Which Mem card to improve High speed shooting issue

G-Dubs · 11 Nov 2012 at 21:02

I have a canon 60D and having recently taken it to cad west found that I have an issue wih my high speed shooting

frames/second should be 5.3/second, which I do acheive, however I only get 5 frames at this rate, as indicated by the display in the bottom right of the VF and as experienced when shooting. After that it pauses for what seems like an age and then drops to low speed shooting speed

I think it's caused by the memory card which is a panasonic SDHC 8GB cat 4.

Is this the cause of the issue?
what card should I get to remedy (value for money please)
if not the problem, what is

all advice appreciated

Gaffer · 11 Nov 2012 at 21:23

G-Dubs said:
I think it's caused by the memory card which is a panasonic SDHC 8GB cat 4.

Your first 5 (or so) pictures fill your buffer. The speed of those is limited by the camera. You can't take any more till the camera has flushed at least one of the images to your card. At that point, you become limited by the speed of the card.

According to the wiki, Class 4 is at least 2 MB/sec. Panasonic co up to Class 10 at 10MB/s

Have a look at Sandisk Extreme Pro. You'll pay for the privelage but they are rated for up to 95MB/s. I use their CF cards and swear by them.

Andrew

ShakenNstirred · 11 Nov 2012 at 21:40

I know have a canon but go to Tesco or elsewhere and have a look at Nphoto
they test lots of sd card in the latest issue.
the one that came out tops was the Lexar pro uhs-1
the Sandisk Extreme Pro SD card wont get anywhere near 95mb/s more like 35-40mb/s and that's in a card reader in the camera you can knock 10mb/s off that

G-Dubs · 11 Nov 2012 at 22:24

So good to know it's a mem card issue. I thought my camera was borked.

will any cat 10 do the job?

ShakenNstirred · 11 Nov 2012 at 22:40

G-Dubs said:
So good to know it's a mem card issue. I thought my camera was borked.

will any cat 10 do the job?

yeah it should do

apeksdiver · 12 Nov 2012 at 17:38

G-Dubs said:
So good to know it's a mem card issue. I thought my camera was borked.

will any cat 10 do the job?

Go for a sandisk extreme they are not too expensive, build quality is much better than the cheap generic ones

apeksdiver · 12 Nov 2012 at 17:39

Don't waste your money on the pro version your camera will never write at 95 mbs

ShakenNstirred · 12 Nov 2012 at 18:11

apeksdiver said:
Don't waste your money on the pro version your camera will never write at 95 mbs

the card wont also lol

Gaffer · 12 Nov 2012 at 19:33

apeksdiver said:
Don't waste your money on the pro version your camera will never write at 95 mbs

What do you base that assertion on?

The 60D has an 18 Megapixel sensor. With 14 bits per pixel. It shoots at 5.3 frames per second.

That means that the Digic 4 is reading info off the sensor at a rate of at least

(18,000,000 x 14 x 5.3)/(8 x 1024 x 1024) = 159MByte/second

The Digic does lossless compression on the fly to try to cope with the fact that the output device is so slow.

The (compressed) raw images are around 25MB each, so to be able to keep up with the processor, the card would need to manage 5.3 x 25 = 132MByte/s

95MByte/s isn't quite there but it is a lot better than 10MByte/s

I run a 1Ds3, an older camera with a Digic 3. It unquestionably benefits from fast cards.

The SD card interface standard is good for circa 100MByte/s (actually 832Mbit/sec) I would be astounded if Canon doesn't support that rate.

Andrew

a1ex2001 · 13 Nov 2012 at 10:15

apeksdiver said:
Go for a sandisk extreme they are not too expensive, build quality is much better than the cheap generic ones

build quality on memory cards are you serious? I've never found a single difference worth mentioning bettween branded cards.

PistolPete · 13 Nov 2012 at 11:02

I can't speak of Compact Flash card, but there is a noticable difference in cheap vs branded SD cards. I'm not a speed benchmarker so speeds were never really an issue for me but cheap SD cards cards started to crack, or split down the seams very quickly where as any branded card I had still looked OK.

EDIT: I remember seeing a actual test between different speed rated CF cards, and there was a noticable difference up to 60MB/s cards, but not a massive jump for 90MB/s cards - not enough to warrant the jump in price.
Trying to find it but struggling, but I did find this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uWwc2VCEgc

Rojin · 13 Nov 2012 at 11:40

a1ex2001 said:
build quality on memory cards are you serious? I've never found a single difference worth mentioning bettween branded cards.

Major brands are pretty much the same, I've had the casing split on cheap brands a lot...

ShakenNstirred · 13 Nov 2012 at 17:55

manual says "SDHC and SDXC cards featuring UHS (Ultra High Speed) enable a maximum writing speed of SD Speed Class 10".

Canon recommends a Class 6 card or faster for recording HD movies. UHS-I compliant cards are supported, but the camera does not take advantage of their increased bus speeds.

Gaffer · 13 Nov 2012 at 18:24

ShakenNstirred said:
manual says "SDHC and SDXC cards featuring UHS (Ultra High Speed) enable a maximum writing speed of SD Speed Class 10".

Dissapointing. And I was ready to go out and buy a fast SD card as a standby for the SD slot next to my nice fast CF card...

Andrew

G-Dubs · 22 Nov 2012 at 20:12

Ok well I am now the proud owner of a Sandisk Extreme pro SDHC 16GB (95MB/s.

bad news is that the "max burst counter" on the lower right side of my viewfinder remains resolutely at 5. In practice just banging of a few frames in high speed it slows down after after about 9 frames,after which it slows right down, which is pretty crap as it's not really any better than before

Am I missing something here????

D.P. · 22 Nov 2012 at 20:26

If you are shooting Raw 14bits then that MIT simply be the limit of the camera. In situations where you really need speed and buffer then shoot in Jpeg.

Nexus · 22 Nov 2012 at 22:40

Yeah, you've hit the buffer limit on the camera, even with a super quick card like you've purchased, its not going to change that.

Like D.P. says though, if you need the real speed, such as for shooting sports or something, going jpeg and possibly reducing resolution if not necessary will let you shoot until the cows come home, versus RAW.

Crafty · 22 Nov 2012 at 22:55

I've used Transcend SDHC cards in the past, never had a problem and speed is fine. I use their CF cards now and they are fine too. Worth a look as they appear to be good quality for a sensible price.

I have a sandisk card in my phone, works fine in the phone but is crap if I ever plug it in to my laptop or media machine, no matter how I do it (via the phone, card reader or using the card reader built in to my laptop).

ShakenNstirred · 23 Nov 2012 at 05:52

G-Dubs said:
Ok well I am now the proud owner of a Sandisk Extreme pro SDHC 16GB (95MB/s.

bad news is that the "max burst counter" on the lower right side of my viewfinder remains resolutely at 5. In practice just banging of a few frames in high speed it slows down after after about 9 frames,after which it slows right down, which is pretty crap as it's not really any better than before

Am I missing something here????

I didn't think it would make any difference after reading the spec from canon that I posted ^^^

G-Dubs · 23 Nov 2012 at 22:05

Hi If only this was just caused by RAW shooting. the problem i'm describing happenswithjpeg andthe performance stays thesame even if I shoot in lower res. Strangely it also doesn't get any worse if I shoot RAW.

to further depress me Itried my wifes 500D and although it's frame rat is a fraction slower it keeps that rate up till the cows come home, long after mine has slowed to a plod

Is this acamera fault

any other 60D folk out there????