# Continuous burst speed on 5D3 with new Lexar 1000x



## Northstar (Feb 18, 2014)

I recently bought two new Lexar 1000x 150 mb/s - 95 mb/s(write) cards. I had(still have) two SD CF Extreme pro 95 mb/s. (45 mb/s) cards.  I wanted to see if there was much difference between the two when shooting action.

I did a simple high speed FPS test between two CF cards on a 5d3 to see how many shots could be taken before the high speed continuous shooting slowed down....shooting large RAW, one CF card in the camera.

Result...There was no difference between the two cards for 6fps burst shooting... I fired continuously until each started to slow/stutter....it happened at about 30 total shots for each.

I will note that when downloading to the computer, the Lexar was much faster.

Just an observation....hopefully this helps someone with their buying decision when looking to upgrade cards.


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## Deleted member 91053 (Feb 18, 2014)

The 5D3 will simply not write fast enough to stretch either of those CF cards. It is only when you get to cameras that will write really fast that the top cards show their benefits (unless you are in a real hurry to download to your PC). 
I did a rough test on my 1DX and found that the Lexar 1000x 32Gb card gave me just over 50 RAW files before it slowed, my Transcend 400X 16 gb card gave just over 30. Naturally the Lexar is better but the 1DX has 3 processors (2 for this sort of thing) so the Lexar is much better in this camera. Conducting the same test on my 1D4 the cards made little difference, though to be fair, the buffer cleared a bit quicker with the Lexar.
I would have though the Lexar 600x or Sandisk equivalent would be the best price/speed compromise for a 5D3, though others may have better insights.


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## ERHP (Feb 18, 2014)

I never noticed a difference going from the Delkin 700X UDMA6 to the Delkin 1000X UDMA7. Here's an article I read last year on the subject though that I decided to gamble and buy the faster cards. Pays off now as I have a 1DX that can definitely use the speed.

http://blog.willshootphotography.com/2012/06/udma-7-cf-card-performance-on-canon-5d-mark-iii-and-1d-mark-iv-soooo-worth-it.html


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## josephandrews222 (Feb 18, 2014)

I am grateful for your post.

Will this card--

Transcend 400X - 64 GB Compact Flash Memory Card TS64GCF400 

--the Transcend Blue...does it have sufficient speed for the 5DMk3 when shooting RAW?

I cannot figure out whether this card is UDMA 6 or 7...

the link here--

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/666610-REG/Transcend_TS64GCF400_Compact_Flash_400x_64GB.html

...is confusing to me.


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## adhocphotographer (Feb 18, 2014)

Thanks for the info, i have a lexar 1000x and a sandisk extreme (60MB/s). I don't notice a difference when shooting (a slight edge to the lexar) but clearing the buffer and downloading there is a noticeable difference. I now use the lexar for when I do wildlife and I use burst mode, to any other time, i use my sandisk.... different tools for different jobs!


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## Northstar (Feb 18, 2014)

josephandrews222 said:


> I am grateful for your post.
> 
> Will this card--
> 
> ...



90mbs read and 60mbs write.....it should work great. There isn't much practical difference between udma 6 and 7 for most photography.

The only comment I would make is that 64gb is a pretty big card, do you need to take up to 1000 raw images at a time? 

If you do, then personally, I'd rather have two 32gb cards (for about the same price)over one 64gb card. It's always good to have plenty of back up cards available, and 32 Gb is still quite large. IMO.


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## justaCanonuser (Feb 24, 2014)

Northstar said:


> I did a simple high speed FPS test between two CF cards on a 5d3 to see how many shots could be taken before the high speed continuous shooting slowed down....shooting large RAW, one CF card in the camera.
> 
> Result...There was no difference between the two cards for 6fps burst shooting... I fired continuously until each started to slow/stutter....it happened at about 30 total shots for each.



I added recently to my SD 60MB/s 32 GB cards my first Lexar 1000x (32 GB) and observed the same: shooting RAW my 5D3 gets more than 30 images full speed, with the SD cards only 13. So if you need speed for action its worth upgrading to such a fast card.


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