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Archive 2022 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpre...

  
 
dolina
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


I an curious if anyone asked why or if Canon explained why they abandoned CFast so quickly for EF bodies?

All bodies from 2008-2016 used CF cards with max read/write of 160MB/s.

These are the card standards & the EF bodies that could have benefited from CFast.

2008 CFast v1.0 300MB/s

- 2008 5D2
- 2009 7D
- 2009 1D4
- 2011 1Dx

2012 CFast v2.0 600MB/s

- 2012 5D3
- 2014 7D2
- 2015 5Ds & 5Ds R
- 2016 5D4
- 2016 1Dx2 (has CFast built-in but added to list to avoid confusion)

2019 CFexpress v2.0 1.0GB/s , 2.0GB/s & 4.0GB/s was immediately implemented into the

- 2020 1Dx3
- 2021 R5
- 2022 R3

Edited on Jul 28, 2022 at 03:31 PM · View previous versions



Jul 28, 2022 at 08:17 AM
Mike Jacks0n
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


CFast just didn't have the bandwidth to move forward. Even some of the 4k 120p data needs would stress the peak speeds of CFast.

In Canon's 8k RAW recording they require somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 MB/s sustained and the CFast cards could barely offer peak theoretical speed in that range.

Then if you consider the photo only bandwidth, moving 25 mega pixel images around 30 FPS in Canon's base compression (not its high compression CRAW), it puts you over the peak theoretical speeds of CFast as well. Luckily this is mostly written to a high speed internal camera buffer first, so a CFast card could work here, but it would still require significantly more time to clear the buffer, and has no chance of extending the buffer as CF Express can.

Quite simply, CFast wasn't fast enough for the processing that was on the horizon. Additionally, the good news is, CF Express is still in a stage where there is still a reasonable amount of headroom to push the card speeds up even further. I believe CF Express 2.0 is capable of 4000 MB/s on an older PCI e bus (PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 4.0 or soon to be 5.0). For reference, generally each of the PCIe generations offer a 2x speed improvement. So there is tons of headroom if the market continues to develop along PCIe and CF Express. BTW, that last thing isn't guaranteed, XQD was also on a PCIe bus but when CF Express showed the higher promise, XQD was dropped like a bad habit.

As far as why they didn't offer the CFast cards in cameras like the 7D2 or 5D4, I'd assume it was based on the cost of the format. CFast cards were very expensive when the 1DX II was brought out, I can't imagine the cost a generation earlier. Also, those cameras would only have benefited from the extra speed in the buffer clearing, so I'd assume that would have been a tough sell.



Jul 28, 2022 at 10:20 AM
jrhoffman75
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-cameras/dslr/eos-1d-x-mark-iii

Pages 9 & 10 of the Still Imaging White Paper discuss the CFE cards. It's under the "Resources" tab.



Jul 28, 2022 at 10:29 AM
dolina
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


jrhoffman75 wrote:
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-cameras/dslr/eos-1d-x-mark-iii

Pages 9 & 10 of the Still Imaging White Paper discuss the CFE cards. It's under the "Resources" tab.


This?

https://downloads.canon.com/nw/camera/products/eos/1d-x-mark-iii/resources/Canon_EOS_1DX_Mark_III_Still_White_Paper.pdf



Jul 28, 2022 at 10:37 AM
dolina
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


Mike Jacks0n wrote:
As far as why they didn't offer the CFast cards in cameras like the 7D2 or 5D4, I'd assume it was based on the cost of the format. CFast cards were very expensive when the 1DX II was brought out, I can't imagine the cost a generation earlier. Also, those cameras would only have benefited from the extra speed in the buffer clearing, so I'd assume that would have been a tough sell.


Thank you for the explanation.

I am just disappointed that CIPA members couldn't agree on either CFast or XQD as a bridge between CF & CFexpress. It would have improved the economies of scale.

It would have been awesome if 7-series, 5-series & 1-series bodies from 2008-2016 could have benefited from CFast as much as the 2016's 1Dx2.

Edited on Jul 28, 2022 at 11:37 AM · View previous versions



Jul 28, 2022 at 10:51 AM
EB-1
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Did Canon ever explain why they went from 1Dx2's CFast to 1Dx3's CFexpress card?


dolina wrote:
I an curious if anyone asked why or if Canon explained why they abandoned CFast so quickly for EF bodies?


It's not so much about Canon, but the computing industry. CFast originally was based on SATA II (300MB/sec. bandwidth) and was not accepted in the market. By the time CFast 2.0 (based on SATA III) arrived further SATA speed increases were shelved due to the high bandwidth, low-latency needs of SSDs which are better served by PCIe. Canon decided to go with the dead-end CFast 2.0 for the 1DX II as well as some digital video cameras. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time.

EBH




Jul 28, 2022 at 11:26 AM





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