# Worth getting an SD card for 5D3?



## Harry Muff (Jun 11, 2013)

So my new camera is on the wagon to me now. 


I've got a 16Gb CF that's currently in my 5D2 which, naturally, will be moving into my 5D3.


Given the confusion of card reading speeds and settings changing due to cards being pulled in and out (that have different settings for each), is there any real benefit to using an SD apart from backing up?


I can't say I've ever wished for a second slot for either type in my 5D2, even while knowing that the 5D3 has the capability.




Also, would anyone recommend using JUST an SD as they are quite a bit cheaper?


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## distant.star (Jun 11, 2013)

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I've had a 5D3 since December. I have SD cards. For what I do, I've never put one in my 5D3.

Like most of these questions, it comes down to what you need the tool to accomplish.


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## jdramirez (Jun 11, 2013)

I use a sd for small jpg backup and review in a tv or computer, but if I'm going someplace where high speed is an issue, it goes the ad card.


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## Spooky (Jun 11, 2013)

Harry,

I have both cards in my 5D3 all times. I may take out the SD if I were shooting continuous action, but I rarely do... My reasoning is that the SD cards are much cheaper, so I back up the CF shots in camera to the SD then swap out the SD to a new one and format my CF to continue. I have done this while away from home on holidays, taking 4 32G SDs and 1 16G CF.
Each to their own, it works for me. I could just use SD only but old habits and all that...! I do notice if I'm bracketing shots that there is a slight delay when writing to the SD that doesn't happen if using CF only but it is not a concern shooting landscapes.


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## EYEONE (Jun 11, 2013)

For weddings I throw a big 64gb SD card in there along with my 16gb CF cards and have it write RAW to both cards. At the end of the day I have a backup of everything I shot. The SD slot is slow though, I wouldn't use it for sports.


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## Ripley (Jun 11, 2013)

SD is significantly slower than CF in the 5D3, but they're also a lot cheaper. If you need burst speed the CF is a necessity, otherwise there is nothing wrong with using just SD.

Options when running multiple cards can be found on pages 116-118 of the instruction manual. I shoot RAW to a Sandisk Extreme CF 32Gb, and JPEGs to a Sandisk Extreme SD 32Gb simultaneously because it saves me time in my post workflow, in several ways.

I love having two cards onboard, and all the options the 5D3 gives you to utilize them.


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## East Wind Photography (Jun 11, 2013)

The best use for the SD card is writing two copies of an image to both cards at the same time. Useful if you are a wedding or event photographer and want two copies. It slows down the number of shots in drive mode before it has to buffer but if that is not important for the shoot then you can write to both cards. Otherwise you can set it to write to the CF card first and fail over to the SD card when it's full. That setting wont hinder your write speed.

I use an Eye-Fi card in mine (now that the new firmware fixes all of the crashing). I can enable the wi-fi piece on wedding shoots and let the family see the images on my ipad (compressed jpg) and still write the full raw to the CF card.


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## JonAustin (Jun 11, 2013)

All the posts contributed thus far are good examples of various applications for the SD card slot. Mine differs slightly, in that I put a spare 16GB SD card I already had "lying around" into the slot "just in case."

I always shoot to a fast 16GB CF card, and I usually carry a wallet of extra CF cards with me. But I like the "extra insurance" of being able to switch over to the SD card if the CF card fills up or fails (never had a CF card fail in 15 years), or -- given the need and enough time -- to copy the contents of a full CF card over to the SD card, then erase / reformat the CF card and resume shooting.

I don't think I would spend the money to buy an SD card for my 5D3 if I didn't already have one, however, just to fill the slot.


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## msatter (Jun 11, 2013)

I have always a SD card with WiFi capabilities in the camera and the smaller JPG files can be send to tablet or phone or other services to display the pictures.

When you insert a SD card in a 5D MKIII also the writing speed to the CF card is reduced due to design by Canon.


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## Harry Muff (Jun 11, 2013)

Thanks for all the replies peeps. You've helped a lot in making my decision. 




The question I have left, however, is whether anyone would trust ONLY an SD card? (For slower shootion situations of course.)


It's just that I will be running my MkII and MkIII side by side for a while, and can only afford to get an SD. So that'll have to go int the MkIII, and the CF stay in the MkII for the time being.


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## Ripley (Jun 11, 2013)

Harry Muff said:


> The question I have left, however, is whether anyone would trust ONLY an SD card? (For slower shootion situations of course.)



I have never had one fail, so yes. I use Sandisk exclusively.


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## bvukich (Jun 11, 2013)

msatter said:


> When you insert a SD card in a 5D MKIII also the writing speed to the CF card is reduced due to design by Canon.



It only slows down if you're writing to SD, (i.e., RAW to CF, JPEG to SD), just having it in there does not slow down writing to CF.


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## mwh1964 (Jun 11, 2013)

I only use SD. No probs unless shooting raw continously


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## Brymills (Jun 11, 2013)

I mostly shoot sport so only use CF. That said, I have thought that an SD card would mean that if I end up needing to change cards at a critical time I can carry on with the SD until a more opportune moment. Ideally I'd have a 1DX and 2 CF's but in reality that's not financially viable.


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## darrellrhodesmiller (Jun 11, 2013)

i've really gotten in the habit of using SD cards in my 5d mk III. yes burst rate isnt as fast.. but i rarely shoot sports or anything fast.. its just about convienience. my mac has a built in sd card slot. its just easy to pop the sd card out of the camera and stick it directly in my laptop. nothing to plug in or dig for in my bag. 

when i do need fast burst rates.. yes CF cards are a better choice and you can tell the difference.


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## docholliday (Jun 11, 2013)

All of my 1's are loaded with both CF and SD, usually 32GB sets. The camera is usually set to write to the CF with the SD as overflow. That way, if I fill a card, I don't have to stop immediately and swap CFs.

However, during critical shoots (weddings) I would write to both for redundancy. That would have been a neat feature in the film days! Before this, I would only shoot 8GB single cards, so that each card could be written to a DVD+DL as a "negative" archive. I still teach new shooters to start with 4GB cards (1 card=1 DVD) to establish good habits.

Even when tethering, I still store at least one copy on a card. That way, should something happen to the tether box, I still have the RAWs and go from there.


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## tpatana (Jun 12, 2013)

bvukich said:


> msatter said:
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> > When you insert a SD card in a 5D MKIII also the writing speed to the CF card is reduced due to design by Canon.
> ...



I remember reading someone did test on this (maybe at POTN), and the conclusion was that even having SD card in will slow down the CF card, because the data bus speed will default to slower speed. Having only CF will benefit higher data bus speed.

So I've never even inserted SD card. I guess I should try it works.

Disclaimer: I could be wrong, but I did read someone testing that and with such conclusion. I haven't tested myself.


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## M.ST (Jun 12, 2013)

Forget SD-cards in a 5D Mark III. Canon put an old SD-card-controller in the camera.

Please put a 2 CF-card-slot in the 5D Mark IV. We don´t need sd-card for professional use.


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## bvukich (Jun 13, 2013)

tpatana said:


> bvukich said:
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I saw (probably) the same post, then I saw someone claim they were wrong... So I tested myself. There is no slowdown just having the SD in the camera, it only slows down if you are writing to it.


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## East Wind Photography (Jun 13, 2013)

I've never had an issue using the SD card in the 5DIII other than you are limited to 6 or 7 frame bursts in RAW mode....compared to 13 or 14 with the CF card.



Harry Muff said:


> Thanks for all the replies peeps. You've helped a lot in making my decision.
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## tpatana (Jun 13, 2013)

bvukich said:


> tpatana said:
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Ok, good to know. Not sure if I'll do it anyway, but I guess doesn't hurt. Especially if the CF became full, you can still catch the shot. Although CF shouldn't come full by surprise, that's just bad. I start getting nervous when I'm below 100 estimated shots.

I have a reception coming and I was planning to put 64GB SD in to double store everything. Most non-critical shoots, I don't think it's worth the trouble.


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## RGF (Jun 13, 2013)

I use the sd card as overflow. When the cf is full, the camera writes to the sd. When shooting slows I swap out cf cards. If I have time I copy the few images on the sd card back to the cf card


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## Rienzphotoz (Jun 13, 2013)

Harry Muff said:


> The question I have left, however, is whether anyone would trust ONLY an SD card? (For slower shootion situations of course.)


On a couple of occasions, I have used only an SD card on my 5D MK III and it works just fine ... did not notice any "slowdown" ... the cards I used were SanDisk 64GB and 32 GB SDXC Extreme Pro Class 10 UHS-I (Max Read Speed 95MB/s & Max Write Speed 90 MB/s) ... I also tried using only a SanDisk 16GB Extreme SDHC UHS-1 (Max Read/Write Speed 45 MB/s), which slowed down after a couple of shots. On both occasions I did not shoot more than 4 RAW + JPEG shots in quick succession. With my limited experience I suppose any SD card that is slower than 45 MB/s will significantly slowdown the 5D MK III (that is if you are using only SD card i.e. without the CF card). Since you are considering using only SD cards because they are cheaper, IMHO it is not worth saving a small amount on memory cards to be used on a camera which cost you around $3000.


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## tpatana (Jun 13, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Harry Muff said:
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> > The question I have left, however, is whether anyone would trust ONLY an SD card? (For slower shootion situations of course.)
> ...



One of the problem was that Canon used some old/slow controller on the SD-path, so fast card don't help as the bottleneck is inside the camera. I don't know what is the maximum speed from the camera, but after certain card speed it doesn't help going faster.


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## dukem (Jun 13, 2013)

Your buffer is reduced if you write different files to each card (RAW to CF, JPG to SD). I find that I am better off with a little more buffer so I write the same to both. Recently we have been experimenting with using a large SD and multiple small CF. So, 1 64GB SD and smaller CF's. So, if a CF fails we have the SD as backup.


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## Hannes (Jun 13, 2013)

M.ST said:


> Please put a 2 CF-card-slot in the 5D Mark IV. We don´t need sd-card for professional use.



I can't say I understand why they would do this mixing and matching of memory cards, it doesn't make much sense really apart from cost but even that can't be much.


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## jdramirez (Jun 13, 2013)

Hannes said:


> M.ST said:
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> > Please put a 2 CF-card-slot in the 5D Mark IV. We don´t need sd-card for professional use.
> ...



I don't mind... I like having options. I have a 16gb sd card that I can use if the 8 gb cf card fills up. the 16 is a vestige from my 60d days and I like that it still has some use. and I'm not a professional, so I don't seed the need to get a 1000x c.f. card... that is really big, 64gb. and I really can't see myself getting two of them. 

would I like to be able to use an uhs sd card... yes but that would be my lone complaint in this regard.


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## ddl (Jun 13, 2013)

I've used Lexar 1000x Pro CF 16GB in slot 1 and Lexar 400X Pro 64GB SDXC UHS-1 card (although not in UHS specified speed) in slot 2 in my 5D3.

I just came back from vacation and was worried about losing my single copy of a shot if a CF card went bad so now I'm writing RAW to both. For family vacation and similar events a large burst rate isn't important as I'm often also shooting dance in silent mode (so as not to annoy others) which limits me to 3 fps anyways.

Maybe for faster shooting at 6 fps I might have to pull the SD card to get the maximum number of shots before the write buffer fills.

Having a larger 64 GB card installed in another slot gives me some flexibility whereas a 16 GB flash might not have a lot of room left on it when I decide I might want some video for the hell of it.

If I've downloaded everything I need off of the CF cards and know the pictures are ok (plus backed up on the computer plus the backup drives) then I just reformat the SDXC card when full (as not done after every event).


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## leGreve (Jun 13, 2013)

I wouldn't use an SD card for anything but proxy files to choose the correct from. The slot is ridiculously slow... I mean, it's absurd.

But it's nice to have it to run the ML firmware from and use the CF slot as a dedicated recording card.

If you are doing shoots where you need to keep the shutter running and max out of FPS, then don't worry about the SD card. Just get nice big and fast CF cards.


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## LOALTD (Jun 14, 2013)

SD slot is a waste of time, in many situations it bottle-necks the entire camera. The camera can write to the CF card at ~170MB/s…the SD slot? I’m not sure what it is exactly, but probably ~50MB/s. Also, for me personally, it’s too confusing to manage two media sources in my workflow. I once accidentally-deleted 40GB of time lapse…whoopsy-doodle! ???

I use an old 1GB SD card…but only to run Magic Lantern for sweet, sweet RAW video ;D


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## dickgrafixstop (Jun 16, 2013)

A good quality SD card is about $10.00 for 8 gig, $20 for 16 gig. So what's the big deal - skip a lunch and buy
one or two or three.


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## tgara (Jun 16, 2013)

I shoot RAW onto the CF card and JPG to the SD card, especially when traveling. I like this configuration because it allows me to have a high quality RAW copy that I can post-process when I get home, and at the same time have a jpg copy that I can upload to my iPad using the Camera Connection Kit. Once on the iPad, I can post photos to Photostream and share images with friends in near real time.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 16, 2013)

As noted, the 5D MK III does not have the UHS-1 capability which has twice the bus speed and will write almost twice as fast as the 5-10MB/sec that a Class 10 SD card can do.

Both are really slow compared with CF cards. I do have a 64GB SD card that I occasionally use as a backup to my 64GB CF card, sometimes having a backup is more important than the speed.


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## eml58 (Jun 17, 2013)

I use a CF Card and write at the same time to the SD card, gives me two copies of everything I shoot (on the 5DMK III).

To cover the speed issue on the Canon Buffer/write issue, I use a 128GB CF Card @ 100Mbs + 64GB SD card @ 95Mbs, so slowest write speed should be the SD Card @ 95Mbs, which I can live with.

I do this as I have twice now had CF Cards corrupted, fortunately with Software I've rescued the Images, so now I cover my Bases by writing to both Cards, I do the same on my 1Dx, but both CF Cards are 128GB 100Mbs, so not an issue like the 5DMK III.

Try to find a situation where the write speed on your SD Card is as close as the Write speed on your CF Card, then the issue is no longer an issue and you have the convenience of a set of "Back Up" Images.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 17, 2013)

eml58 said:


> I use a CF Card and write at the same time to the SD card, gives me two copies of everything I shoot (on the 5DMK III).
> 
> To cover the speed issue on the Canon Buffer/write issue, I use a 128GB CF Card @ 100Mbs + 64GB SD card @ 95Mbs, so slowest write speed should be the SD Card @ 95Mbs, which I can live with.
> 
> ...


 
You will never see close to a 95 MB/sec SD card write speed on a 5D MK III. You can put a 95 MB/sec card in a 5D MK III, but you will eventually get about 10 mb/sec due to the type of SD controller in the camera.

The card speed is limited by the camera.


Speed advertisements for SD cards are misleading, since they only apply to a new and blank card, and they are for Cameras with UHS-1 controllers which have a internal bus speed and thus write about 2X faster.


Initially, you might get 20 MB/sec or even more in your 5D MK III, but ... once you have filled up that SD card, and do a in camera normal format, the write speed drops to 10 MB/sec or less. This is because the controller must first go thru the slow process of erasing a memory block before writing to it To regain the lost speed, you must do a low level format which erases the card. It can take hours to do that for a large card.



All the reviews for SD cards are for a card that has had a low level format first. 

http://www.canonrumors.com/2012/06/the-5d-mark-iii-sd-memory-cards/


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## leGreve (Jun 17, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> eml58 said:
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> > I use a CF Card and write at the same time to the SD card, gives me two copies of everything I shoot (on the 5DMK III).
> ...



Quoted for truth....

SD cards are THE worst option for doing photography with the 5D.

I did a write test on a transcend 16gb class card (one which I normally use to shoot with my Sony FS100, and was getting around 11 mb/s in the SD slot. That is f****** useless and a joke that it's even there.

Don't save... just get the CF card. If you use an SD card at the same time, the SD card slot will make the CF card slower. Lowest denominator rules in Canon apparently. What a waste.


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## eml58 (Jun 17, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> eml58 said:
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> > I use a CF Card and write at the same time to the SD card, gives me two copies of everything I shoot (on the 5DMK III).
> ...



Thanks for the Heads Up Mt Spokane, I knew the SD cards were a hindrance, wasn't aware of the Magnitude, Thank You.


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## al-toidz photography (Jun 17, 2013)

If you don't need it for fast burst then sd card is fine. I own a 1D(s) mark III's and rented 5d mark 3 before, and personally i don't need cf card. Maybe because I'm using macbook pro as my main computer as it has a sd card slot built in. It may sound silly to make it as a reason but for me its very convinient.

On a side note, I only use sandisk extreme pro sd card and they are very reliable. So, if you will get one, make sure get something that is realiable and has a good reputation.


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## jdramirez (Jun 17, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> eml58 said:
> 
> 
> > I use a CF Card and write at the same time to the SD card, gives me two copies of everything I shoot (on the 5DMK III).
> ...



I've done a low level format on my 16 gb card a few times and it didn't take very long at all. 

I'm surprised that the write speed are only between 10-20 mbs. any idea what the write speeds are in the 60d? I upgraded from a class four to a class ten and it seemed crazy fast... then I started shooting in both raw and jpg and it seemed slow, but I assumed it was still faster than the old class four.

as I have said, I use both c.f. and sd at the moment, but I will likely remove the sd when I shoot sports.


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## tpatana (Jun 17, 2013)

jdramirez said:


> I'm surprised that the write speed are only between 10-20 mbs. any idea what the write speeds are in the 60d? I upgraded from a class four to a class ten and it seemed crazy fast... then I started shooting in both raw and jpg and it seemed slow, but I assumed it was still faster than the old class four.
> 
> as I have said, I use both c.f. and sd at the moment, but I will likely remove the sd when I shoot sports.



How you define crazy fast? You buffer never went full while shooting raw? 60D could have same SD controller (at best) than 5D3, so 10-20MB/s is probably max.

Also C10 is not that much if you look the spec minimums, it's 10MB/s (or more).


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## jdramirez (Jun 18, 2013)

tpatana said:


> jdramirez said:
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> > I'm surprised that the write speed are only between 10-20 mbs. any idea what the write speeds are in the 60d? I upgraded from a class four to a class ten and it seemed crazy fast... then I started shooting in both raw and jpg and it seemed slow, but I assumed it was still faster than the old class four.
> ...



crazy fast: shooting in large jpg, 18 megapixels, and getting 60+ shots at 5.3 shots per second without filling up the buffer and no slowing.

I got tired before the camera did...


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## tpatana (Jun 18, 2013)

jdramirez said:


> tpatana said:
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Ok. Did the camera choke when you were using C4 card?

At least with any CF (most bodies I assume), you can shoot jpg any duration you want, until you fill up the card.


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## jdramirez (Jun 19, 2013)

tpatana said:


> jdramirez said:
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it has been a while, but yeah, the buffer filled after about 8 shots or so... I don't know if I pushed the boundaries of the buffer with my 5d, but I will eventually.


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