p.1 #1 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
I looked here and online but did not see the answer so appreciate some guidance as I am receiving the A1 on Tuesday.
Coming from the a7r3, I shoot in simultaneous RAW mode and thus am limited in speed by the UHS-1 card which I use as backup (256gb) vs the 'main' 64gb UHS-2.
I ordered a 160gb CFexpress card and would match it with a 128GB Sandisk UHS-2 in the second slot but now am wondering if, as a stills photographer, I am better served buying two more SD cards instead of the CFexpress.
For the A1, I am wondering the following:
1. Does the CFexpress card offer significant benefit over SD UHS-2 while shooting? (most bursts I do would be shooting high school football/basketball)
2. If a CFexpress is in the slot 1 and UHS-2 card is placed in the slot 2 with simultaneous lossless compressed RAW setting, does the write speed decrease to match the UHS-2 card? (can't find this documented/reviewed anywhere)
3. Do you notice a significant difference in upload speeds with the CFexpress vs UHS-2? Does Lightroom load previews faster given the faster read access? I assume this is where they will differ the most.
Bonus question unrelated to the above but have watched several videos now (Galer and Murphy-Racey) and not sure I have the right answer: What focus tracking mode would you use for high school football? I assume medium spot with tracking and maybe a 3 for the responsiveness?
p.1 #2 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
eyal wrote:
1. Does the CFexpress card offer significant benefit over SD UHS-2 while shooting? (most bursts I do would be shooting high school football/basketball)
If you mix CFE-A with an SD card and write RAW to both, the slower card will dominate the speed and there is no benefit of using the CFE-A. If you only write to CFE-A your burst speed is the same, but unloading the buffer to the card is about 3x as fast. So for occasional bursts below 5s in total it won't matter. Only if you spray and pray in a target rich environment as I sometimes do, CFE-A is your friend.
2. If a CFexpress is in the slot 1 and UHS-2 card is placed in the slot 2 with simultaneous lossless compressed RAW setting, does the write speed decrease to match the UHS-2 card? (can't find this documented/reviewed anywhere)
Yes.
3. Do you notice a significant difference in upload speeds with the CFexpress vs UHS-2? Does Lightroom load previews faster given the faster read access? I assume this is where they will differ the most.
This will depend on your USB connection. I have the ProGrade reader and on my Mac it works full speed only when connected via thunderbolt. Using USB 3.x it is noticeably slower, but still faster than what I tend to get with SD cards.
Bonus question unrelated to the above but have watched several videos now (Galer and Murphy-Racey) and not sure I have the right answer: What focus tracking mode would you use for high school football? I assume medium spot with tracking and maybe a 3 for the responsiveness?
The various tracking modes only differ when initiating tracking, so e.g. which player to track. After that the tracking behaves the same. I like expand flexible spot, but medium will work very similarly. Keep in mind that the camera prefers targets front and center in the AF area. So even with a bigger area you can usually select the right target. Small areas do help when different targets are close to each other and you don't want the one closest to you.
Responsiveness matters when the target is lost. When responsive the camera immediately selects another target. When locked on the camera stops focusing instead, waiting till the target reappears.
p.1 #3 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
If you are going to mirror RAWs then either get dual CFe-A or dual V90 SD. No point mixing unless maybe just sending jpegs to the SD.
Buffer is same depth regardless of card used (about 135 shots in Lossy Compressed RAW) but it will take a bit longer to get slowdown with Cfe-A because it is writing shots out faster as you are bursting. If you hit slowdown then Cfe-A will get you shooting full speed faster.
Downloads to computer with proper ports/cables will be faster with CFexpress-A.
For my use I've found no reason to buy Cfe-A and have continued to use my V90 SD cards (Delkin Power). The A1 writes around 260MB/s which is close to the max spec and faster than any other SD card slot in previous cameras that I've seen tested before.
p.1 #5 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
Great answers thus far but a slight correction on LR import.
Lightroom does not take advantage of the card speed. What matters when building previews is the speed of your computer’s CPU. If you are importing to LR straight from the card you won’t see any benefit of having faster card.
p.1 #6 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
An added minor point.
V90 is a rather loose, weak performance standard. There are a (relative few) very fast V90 cards and a lot of mediocre ones. The worst are at least a tiny bit better than V60 cards, so the standard isn't completely meaningless, but it's a rather loose, minimum, standard - the best are much faster indeed.
Best to look up specific performance measures /test results for the specific cards on sale wherever you're shopping.
A lot of SD cards boast all day long about their read speeds, but say little or nothing about their write speeds - and it's the write speeds that matter in your camera, and some brands cut corners rather hard on that vital metric. Reviews/tests separate the wheat from the chaff, the "V90" label by itself isn't enough to fully rely on. Here's one slightly ageing reference showing some examples of the differences.
p.1 #7 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
GHarris wrote:
An added minor point.
V90 is a rather loose, weak performance standard. There are a (relative few) very fast V90 cards and a lot of mediocre ones. The worst are at least a tiny bit better than V60 cards, so the standard isn't completely meaningless, but it's a rather loose, minimum, standard - the best are much faster indeed.
Best to look up specific performance measures /test results for the specific cards on sale wherever you're shopping.
A lot of SD cards boast all day long about their read speeds, but say little or nothing about their write speeds - and it's the write speeds that matter in your camera, and some brands cut corners rather hard on that vital metric. Reviews/tests separate the wheat from the chaff, the "V90" label by itself isn't enough to fully rely on. Here's one slightly ageing reference showing some examples of the differences....Show more →
Good point. I have tended to buy Sony or SanDisk Extreme Pro. Since Sony's SD seem out of stock, have favored SanDisk. Not crazy about Lexar having a card fail on me years ago. Not sure about the ProGrade brand...
p.1 #8 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
GHarris wrote:
An added minor point.
V90 is a rather loose, weak performance standard. There are a (relative few) very fast V90 cards and a lot of mediocre ones. The worst are at least a tiny bit better than V60 cards, so the standard isn't completely meaningless, but it's a rather loose, minimum, standard - the best are much faster indeed.
Best to look up specific performance measures /test results for the specific cards on sale wherever you're shopping.
A lot of SD cards boast all day long about their read speeds, but say little or nothing about their write speeds - and it's the write speeds that matter in your camera, and some brands cut corners rather hard on that vital metric. Reviews/tests separate the wheat from the chaff, the "V90" label by itself isn't enough to fully rely on. Here's one slightly ageing reference showing some examples of the differences....Show more →
Good point. The safe bets are
1)Delkin Power
2)Sony Tough (G)
3)Prograde (silver label that lists 250 write)
4)Sandisk (that lists 300MB/s)
5)Lexar 2000x
IMHO the Delkin are the best buy, always topping the test charts and the best value. Sony Tough G (which I have 2 of) are a nice solid card if you want something more robust but IMO a waste of $ (I got mine free with cameras). I have pre and post buyout Lexar 2000x cards. The pre ones are faster a little bit. Lexar supposedly has very poor CS these days. Prograde are former Lexar employees and are now a popular brand.
p.1 #9 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
arbitrage wrote:
Good point. The safe bets are
1)Delkin Power
2)Sony Tough (G)
3)Prograde (silver label that lists 250 write)
4)Sandisk (that lists 300MB/s)
5)Lexar 2000x
IMHO the Delkin are the best buy, always topping the test charts and the best value. Sony Tough G (which I have 2 of) are a nice solid card if you want something more robust but IMO a waste of $ (I got mine free with cameras). I have pre and post buyout Lexar 2000x cards. The pre ones are faster a little bit. Lexar supposedly has very poor CS these days. Prograde are former Lexar employees and are now a popular brand.
p.1 #10 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
arbitrage wrote:
Good point. The safe bets are
1)Delkin Power
2)Sony Tough (G)
3)Prograde (silver label that lists 250 write)
4)Sandisk (that lists 300MB/s)
5)Lexar 2000x
IMHO the Delkin are the best buy, always topping the test charts and the best value. Sony Tough G (which I have 2 of) are a nice solid card if you want something more robust but IMO a waste of $ (I got mine free with cameras). I have pre and post buyout Lexar 2000x cards. The pre ones are faster a little bit. Lexar supposedly has very poor CS these days. Prograde are former Lexar employees and are now a popular brand.
Perfect timing
Switched from a SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB for $190 to a Delkin Power 256GB for $250. I like keeping the 256 in slot 2 of my a7r3 and using my current 64gb cards in slot 1. That way I have a running backup and only need for format every 4-5 outings.
There is a new Delkin Black series that seems to have added shockproof, all temp and removed the write protect. Guessing a version similar to the Sony Tough Series
p.1 #11 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
arbitrage wrote:
...For my use I've found no reason to buy Cfe-A and have continued to use my V90 SD cards (Delkin Power). The A1 writes around 260MB/s which is close to the max spec and faster than any other SD card slot in previous cameras that I've seen tested before.
My experience is exactly the same and although I recently switched to type A CF Express Cards in A1, I see no perceptible improvement or speed difference for stills over my previous V90 128GB Delkin Power SDXC cards. Longer, high-burst rate cases should/could benefit though.
p.1 #12 · A1 Stills Photographers - questions on SD vs CFexpress cards
I personally always shoot RAW into the CF A card and large jpg into the SD backup card, I mean chance of the 1st card broken is super low anyway and even if the RAW card is broken I don't think anyone can tell the difference from the jpg backup.
