# HELP ! Memory card compatibility for 1D mark III ?



## Bohns (Dec 31, 2013)

Hello all ! And happy New Year (just 2 hours remain in France to start the New Year…) !

I just booked a 1D mark III to use it as a back-up body for my 5D mark III, especially for wildlife when environmental and climate conditions are bad. But I thought too late that my memory cards might not be compatible for this old venerable camera.
I have CF UDMA7 (1000x, 32 GB and 16 GB), CF UDMA6 (600x, 16 GB) and SDHC class 10 (600x, 32 GB and 16 GB).

Are they compatible ? If not, what shall I buy for CF and SDHC ?

Thank you for your help. I am getting really anxious…

Regards,
Stef.


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## Valvebounce (Dec 31, 2013)

Hi Stef.
I can understand your confusion, I thought I would have a google! Some say the cards are backward compatible, others not specified. That is with respect to the speed rating of the cards. Of course if the camera handbook says there is a hard limit on the size it can accept that is different, the handbooks can be downloaded as PDF files from canon sites. 
I think if it was me I would try them before worrying if they work, they should not harm anything if they don't work as they are passive devices.

Happy new year to all. I get there in 2 1/2 hrs!

Cheers Graham.


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## dgatwood (Dec 31, 2013)

In the worst case, if you use a high-capacity card, you might have to reformat it as FAT32 instead of exFAT if your camera doesn't support the newer format, in which case you'll get less effective capacity than you otherwise would (because of wasted space at the end of each file). Either way, they should work.

I haven't heard of anyone hitting any hard capacity limits in a looong time (since circa the turn of the century, when many cameras supported only FAT16, which had a 2 GB limit). The next hard limit is about 8 TB for FAT32, so we have a while before that becomes a problem for anyone.


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## privatebydesign (Jan 1, 2014)

They take 64GB CF cards for sure and all SDHC cards, they do not take SDXC format SD cards.


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## dgatwood (Jan 1, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> They take 64GB CF cards for sure and all SDHC cards, they do not take SDXC format SD cards.



They should actually take SDXC cards as long as you reformat them. The only real difference between SDHC and SDXC is that the latter is formatted as exFAT, where the former is formatted as FAT32. They use exFAT for larger cards because FAT32 gets less and less efficient at dealing with small files and small file fragments as the volume size gets bigger. Thus, some 32 GB cards and nearly all cards bigger than 32 GB come preformatted as exFAT (SDXC), but there's nothing stopping you from reformatting them as FAT32 volumes and using them with an older device (as long as the device supports SDHC and FAT32, i.e. not a device that is limited to 2GB flash cards and smaller).


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 1, 2014)

SDXC Cards are backward compatible, they might have to be reformatted. The MK III will seem very slow in writing compared to a newer camera.


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## Hannes (Jan 1, 2014)

It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.


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## privatebydesign (Jan 1, 2014)

Hannes said:


> It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.



Not in my experience, unless I need an SD card like when I use the WFT- E2, I don't use the MkIII's with anything in the SD slot as it slows the camera down.

How many of you guys are actually shooting MkIII's on a daily basis?


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## Bohns (Jan 1, 2014)

Thank you to all of you.

If I try to summarize :
[list type=decimal]
[*]My current cards should work with the 1D mark III
[*]Per precaution, I should reformat the ones I would use with this "Old Guy" (maybe directly from the camera menu ?)
[*]SD cards might slow down the camera, and it might be preferable to favor use of CFs. Seems not agreed by all...
[/list]

All my best wishes for this New Year !


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## dgatwood (Jan 1, 2014)

Bohns said:


> Thank you to all of you.
> 
> If I try to summarize :
> [list type=decimal]
> ...



You shouldn't need to reformat them unless they say SDXC on them. But if they do, then when you put the card in, the camera should tell you that the card is unreadable, and you should be able to reformat it at that time.


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## Hannes (Jan 2, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Hannes said:
> 
> 
> > It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.
> ...



I am. I can't remember the exact details but I believe CF maxed out at about 10mb/sec and SD at 15mb/sec


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## privatebydesign (Jan 2, 2014)

I'd like to know the details, I'd also like to know what SD cards you are using that are faster than your CF cards and what firmware version you have installed.


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## sanj (Jan 2, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Hannes said:
> 
> 
> > It is also apparently slightly faster writing to SD cards than to CF cards with firmware updates.
> ...



Not in my experience either!


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## kennephoto (Jan 2, 2014)

I have a 1d mark iii and wondered too but im using SanDisk extreme 16gb 45mbs and 60mbs cf cards and ive used a microcenter 16 anf 32gb class 10 sdhc and they all worked fine. Ive also read that the sd slot was faster than the cf.


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## privatebydesign (Jan 2, 2014)

I think the _"reading that an SD slot is technically capable of faster speeds"_ is very different from the actual user experience. My camera slows down when I have an SD card in it, I have the latest firmware. I'd like to know specifics regarding actual user experiences that support the theoretical assertions re SD and CF speeds.


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## Occams_Cat (Aug 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> I think the _"reading that an SD slot is technically capable of faster speeds"_ is very different from the actual user experience. My camera slows down when I have an SD card in it, I have the latest firmware. I'd like to know specifics regarding actual user experiences that support the theoretical assertions re SD and CF speeds.



Here's my 2 penny's worth:

1D MK3 (fw 1.3.2) Taking a series of RAW shots at 10fps until the frame rate immediately drops and the buffer is full -> time for the light to go out, clear the buffer and write to the card:

Sandisk Extreme 30MB/s SDCH 16GB ('Performance/speed: up to 45 MB/s read/write speed') = 15.95 secs
Sandisk Extreme 60MB/s UDMA CF 8GB ('Up to 60MB/s read/write speed') = 20.75 secs

Even slower rated SDHC cards, in a MKlll, are significantly faster at clearing the buffer than faster CF cards.

It's the opposite with the 5DMKlll. Here you are best sticking to a very fast UDMA CF card ONLY. Any SD card will slow the entire camera down when writing from the buffer to either card. Silly Canon.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 26, 2014)

As I said, my MkIII's (though they are 1Ds's) slow down when I put SD cards in them, the fastest rates I get with the various cards I actually own are when I just have Sandisk CF cards in the CF slot and nothing in the SD slot, every SD card I own is slower than the various CF cards I own.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> As I said, my MkIII's (though they are 1Ds's) slow down when I put SD cards in them, the fastest rates I get with the various cards I actually own are when I just have Sandisk CF cards in the CF slot and nothing in the SD slot, every SD card I own is slower than the various CF cards I own.



You are correct. Even the fastest SD cards are blown away by a fast CF card. In a mark III, the fastest write speed you will get with SD is 10mB/sec, most are 5. The card specs are misleading to a extreme.


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## wickidwombat (Aug 27, 2014)

i've never had problems with 600x cards in mine but have not tried or do not own 1000x cards


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## Deleted member 91053 (Aug 27, 2014)

Never owned a 1D3 but a friend of mine did until recently. He used a bunch of Sandisk Extreme 3 8GB SD cards simply because they were cheap and faster than any CF cards in that camera. It would appear that the 1D3 is the only dual card format camera that is actually faster with SD rather than CF!


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## dgatwood (Aug 27, 2014)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > As I said, my MkIII's (though they are 1Ds's) slow down when I put SD cards in them, the fastest rates I get with the various cards I actually own are when I just have Sandisk CF cards in the CF slot and nothing in the SD slot, every SD card I own is slower than the various CF cards I own.
> ...



No, the specs of the flash card aren't misleading. Fast speeds simply require you to have a device that supports that speed. Unfortunately, the 5D Mark III doesn't support UHS-I, so the flash card falls back to pre-UHS-I speeds.

AFAIK, the only Canon DSLRs that support UHS-I speeds are the 6D, the 70D, the SL1, the T4i, and the T5i. On the 6D, the difference between a 30 MBps Sandisk card and a 95 MBps Sandisk card is like night and day.


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## Occams_Cat (Aug 27, 2014)

johnf3f said:


> Never owned a 1D3 but a friend of mine did until recently. He used a bunch of Sandisk Extreme 3 8GB SD cards simply because they were cheap and faster than any CF cards in that camera. It would appear that the 1D3 is the only dual card format camera that is actually faster with SD rather than CF!



Yep, this is true. The 1D3 is much faster writing to SD cards than any CF. I wish Canon would drop this annoying dual format memory card malarkey. Just give us two super fast CF slots in the Pro series and an SD in the consumer range.


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## Deleted member 91053 (Aug 27, 2014)

Occams_Cat said:


> johnf3f said:
> 
> 
> > Never owned a 1D3 but a friend of mine did until recently. He used a bunch of Sandisk Extreme 3 8GB SD cards simply because they were cheap and faster than any CF cards in that camera. It would appear that the 1D3 is the only dual card format camera that is actually faster with SD rather than CF!
> ...



They have in the 1DX and it works well. With my 1D4 I could get 23-25 RAW files before the buffer filled at 9fps. With the 1DX I get 30+ with a Traanscend 400X CF card (same card as I used in the 1D4) and 50+ files with a Lexar 1000x at 10 fps.
Good improvement - pity about the price!


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## Occams_Cat (Aug 28, 2014)

johnf3f said:


> Occams_Cat said:
> 
> 
> > johnf3f said:
> ...



That's a good point, I didn't realise this. The 1Dx sort of washed over me since I am (and so are my clients) still happy with the 1d MK3 & 4 files and those two cameras do the job so well. I'm sure that the bigger burst mode would be very useful at time as I get ~16 from the 1D3 and the same as you with the 4. 

I'll have to wait a little longer for the 1Dx, as you said, pity about the price


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 28, 2014)

dgatwood said:


> Mt Spokane Photography said:
> 
> 
> > privatebydesign said:
> ...



Yes, they are misleading. They only apply to a new card. As soon as you use the card, and do a normal in camera format, the speed drops to 10MB/sec. To recover the speed, you need to do a low level format / erase of the SD card. Do that with a 64GB card, and you will be waiting for it to finish for a long time, since it must write 0's to every memory sell on the card. 

People believe the hype without understanding the limitations. You do not see the issue with CF cards. My 1D MK III was far faster with a CF card.

Sometimes the specs are up front about this. For example, they post a maximum and minimum speed here. The Maximum speed is only for a blank card in a camera with UHS-1. A Class 10 card has a 10MB/sec minimum write speed, and that is what users will see once the card has been written to.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/844763-REG/SanDisk_SDSDU_064G_A11_64GB_SDXC_Memory_Card.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/917678-REG/sony_sf64uy_tqmn_64gb_sdxc_memory_card.html


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