# 5D MkIII buffer



## mikejkay (Mar 4, 2014)

I am still getting to grips with my 5DIII and I am, in general, very pleased with it. However, I started playing with bracketed shots at different exposures with my old 7D and found this feature very usefull. One of the features that led to my buying the 5DIII was the ability to take 7 bracketed shots. However, I find that I cannot do this, the camera will only rattle off 6 shots. I can get the 7 exposures if I reduce to mRAW which rather negates one of the benefits of the 5DIII. I shoot RAW to the CF card and JPEG to the SD card. Reducing the JPEG to minimum makes no difference.

My fastest CF card is 300x and my SD cards are newer Class 6 UHS-1. Will faster CF cards solve the problem?


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## mackguyver (Mar 4, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> I am still getting to grips with my 5DIII and I am, in general, very pleased with it. However, I started playing with bracketed shots at different exposures with my old 7D and found this feature very usefull. One of the features that led to my buying the 5DIII was the ability to take 7 bracketed shots. However, I find that I cannot do this, the camera will only rattle off 6 shots. I can get the 7 exposures if I reduce to mRAW which rather negates one of the benefits of the 5DIII. I shoot RAW to the CF card and JPEG to the SD card. Reducing the JPEG to minimum makes no difference.
> 
> My fastest CF card is 300x and my SD cards are newer Class 6 UHS-1. Will faster CF cards solve the problem?


Yes, a CF card that writes at 60MB/s (important to note the write speed - most cards write much slower than the advertised _____x read speed) will allow you to write 19 RAW files before the buffer fills and starts slowing down. A UDMA 7 CF card that writes at 150MB/s (just bought one) lets you write 35 frames before slowing. The SD card slot on the 5DIII is an older standard and buying anything over 30 to 45MB/s write speed is a waste. 

I'd buy a 800x or higher CF card (that will give you a 75MB/s write speed or higher) if I were you, that should solve your problem.


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## cdn_photog (Mar 4, 2014)

I had the same issue when I went from a 7D to a 5D3. I think my old card was a SanDisk UDMA 6 at 90 MB/s, I bought this UDMA 7 at 160 MB/s which was a huge improvement in the 5D3. 

http://www.adorama.com/IDSCFEP4K32.html?sub=forum&utm_term=Other&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Other&utm_source=rflaid64393


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## mikejkay (Mar 4, 2014)

cdn_photog

Are you saying that a UDMA 6 card at 90 MB/s was unable to cope with 7 full size RAW shots? mackguyver suggests that a 60MB/s card will do the trick (for a single burst).


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 4, 2014)

Also try not writing anything to the SD card. Even though it's JPGs, it does take additional CPU to process to JPG, then also write the (moderately large at Large+Fine) JPG files, and the 5d3's SD card is an old spec, and SLOW. Try with just your CF card, and the faster the better. A UDMA7 is best, even if it's not the fastest cards (300-600x), as UDMA7 brings TRIM support which will help keep peak speeds up when you delete/format the card in the camera which can talk UDMA7.


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## Don Haines (Mar 4, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> cdn_photog
> 
> Are you saying that a UDMA 6 card at 90 MB/s was unable to cope with 7 full size RAW shots? mackguyver suggests that a 60MB/s card will do the trick (for a single burst).



It helps a lot if you give the make and model of the cards.....

The printed specs are ALWAYS for read speed, unless they also include a second number for write speed. You can find cards that are 90MB/s read speed, yet only 20MB/s write speed..

Your 300X card reads at 45MB/second, look up how fast it writes.... you will be surprised...

Your class 6 SD card will not write at 10MB/s.


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## cdn_photog (Mar 5, 2014)

@mikejkay I wasn't doing 7 bracketed shots at a time with the old card, and I sold it with the 7D so I can't remember the exact specs, but I was running into buffer issues in that it was slowing down earlier than the 5D3 specs state the camera is capable of. And noticeably slower than the 7D's buffer. I am very happy with the speed of the UDMA 7 card I have now. It wasn't cheap, but having spend that much on a camera cheaping out on the card didn't seem like a good idea.

I have done 7 bracketed shots since then, with the faster card, with no buffer issues.


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## mikejkay (Mar 5, 2014)

Thanks ton all. Looks like UDMA 7 is the way to go. Pity I spent all my money on the 5DIII...and the 'L' glass. Sticks in the gullet a bit to spend £100+ on a memory card. Unfortunately, I carry 1x32GB and 3x16GB as I am aay for several months at a time.


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 5, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> Thanks ton all. Looks like UDMA 7 is the way to go. Pity I spent all my money on the 5DIII...and the 'L' glass. Sticks in the gullet a bit to spend £100+ on a memory card. Unfortunately, I carry 1x32GB and 3x16GB as I am aay for several months at a time.



While CF cards are generally more durable than SD cards, they do eventually wear out and do need eventual replacement. Unless you need the CF card as fast as possible, you can just keep using your older ones. Try disabling the JPG to SD, that might free up that last bit of buffer you need to get the full 7 shots. 

What's stopping you from just waiting until the buffer clears that for the first image and shooting that last of the bracketed shots? Doing a bracket like that won't help with lots of action, and more for things basically sitting still, which should give you that extra few seconds to make sure to get the last bracketed shot.


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## mikejkay (Mar 6, 2014)

With the responses on this thread, a bit more reading and some experimenting I have confirmed that I can get 7 bracketed shots if I only use the CF card in slot 1. This does not seem to be because of the amount of data or the processing overhead but more that the SD slot has been crippled for some reason only known to Canon! This approach would mean that I would have to manually copy my files to the SD card. I would prefer not to have to do this as I am a firm believer in "Sods Law" and in reliable backing up I'm not sure that a super fast CF car would solve the problem as I would still be restricted by the SD card slot write speed. In any event it seems that the 5DIII might not be fully compatible with UDMA 7, but only UDMA 6. Perhaps someone could confirm this (or not!).

This leaves two other options: i) restrict my self to 5 shot bracketing and ii) the suggestion to take the 7th bracketed shor 'manually'. 5 bracketed shots is still an improvement on the 7D.


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## cdn_photog (Mar 6, 2014)

@mikejkay I just did a quick test with the UDMA 7 160MB/s CF card set to raw, and SD card set to JPEG S1, and it really slowed down the buffer for 7 bracketed shots. The camera took all 7 shots, but the 'busy' symbol came up on the screen and there was a definite lag which does not occur when the SD card is removed.


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## mackguyver (Mar 6, 2014)

cdn_photog said:


> @mikejkay I just did a quick test with the UDMA 7 160MB/s CF card set to raw, and SD card set to JPEG S1, and it really slowed down the buffer for 7 bracketed shots. The camera took all 7 shots, but the 'busy' symbol came up on the screen and there was a definite lag which does not occur when the SD card is removed.


You don't have to remove the SD card, just don't write to it. It's *hardware *limited to 30MB/s which is "Class 10", whereas the CF card is UDMA7, so it's MUCH faster. Canon didn't cripple the SD slot, it was the fastest SD standard available when the camera was designed.


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 6, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> cdn_photog said:
> 
> 
> > @mikejkay I just did a quick test with the UDMA 7 160MB/s CF card set to raw, and SD card set to JPEG S1, and it really slowed down the buffer for 7 bracketed shots. The camera took all 7 shots, but the 'busy' symbol came up on the screen and there was a definite lag which does not occur when the SD card is removed.
> ...



Yup, this exactly. And even if it slows down, you can still take that 7th shot, you just need to wait a few seconds for it to stop being busy and capable of taking another photo for it to then take that 7th bracketed shot. You don't have to have the camera in continuous shutter for the bracketing, and you don't have to take them back to back. You can pause in the middle of each one if you want.


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## mikejkay (Mar 6, 2014)

mackguyver, Class 10 write speed is not 30MB/s it's a minimum of 10MB/s. I have dome a lot of work testing SD and microSD cards mainly because I was stupid enough to buy a SanDisk Ultra card which has 30MB/s emblazoned in large letters on the front. I was rather perplexed with the slow write speeds that I got so I tested the card. I used CrystalDiskMark, DiskSpeed.exe, h2testw and Bench32.exe. The real time write speeds in Windows 7 varied enormously but were mostly less than 10MB/s and averaged 4 to 5MB/s. The ONLY write speed result from all the tests that I carried out was 10.07MB/s from CrystalDiskMark. Needless to say SanDisk say that this single marginal and isolated result means that the card is within specification.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 44.554 MB/s
Sequential Write : 10.071 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 0.000 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.000 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.000 MB/s [ 0.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.000 MB/s [ 0.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.000 MB/s [ 0.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.000 MB/s [ 0.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [G: 91.1% (54.2/59.4 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2014/03/06 18:46:48
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
SANDISK_64GB_SDXC

I think that it is of interest that three Samsung Class 6 SD cards gave write speeds of 14-15MB/s and my Toshiba Class 10 microSD card gave a write speed of 14.6MB/s.

Moral: Don't believe the hype about SanDisk being a top class manufacturer!


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## mackguyver (Mar 6, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> mackguyver, Class 10 write speed is not 30MB/s it's a minimum of 10MB/s. I have dome a lot of work testing SD and microSD cards mainly because I was stupid enough to buy a SanDisk Ultra card which has 30MB/s emblazoned in large letters on the front. I was rather perplexed with the slow write speeds that I got so I tested the card. I used CrystalDiskMark, DiskSpeed.exe, h2testw and Bench32.exe. The real time write speeds in Windows 7 varied enormously but were mostly less than 10MB/s and averaged 4 to 5MB/s. The ONLY write speed result from all the tests that I carried out was 10.07MB/s from CrystalDiskMark. Needless to say SanDisk say that this single marginal and isolated result means that the card is within specification.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
> ...


I was looking at a bad source on the 25MB/s for Class 10 - you're right about it being 10MB/s minimum. The more important factor is the bus speedhttps://www.sdcard.org/consumers/speed/bus_speed/, which is limited to 25MB/s, I believe, assuming the 5DIII has a "High Speed" bus interface:
https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/speed/bus_speed/

I'm not surprised about Samsung - they and Sandisk are the industry leaders in flash memory right now. I'm not sure if there's a lot of value in running tests on your PC if you're interested in the in-camera performance, but at least it shows you what the card + card reader + PC bus performance is capable of achieving. Also, remember that the speed on the cards/packaging is a max speed under ideal "test" conditions. Personally I think the SD card slot on the 5DIII isn't of much use other than for back ups and dual recording if you don't shoot in high speed mode. You're better off spending your money on a good CF card as the performance is significantly higher in the 5DIII. 

As far as "hype", I buy Sandisk and Lexar primarily because they are tough, reliable, and perform significantly better than most of the off-brands in my testing (I have several "free" cards I've received over the years). That's not to say Samsung, Toshiba, Delkin or some of the other brands are bad (they aren't), but there are plenty of low end cards out there.

I see little point in saving money on a card (even if it has higher performance) and losing photos in the long run. It only has to happen to you once and you'll understand. In 2001, I lost an entire trip's worth of photos that I'll never get back thanks to a cheap SD card that couldn't be recovered by anyone. It was devastating and I'd have paid $1,000 for a memory card had I known I would lose those photos. I've heard many similar stories, and the vast majority of them involve a brand other than Sandisk or Lexar.


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 6, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> mackguyver, Class 10 write speed is not 30MB/s it's a minimum of 10MB/s. I have dome a lot of work testing SD and microSD cards mainly because I was stupid enough to buy a SanDisk Ultra card which has 30MB/s emblazoned in large letters on the front. I was rather perplexed with the slow write speeds that I got so I tested the card. I used CrystalDiskMark, DiskSpeed.exe, h2testw and Bench32.exe. The real time write speeds in Windows 7 varied enormously but were mostly less than 10MB/s and averaged 4 to 5MB/s. The ONLY write speed result from all the tests that I carried out was 10.07MB/s from CrystalDiskMark. Needless to say SanDisk say that this single marginal and isolated result means that the card is within specification.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
> ...



The other question to ask...is the card freshly low-level formatted? Or has it been written to previously? With SD cards, you need to low-level format (e.g. clear out all the previously written blocks) if you want to get the highest possible write speeds. Otherwise, it has to go through the ERASE->PROGRAM cycle to write, which is a lot slower than just PROGRAM if you've already performed the ERASE. CF cards too, although with UDMA7 & Trim, you don't necessarily need to do this as, like with SSDs, the camera can tell the card controller that it's deleted a file, and which LBAs, and so it can pre-ERASE those by itself.


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## mikejkay (Mar 6, 2014)

mackguyver - what concerns me is the fact that SanDisk have grasped the measured write speed of 10.07 MB/s like a drowning man grasps a straw, totally ignoring the higher speeds achieved by supposedly lower spec cards. Not the response that I had expected given their reputation and fans such as yourself.

I agree with you about duff cards, the SanDisk card that I bought was a replacement for a "fake" Adata card that I bought and whci started behaving erraticly as soon as I started to use it. I should have known better having several times had my fingers burnt buying duff flash drived and memory cards. The Adata card was sufficiently expensive to make me think that it would be genuine.

Like you I am a bit paranoid about losing photographs which is why one of the selling points of the 5DIII for me was the ability to write files to two separate cards. Pity that this function is effectively crippled! Any way, I'm off to do a low level format on my SD UHS-1 cards and then try them in the 5DIII to see if this makes and difference. As you say, the proof of the pudding is in-camera performance not in a computer.


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 7, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> Like you I am a bit paranoid about losing photographs which is why one of the selling points of the 5DIII for me was the ability to write files to two separate cards. Pity that this function is effectively crippled! Any way, I'm off to do a low level format on my SD UHS-1 cards and then try them in the 5DIII to see if this makes and difference. As you say, the proof of the pudding is in-camera performance not in a computer.



And yet again, it needs to be stated that it's not crippled. The functionality works 100%, and as designed based on the technology during the design.

There's nothing stopping you from taking the extra few seconds while it writes to the SD card before taking that 6th & 7th bracketed shots. Nothing is stopping you from that except yourself. The camera will let you take the last shots as soon as the buffer clears enough. Try it. I'm guessing the way you shoot the bracketed shots is via continuous shutter? Set it up, hold down the shutter, and at the end you'll have a pause, and then it'll take another shot (as soon as the buffer clears up).


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## mikejkay (Mar 7, 2014)

I have to say that I do not agree about the SD slot being crippled. If the camera has been designed to use UDMA 7 CF cards it should have also been designed to accomodate UHS-1 SD cards. To the best of my knowledge the two specifications came out at about the same time. (Nov 2010 and May 2010 respectively). As Canon built the ability to save file to the two cards into the camera they should have made it a realistic proposition.

For anyone following this thread, and who is interested, I have formatted my UHS-1 SD cards and this makes no discernible difference to the time taken to the number of burst shots achievable or the time taken to clear the buffer (compared with the cards formatted in my laptop).

Not to worry, the 5DIII is still a brilliant camera. Pity I can't use it properly!


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## Valvebounce (Mar 7, 2014)

Hi mikejkay.
Is that a windows 7 laptop? If so I believe that windows 7 does actually do a low level format by default, it was the first OS that I had no success recovering images with the software I was using after formatting a card, fortunately it was only a test as someone had brought this to my attention on another thread here. Try using quick format under XP if you have access to a machine running it then compare write speeds.
I know this won't change the issue you have with the write speed for burst but it may prove that it is worth doing the low level format. Or not!?

Cheers Graham.



mikejkay said:


> I have to say that I do not agree about the SD slot being crippled. If the camera has been designed to use UDMA 7 CF cards it should have also been designed to accomodate UHS-1 SD cards. To the best of my knowledge the two specifications came out at about the same time. (Nov 2010 and May 2010 respectively). As Canon built the ability to save file to the two cards into the camera they should have made it a realistic proposition.
> 
> For anyone following this thread, and who is interested, I have formatted my UHS-1 SD cards and this makes no discernible difference to the time taken to the number of burst shots achievable or the time taken to clear the buffer (compared with the cards formatted in my laptop).
> 
> Not to worry, the 5DIII is still a brilliant camera. Pity I can't use it properly!


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## ScubaX (Mar 7, 2014)

I found this discussion pretty interesting, not from all the tech stuff on the cards (I have a Networking degree, but it now bores me to tears), but rather the capabilities of the 5DMKIII, that is what really interests me. I've shot some air shows gunning at F16's as fast as I can only to rarely hit the buffer limit - and that was with a lot of shots.

So I set my 5D3 up with 7 brackets and Raw to the CF and Large JPEG to the SD card. The CF is a Sandisk Extreme Pro UDMA 7 32GB freshly formatted in camera. The SD is a class 10 Eye-Fi Pro/X2 16GB quick formatted in the camera.

I tried this a few different ways, the first time and each time I was able to easily get all 7 to both cards. Then I paused for a second after the first burst of 7 and another 7 without issues. On the final try I hit the buffer at 16 shots.

The next try was with a format again, and only to the CF and I got 21 without hitting the buffer and gave up after that.

I think its your card - or an issue with your camera, but I think more likely the card.


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## AvTvM (Mar 7, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> I have to say that I do not agree about the SD slot being crippled. If the camera has been designed to use UDMA 7 CF cards it should have also been designed to accomodate UHS-1 SD cards. To the best of my knowledge the two specifications came out at about the same time. (Nov 2010 and May 2010 respectively). As Canon built the ability to save file to the two cards into the camera they should have made it a realistic proposition.



Canon should have just put 2 UDMA-CF slots into the 5D III, rather than 2 different card formats. Most people who bought/are buying 5D III already have a bunch of reasonably fast to extremely fast CF cards. 

Absolutely no need to build a consumer-type SD-card slot into a large, pro/enthusiast-oriented DSLR like the 5D III. 

Only if Canon finally came out with a super-compact FF mirrorless cam [A7/R sized] with space really at a premium, I'd accept even dual *Micro*-SD-slots, of course UHS-*II* capable.


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## mikejkay (Mar 7, 2014)

Valvebounce - Yes, my laptop is running Windows 7. Too much trouble to resuscitate one of my XP desktops. However, I find it very curious that when formatting cards in the 5DIII for the SD there is the option of a low level format while for the CF there is no option for a low level format. Presumably the CF format is the equivelant of the Windows Quick Format.


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## mikejkay (Mar 7, 2014)

ScubaX - Good to have direct data. You are right about my CF card, it's only 300x. With this card only selected the camera will fire off 13 shots before the buffer is filled, so your Extreme Pro UDMA 7 at 1000x can only manage an additional 60%. Not quite what you would expect. I can't justify the outlay for this increase in performance, I only want to get 7 bracketed RAW shots on CF with JPEGS automatically saved to SD. I will try and borrow a 600x or 800x CF card and see if the slight improvement is enough for me to achieve this.

PS - have you tried you 5DIII in a u/w housing yet?


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## Ian_of_glos (Mar 7, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> I have to say that I do not agree about the SD slot being crippled. If the camera has been designed to use UDMA 7 CF cards it should have also been designed to accomodate UHS-1 SD cards. To the best of my knowledge the two specifications came out at about the same time. (Nov 2010 and May 2010 respectively). As Canon built the ability to save file to the two cards into the camera they should have made it a realistic proposition.
> 
> For anyone following this thread, and who is interested, I have formatted my UHS-1 SD cards and this makes no discernible difference to the time taken to the number of burst shots achievable or the time taken to clear the buffer (compared with the cards formatted in my laptop).
> 
> Not to worry, the 5DIII is still a brilliant camera. Pity I can't use it properly!



That is a reasonable point, but unfortunately Canon did not design it that way. The 5D mk3 does not support the faster UHS-1 (ultra high speed) standard for SD cards, which means that no matter which SD card you use the write speed cannot exceed 20MB/sec. What's worse is that if the 5D mk3 detects the presence of an SD card it sets the default write speed to the slower card - so the write speed of your CF card will be limited too. I shoot a lot of sports, and when I bought by 5d mk3 initially I accepted the idea that I needed two cards - in case there was a problem with one of them or so I could keep a RAW and JPEG copy of each file on separate cards. However, I was continually having problems with the buffer filling and I was not able to keep up with the action. Now I have removed the SD card completely and since then I have not had a problem. In my opinion having an SD clot on this camera is a complete waste of space - they would have done better to make two CF slots available.
I use the sandisk UDMA6 CF card which is rated at 90MB/sec. Never tried a UDMA7 card but at the moment I don't need it.


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## East Wind Photography (Mar 7, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> Valvebounce - Yes, my laptop is running Windows 7. Too much trouble to resuscitate one of my XP desktops. However, I find it very curious that when formatting cards in the 5DIII for the SD there is the option of a low level format while for the CF there is no option for a low level format. Presumably the CF format is the equivelant of the Windows Quick Format.



SD normal format just erases the file table. Each sector write must be erased first before writing. Low level format does the erase at format time thus speeding write speeds. I always LL format for camera use.

CF is different. It doesnt need to erase first...so only one format option.


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## Drizzt321 (Mar 7, 2014)

Ian_of_glos said:


> mikejkay said:
> 
> 
> > I have to say that I do not agree about the SD slot being crippled. If the camera has been designed to use UDMA 7 CF cards it should have also been designed to accomodate UHS-1 SD cards. To the best of my knowledge the two specifications came out at about the same time. (Nov 2010 and May 2010 respectively). As Canon built the ability to save file to the two cards into the camera they should have made it a realistic proposition.
> ...



Not so! The SD slot is useful to have a Eye-Fi card and/or other SD card that has MagicLantern installed 

I'm not 100% certain on the timing, but at the design & prototyping time I don't think any UHS-I hardware was available, even for testing. I could be wrong about that though. The other question to ask is, can the DIGIC handle 2 very fast cards at the same time? I'd be willing to bet that the DIGIC doesn't even have enough high-speed data lines to support UHS-1 + CF.


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## eyeland (Mar 7, 2014)

+1 for ML on the SD 
With the new .mlv module under development, one can further use the SD slot in conjunction with the CF slot for a bit more bandwidth for raw video.
That said, dual CF or a faster SD slot would have been great but as always, we can't have it all


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## ScubaX (Mar 9, 2014)

mikejkay said:


> ScubaX - Good to have direct data. You are right about my CF card, it's only 300x. With this card only selected the camera will fire off 13 shots before the buffer is filled, so your Extreme Pro UDMA 7 at 1000x can only manage an additional 60%. Not quite what you would expect. I can't justify the outlay for this increase in performance, I only want to get 7 bracketed RAW shots on CF with JPEGS automatically saved to SD. I will try and borrow a 600x or 800x CF card and see if the slight improvement is enough for me to achieve this.
> 
> PS - have you tried you 5DIII in a u/w housing yet?



The 13 shots you obtained in RAW to a UDMA 6 CF card are exactly what Canon says it will do on page 121 of the manual. I tried this again without bracketing and got 18 shots, which matches that same chart for UDMA 7 CF cards. While you may think that too is not fast enough, it matches Canon's claims. I don't see any Canon specs for writing to two cards at once, but as others have said that puts a much larger strain on the capacity of the buffer.

I would love to use my 5D3 underwater, but for now I am grounded - and the housing prices are really expensive. I also prefer video underwater and the 5D3's focus for that is not very usable when chasing after a shark or turtle and getting him in focus. My current UW system is an ancient Sony mini-DV in a Light and Motion housing. It was state of the art at one time - but SD is now just ugly in comparison to HD.


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## mikejkay (Mar 9, 2014)

ScubaX - Page 123 in mine! I should have read the manual but they make me go cross eyed. Should have spotted the data though, it is very relevant. I can imagine the bods at Canon saying RTFM.

Two points; the table in my manual gives a maximum burst of 7 (RAW + JPEG) for a pre UDMA 7 card. I can only get six shots (with a 300x card) which is the cause of my initial grouse. The second point is that going to UDMA 7, at a very considerable cost, will only increase the burst to 18. A mere 38% increase is, IMHO, not worth the candle. Worse, as has been discussed ad nauseam, using a UDMA 7 card will not make a jot of difference to the reported maximum burst of seven if the camera is set up to back up JPEGs to a SD card in slot 2.

On a maudlin note, I went from a Nik V to a Canon A95 in a housing before being ordered by my doctor to give up. If I hadn't had to give up I would probable have put my old 20D or even the previous D30 into a housing and given it a crack (and my buddy nightmares).


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## ScubaX (Mar 9, 2014)

In the table a maximum burst of 7 (RAW + JPEG) for a pre UDMA 7 cards, that applies to only the CF card - not writing to two cards but writing both files to the same card. Wasn't your issue with writing to two cards with RAW + JPEG? If it can just make 7 with one card, I don't see how it could do it with two cards.

But you now know the answer, a faster card will get you to 7 brackets RAW + JPEG to two cards while running and gunning.

I always wanted a Nikon V, until I saw video from someones Light and Motion system on a dive in the Channel Islands (Southern California) - I was hooked on it immediately. They just needed to ask "MasterCard or Visa?".


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## mikejkay (Mar 9, 2014)

You're right, again! I have decided to stay with what I've got and limit my bracketing to five shots and stick to backing up JPEGs to the SD card in Slot 2. This will still be an improvement over the 7D......and, who knows, I might get it right one day and not feel the need to bracket my exposures.

Thanks for the help.


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## tron (Mar 9, 2014)

ScubaX said:


> In the table a maximum burst of 7 (RAW + JPEG) for a pre UDMA 7 cards, that applies to only the CF card - not writing to two cards but writing both files to the same card. Wasn't your issue with writing to two cards with RAW + JPEG? If it can just make 7 with one card, I don't see how it could do it with two cards.
> 
> But you now know the answer, a faster card will get you to 7 brackets RAW + JPEG to two cards while running and gunning.
> 
> I always wanted a Nikon V, until I saw video from someones Light and Motion system on a dive in the Channel Islands (Southern California) - I was hooked on it immediately. They just needed to ask "MasterCard or Visa?".


The size of the files increases with ISO, plus for jpegs it must increase with high noise reduction.
Maybe the numbers Canon states are for ISO 100 with noise reduction to normal.


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## ScubaX (Mar 9, 2014)

My test shots were at ISO 1600 1000/2.8.

I was just looking at Canon USA for something, and noticed Canon says: "Up to 6.0 fps continuous shooting". Did they change the advertised fps at some point? That's different than my experience and the manual. I guess they are being slightly conservative to avoid disappointed customers.


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## tron (Mar 9, 2014)

ScubaX said:



> My test shots were at ISO 1600 1000/2.8.


Just as a test. Make an experiment (AEB 7 shots) with ISO 100 and exactly the same setup that failed at the 6th shot to see what happens...


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## ScubaX (Mar 9, 2014)

tron said:


> ScubaX said:
> 
> 
> > My test shots were at ISO 1600 1000/2.8.
> ...



Me or the other Mike? I didn't have a failure at 6. But I like the idea and will give it a test run.


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## tron (Mar 9, 2014)

ScubaX said:


> tron said:
> 
> 
> > ScubaX said:
> ...


OK, sorry! I assumed you were having the problem. I thought I was addressing OP!


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## mikejkay (Mar 9, 2014)

tron - 'tis I. High ISO ight be the problem, the camera is still set up for night/indoor shooting. I will run the test at ISO 100 as you suggest. Camera is all packed up for an early start off to Spain in the morning so it will be Tuesday probably.


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