-II SD card.
With full RAW things pretty much just come to a grinding halt with none of the little pre-stutters in the FPS.
Full RAW onto Transcend CFExpress: 58
Full RAW onto Delkin SD: 58
What I've concluded is that if people already own fast SD cards and don't need to use dual-slots then there is really no reason to spend more on CFExpress cards. Unless you really care about download speeds to computer and have the proper ports and reader to take advantage of CFe transfer speeds. ...Show more →
"And just to clarify with the MS 12FPS, when you got to 934 were you in CRAW or RAW? And were you in FF or 1.6x?
934+ is way better than my CFExpress card is getting (440 was best I got, FF, CRAW). In 1.6x mode I can probably shoot forever so just wanted to make sure your numbers were in full frame mode."
I shoot in cRAW all of the time and 1.6x crop mode most of the time ... so the ability to "shoot forever" appeals to me. And 440 frames of non-stop shooting in FF cRAW MS-mode H+ is more than I will ever need! Sure hope my Delkin CFE card can get these numbers!
"And just to clarify with the MS 12FPS, when you got to 934 were you in CRAW or RAW? And were you in FF or 1.6x?
934+ is way better than my CFExpress card is getting (440 was best I got, FF, CRAW). In 1.6x mode I can probably shoot forever so just wanted to make sure your numbers were in full frame mode."
I shoot in cRAW all of the time and 1.6x crop mode most of the time ... so the ability to "shoot forever" appeals to me. And 440 frames of non-stop shooting in FF cRAW MS-mode H+ is more than I will ever need! Sure hope my Delkin CFE card can get these numbers!...Show more →
Try testing your Lexar V90 SD card. As I mentioned I was able to get ~325 shots in 12FPS EFCS in CRAW and that was in FF. I haven't tested in 1.6x mode but I'd guess it will be unlimited.
If your Lexar isn't getting close to that sort of number then your camera may have some issue.
-tig
PS: This is for stills mostly, as video throughput wasn't tested yet.
I’m about to buy new cards - both kinds - for my new R5 and have just waded though all 15 (!) pages of this discussion. Thanks to all who’ve contributed, but especially to tiggy whose extensive reviews were especially helpful.
Not a straightforward choice by any means, but for the record I’ve decided on ProGrade Cobalt for both UHS and CFExpress. Not the cheapest, but then the R5 wasn’t either...
