# Lexar Announces New Professional CFexpress USB 3.1 Reader



## Canon Rumors Guy (Jun 2, 2020)

> *San Jose, USA, June 2, 2020* – Today, Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, announced the Lexar® Professional CFexpress™ USB 3.1 Reader. Geared towards making the workflow of professional photographers and videographers faster, this reader allows you to take advantage of the high-speed performance from the CFexpress Type B Card and offload your work, faster.
> *Key Features:*
> 
> Provides next-generation transfer speeds for high-quality images and RAW 4K video
> ...



Continue reading...


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## Deleted member 381342 (Jun 2, 2020)

Thats quite a slow reader for CFE but it is great to give older computers some way to dump the cards. Though my understanding is this isn't Lexar, its some other company that has bought up a trusted brand.


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## David - Sydney (Jun 2, 2020)

No price for it... it will be a significant cost for CFe and USH II cards for the R5 plus a card reader. If the R5 comes with 5GHz wifi, what would be the likely transfer rates to your PC? Is a card reader necessary?


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## Deleted member 381342 (Jun 2, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> No price for it... it will be a significant cost for CFe and USH II cards for the R5 plus a card reader. If the R5 comes with 5GHz wifi, what would be the likely transfer rates to your PC? Is a card reader necessary?



USB-C to USB-C will be faster than Wifi I would think. But even then there are CFE readers for under £300 on TB3(much faster than this, suggesting this should be quite cheep)


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## NJFanta (Jun 3, 2020)

$49.99









Lexar CFexpress USB 3.1 Reader


Buy Lexar CFexpress USB 3.1 Reader featuring For Photo and Video Professionals, 1 x CFexpress Type B Card Slot, 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C Interface, Transfer Raw 4K Video, Includes USB Type-C to Type-A Cable. Review Lexar null




www.bhphotovideo.com


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## David - Sydney (Jun 3, 2020)

Codebunny said:


> USB-C to USB-C will be faster than Wifi I would think. But even then there are CFE readers for under £300 on TB3(much faster than this, suggesting this should be quite cheep)


Agreed that USB C will be the fastest option but I am wondering if wifi 5GHz will be reasonable to avoid buying a card reader up front. I am hoping that wifi 5GHz will be faster than using a standard SD card reader for instance.
Happy to buy one later but there will be some big one-time costs to jump into RF for me.


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## BroderLund (Jun 3, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> Agreed that USB C will be the fastest option but I am wondering if wifi 5GHz will be reasonable to avoid buying a card reader up front. I am hoping that wifi 5GHz will be faster than using a standard SD card reader for instance.
> Happy to buy one later but there will be some big one-time costs to jump into RF for me.


Wired transfers will always be faster than wireless transfer. The USB-C will likely be 5Gbps speed, while the wireless being max 800Mbps. Assuming 2x2 AC MIMO config. If the camera only has one stream it will be max 350Mbps. This is also theoretical max of the wireless protocol. Practical speeds are always lower. A standard SD reader can read at 100MB/s, or around 1Gbps. A USH-II reader can go up to 300MB/s, or around 3Gbps. Far faster than what wireless can do. Wireless is only good if you offload a picture or two to your phone for quick transfer. Not full cards.

Relying on wireless as your main connection will be painfully slow to unload a full card. Especially given that the R5 shoots 45MP stills.


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## David - Sydney (Jun 3, 2020)

BroderLund said:


> Wired transfers will always be faster than wireless transfer. The USB-C will likely be 5Gbps speed, while the wireless being max 800Mbps. Assuming 2x2 AC MIMO config. If the camera only has one stream it will be max 350Mbps. This is also theoretical max of the wireless protocol. Practical speeds are always lower. A standard SD reader can read at 100MB/s, or around 1Gbps. A USH-II reader can go up to 300MB/s, or around 3Gbps. Far faster than what wireless can do. Wireless is only good if you offload a picture or two to your phone for quick transfer. Not full cards.
> 
> Relying on wireless as your main connection will be painfully slow to unload a full card. Especially given that the R5 shoots 45MP stills.


great information and fair enough! 
I'm not familiar with CRAW/.CR3 which is likely to be on the R5. The 5DS/R RAW files were about 60Mb in size and if I understand correctly, the CR3 files will replace mRaw and sRAW but they are using a lossy compression algorithm. 
Does anyone have experience if the differences between CR3 and CR2 is quality? it looks to be a ~40% file size difference which will add up if shooting 20fps @ 45 Mp


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## Roo (Jun 3, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> Agreed that USB C will be the fastest option but I am wondering if wifi 5GHz will be reasonable to avoid buying a card reader up front. I am hoping that wifi 5GHz will be faster than using a standard SD card reader for instance.
> Happy to buy one later but there will be some big one-time costs to jump into RF for me.



It's possible that some pre-order offers for the R5 will come with a CFExpress card and reader similar to what was offered when the 1Dx MarkIII was introduced.


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## scottkinfw (Jun 3, 2020)

What about thunderbolt?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 3, 2020)

If they are cheap, I'd probably consider getting one. The speed will be fast enough for me, I seldom download more than 1000 or 1500 images at a time, so a half hour to a hour is no issue. Adobe Lightroom tends to be the bottle neck, but I just go do something else when downloading a lot of photos. For occasional photos, the 5 GHZ radio may be all I need, wight now, with my R, I just download jpeg versions, it takes 3 or 4 seconds for a image. If they downloaded as soon as I took them, that would be great, but so far, I can only download them by restarting the camera and then they all download as its starting up.


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## edoorn (Jun 3, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> great information and fair enough!
> I'm not familiar with CRAW/.CR3 which is likely to be on the R5. The 5DS/R RAW files were about 60Mb in size and if I understand correctly, the CR3 files will replace mRaw and sRAW but they are using a lossy compression algorithm.
> Does anyone have experience if the differences between CR3 and CR2 is quality? it looks to be a ~40% file size difference which will add up if shooting 20fps @ 45 Mp



IQ barely takes a hit, although for the most critical work where the file is pushed a lot it might make a difference. Also see https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Cameras/Canon-C-RAW-Image-File-Format.aspx and also https://fstoppers.com/education/sam...-good-canons-new-compressed-raw-format-477335

By the way, don't all raws produced by a more recent Canon camera have the .CR3 extension, no matter if it's a normal raw or a c-raw?


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## briangus (Jun 3, 2020)

edoorn said:


> IQ barely takes a hit, although for the most critical work where the file is pushed a lot it might make a difference. Also see https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Cameras/Canon-C-RAW-Image-File-Format.aspx and also https://fstoppers.com/education/sam...-good-canons-new-compressed-raw-format-477335
> 
> By the way, don't all raws produced by a more recent Canon camera have the .CR3 extension, no matter if it's a normal raw or a c-raw?



The extension is CR3 whether normal or c-raw just a tag in exif to tell you its RAW or CRAW
Compared the normal CR3 with 5D4 CR2 and the files size is roughly the same


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## Deleted member 381342 (Jun 3, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> Agreed that USB C will be the fastest option but I am wondering if wifi 5GHz will be reasonable to avoid buying a card reader up front. I am hoping that wifi 5GHz will be faster than using a standard SD card reader for instance.
> Happy to buy one later but there will be some big one-time costs to jump into RF for me.



I am suggesting plugging the camera directly into your computer with USB-C. On a Mac you can use Image Capture to pull out the RAW files at as fast as your camera can deliver them. When I first got my Nikon Z6 I did this and it was plenty fast for reading out the card. If you are using a CFE card USB-C from the camera or a reader will not have enough bandwidth but it'll still be quick enough until you get a TB3 reader. WiFi I would only use as I shoot so at the end of the shoot all the images have already trickled into my laptop or iPad.


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## koenkooi (Jun 3, 2020)

edoorn said:


> By the way, don't all raws produced by a more recent Canon camera have the .CR3 extension, no matter if it's a normal raw or a c-raw?



Exactly, saying '.CR3' is meaningless in that regard. If you want to point out lossy compression, that's CRAW. Lossless compression is RAW.


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## Bonich (Jun 3, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If they are cheap, I'd probably consider getting one. The speed will be fast enough for me, I seldom download more than 1000 or 1500 images at a time, so a half hour to a hour is no issue. Adobe Lightroom tends to be the bottle neck, but I just go do something else when downloading a lot of photos. For occasional photos, the 5 GHZ radio may be all I need, wight now, with my R, I just download jpeg versions, it takes 3 or 4 seconds for a image. If they downloaded as soon as I took them, that would be great, but so far, I can only download them by restarting the camera and then they all download as its starting up.


I stopped giving Lightroom the task to transfer the files many years ago. This speeded up the workflow significantly.
It is absolutely no deal to drag and drop all your files from the card into a folder named with the date of the shooting by using MAC Finder/ Windows Explorer which gives you max transfer rates.
This done, you just import the files into Lightroom without data transfer.
-> More speed, no failures/ crashes since a decade, even with 20,000+ files within one import.


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## Warrenl (Jun 3, 2020)

Price is $50.00. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...r_usb_3_1.html/DFF/d10-v21-t1-x1019649/SID/EZ


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## Hector1970 (Jun 3, 2020)

I was without a CFexpress card reader for about 2m with the 1DXIII and basic camera WiFi was a pain to transfer. A card reader is much better. Thankfully I got a USB-C to normal USB wire with it (not with the Sandisk by default). I also bought a Delkin reader (as I was giving up on canon sending the Sandisk). It came with two cables. I’ve nothing currently with thundebolt but I’m sure my next laptop will (I hate cables, I have so many types !!!!). Both readers run quite hot - the Delkin is metallic. The cards are metallic. Not sure it’s good for them to be so warm. It’s all certainly and added cost you have to remember. Ideally you need new expensive memory cards, readers and a thunderbolt laptop/pc to get the best out of the 5R.


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## Hector1970 (Jun 3, 2020)

Bonich said:


> I stopped giving Lightroom the task to transfer the files many years ago. This speeded up the workflow significantly.
> It is absolutely no deal to drag and drop all your files from the card into a folder named with the date of the shooting by using MAC Finder/ Windows Explorer which gives you max transfer rates.
> This done, you just import the files into Lightroom without data transfer.
> -> More speed, no failures/ crashes since a decade, even with 20,000+ files within one import.


I stopped too. I didn’t understand why Lightroom was so slow at transferring. It’s much quicker to copy over to the machine from the card and then upload into Lightroom. I’ve really almost given up on Lightroom. I take too many photos , the database gets huge and slow and I have create another one so it’s not really useful . Once you clear down files the database is pointing to nothing. I think it was fine in the time where laptop storage was large compared to file size. With the high mp cameras you’d fill a 1TB hard disk in no time which means you have to constantly clear the disk to make room.


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## herein2020 (Jun 3, 2020)

Bonich said:


> I stopped giving Lightroom the task to transfer the files many years ago. This speeded up the workflow significantly.
> It is absolutely no deal to drag and drop all your files from the card into a folder named with the date of the shooting by using MAC Finder/ Windows Explorer which gives you max transfer rates.
> This done, you just import the files into Lightroom without data transfer.
> -> More speed, no failures/ crashes since a decade, even with 20,000+ files within one import.





Hector1970 said:


> I stopped too. I didn’t understand why Lightroom was so slow at transferring. It’s much quicker to copy over to the machine from the card and then upload into Lightroom. I’ve really almost given up on Lightroom. I take too many photos , the database gets huge and slow and I have create another one so it’s not really useful . Once you clear down files the database is pointing to nothing. I think it was fine in the time where laptop storage was large compared to file size. With the high mp cameras you’d fill a 1TB hard disk in no time which means you have to constantly clear the disk to make room.



I've never just dumped my cards into Lightroom, you will quickly fill it with useless data that will slow it down. For my workflow I copy all of the images from the shoot to the client's project folder using Windows Explorer, I use FastStone to copy all of the technically correct images (exposure, focus, composition) to a new selections folder, then I use FastStone to batch process the RAWs into JPGs that I send to the customer. Once they make their picks only then do I import their picks into Lightroom.

With that workflow I can send clients proofs from say a wedding with 1500 images in less than an hour, and I only import images in Lightroom that will be processed. I've had Lightroom running for 5yrs on one install before and never needed a new database and it did not slow down from the original install (other than when Adobe screwed it up with patches but that's a different rant for a different day).

As far as Lexar goes, I'm slowly dumping all of their products; I've switched to SanDisk for all of my storage media and I'm not too impressed with their Lexar Workflow professional media hub. It is slow, I frequently have to remove and reinsert media before it is seen by the OS, and their CFast 2.0 module does not work at all, I ended up having to buy an Angelbird CFast reader to read my CFast cards.

In 2017 Lexar was bought out and their products have been circling the drain ever since: https://petapixel.com/2017/09/01/lexar-acquired-chinese-flash-storage-company/


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 3, 2020)

Bonich said:


> I stopped giving Lightroom the task to transfer the files many years ago. This speeded up the workflow significantly.
> It is absolutely no deal to drag and drop all your files from the card into a folder named with the date of the shooting by using MAC Finder/ Windows Explorer which gives you max transfer rates.
> This done, you just import the files into Lightroom without data transfer.
> -> More speed, no failures/ crashes since a decade, even with 20,000+ files within one import.


The sum of the two processes is about the same. I know my PC is running too slow and needs to have the OS renstalled. Its not only Lightroom, but all of my programs that are getting slower. I started the process with a new PC and a faster NvMe based SSD but its so onerous that I stopped working on it 3 months back. Now, I have months worth of updates to do just to get back to where I was. I do have Lightroom on it and it is plenty fast, but its a separate catalog.


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## cayenne (Jun 3, 2020)

Bonich said:


> I stopped giving Lightroom the task to transfer the files many years ago. This speeded up the workflow significantly.
> It is absolutely no deal to drag and drop all your files from the card into a folder named with the date of the shooting by using MAC Finder/ Windows Explorer which gives you max transfer rates.
> This done, you just import the files into Lightroom without data transfer.
> -> More speed, no failures/ crashes since a decade, even with 20,000+ files within one import.



I use On1 RAW now as my LR replacement, but I did this with LR too.

I use a card reader and I use the application to bring the files over.....while I'm doing this I also use it to rename the files and add some tags to the images too, etc, and these renamed files are going to both my work external drive and my NAS backup drive.....so that when it is done, my files are all named properly (human understandable), and at least basically tagged and when done I'm ready for the most part to start editing.

I do like having human meaningful names, for later in life when this app may be gone or something happens and I can more readily search and look for them outside of the app.

But hey, different workflows for different folks, eh?

With me, I'm rarely in such a hurry that brining my files in can't be done in this manner and I can be doing other things while they images are being processed and unloaded.

I haven't used LR since version 5....so, I don't know if the newer versions are any faster, but I do thing at this point, that the On1 Import runs a bit faster, even on the folders I have it catalog....

My $0.02,

cayenne


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## David - Sydney (Jun 4, 2020)

Roo said:


> It's possible that some pre-order offers for the R5 will come with a CFExpress card and reader similar to what was offered when the 1Dx MarkIII was introduced.


I saw that and the bundles still exist but it is for a 512GB card only (in Australia at least). For me, it will be 128GB or 256GB but I am hoping to use 128GB if the file size (CRAW) will give me 1500-2000 shots. It would save me a few hundred dollars for both CFe and SD cards if 128GB is okay. Using USB C wired connection will save more by not needing a card reader... and wifi if I am desparate. In an emergency on an overseas trip (a long time in the future!), I think that finding CFe card readers will be tricky but a USB C cable should hopefully be easier if needed.


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## David - Sydney (Jun 4, 2020)

Hector1970 said:


> I was without a CFexpress card reader for about 2m with the 1DXIII and basic camera WiFi was a pain to transfer. A card reader is much better. Thankfully I got a USB-C to normal USB wire with it (not with the Sandisk by default). I also bought a Delkin reader (as I was giving up on canon sending the Sandisk). It came with two cables. I’ve nothing currently with thundebolt but I’m sure my next laptop will (I hate cables, I have so many types !!!!). Both readers run quite hot - the Delkin is metallic. The cards are metallic. Not sure it’s good for them to be so warm. It’s all certainly and added cost you have to remember. Ideally you need new expensive memory cards, readers and a thunderbolt laptop/pc to get the best out of the 5R.


The Delkin cards seem to be cheaper than Sony/Sandisk. Are you using Delkin cards? It would be interesting to understand the experience of different cards used by 1DXiii users


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## Hector1970 (Jun 4, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> The Delkin cards seem to be cheaper than Sony/Sandisk. Are you using Delkin cards? It would be interesting to understand the experience of different cards used by 1DXiii users


No , I’m using Sandisk cards. At least with those the camera runs very smoothly. There is no such thing as buffering in my usage so far. I’d assume the Delkin cards would be fine too.


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## cayenne (Jun 4, 2020)

David - Sydney said:


> I saw that and the bundles still exist but it is for a 512GB card only (in Australia at least). For me, it will be 128GB or 256GB but I am hoping to use 128GB if the file size (CRAW) will give me 1500-2000 shots. It would save me a few hundred dollars for both CFe and SD cards if 128GB is okay. Using USB C wired connection will save more by not needing a card reader... and wifi if I am desparate. In an emergency on an overseas trip (a long time in the future!), I think that finding CFe card readers will be tricky but a USB C cable should hopefully be easier if needed.



Just curious....why would you not shoot full RAW to have the full sensor data to work with on your images in post?


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## David - Sydney (Jun 4, 2020)

cayenne said:


> Just curious....why would you not shoot full RAW to have the full sensor data to work with on your images in post?


That's a good question. $ vs image quality is the option here. I would shoot full raw normally for landscape etc. CRAW seems to use the full sensor/resolution but is still a lossy compression algorithm. That said, the reviews showed minimum difference in shadow recovery for 2-3 stop under exposure and was a bit hard to differentiate the noise as good or bad. One example showed some magenta noise but probably still manageable. 
The option is similar to jpeg vs HEIF where HEIF has better bit depth but lossy compression for much smaller files. I just wish the format was acceptable for many more apps.
I would only consider CRAW for situations where it would be a big shooting event (>1500 shots) and no option to download to PC during it. These events are non-professional and not weddings needing THE shot. Given the fps, there could be a lot more shots taken anyway. Last option would be to use the card slots in sequential mode rather than RAID 1.


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## puffo25 (Jun 9, 2020)

Hi all, so for the Canon EOS R5 this newest format/technology cannot be used or it will not provide concrete speed on the cards to write/read data on burst mode, correct?


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