Don’t buy the wrong SD card (Memory Card Tutorial)
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
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Tony Northrup tells you everything you need to know about SD cards for your cameras. He tells you what the MB/s really means (hint: it’s often meaningless), the truth about memory card failures, whether expensive brands fail more often than cheap brands, and much more!
What we’re once my high end cards are now the cheap ones I stash for spares.
Growth!
What's your best bang for buck memory card of choice? I always go with SanDisk Extreme UHS ii
@@aight365 Currently using the Sandisk Extreme Pro. Also a fan of Sandisk products.
@@aight365 I use the PNY Elite Performance U3, and Transcend R285 U3. The latter is much faster and needed for video
@J O its not a matter of brand , but a matter of frequency.
My personal tip on memory cards is to use them, take photos, having empty memory cards for a long time is worse than a failing memory card
I'm trying to apply this attitude to my new, costly camera: Use use it and take tons of pictures, and stop cradling it like a gentle infant. Because having no pictures is worse than having a broken/worn-out camera.
Outstanding! I film with up to 30 vid cams simultaneously (non stop all day) & the micro SD cards do fail. Sticking with one personally tested brand, with identical specs for all the cards, yields consistent professional results.
It's also a generally good idea not to totally fill SD cards (or SSDs for that matter) due to the wear-leveling where it spreads the writes over the card as much as possible. SD cards in general have relatively low endurance since it is just a single flash IC vs an SSD which uses several and generally has more reserved space for endurance. In general the card brands aren't super important. What matters is write speed consistency, which some cheaper cards can't handle.
A great utility is the official SD card formatting utility made by the SD consortium. It's Windows/Mac and properly formats SD card and even secure erases them (choose overwrite format) - plus it's free to download!
A UHS-II card in an older UHS-I camera does have an advantage in offloading images with a UHS-II reader. It won't help the camera, but you can import quicker at least. :D
also a pretty important mention: reading from a memory cell doesn't hurt it, writing to it does, though
secure erase writes some data (random, FFs or 00s) to all cells, therefore decreasing their lifetime significantly, whereas regular unsecure formatting only deletes the table of contents (or file allocation tables, actually), as was said in the video, and that file allocation table constitutes a small portion of the sd card's memory, so it's safer to do and hurts the card less
@@Kitulous the definition of safer obviously changes with context...in this video, the person was talking about giving your card to someone, so overwriting it is in fact safer.
2:13: Have *_ALL_* the bokeh!
Only when you shoot wide open.
I’m going to assume the depth of field in this video is a direct response to Camera Conspiracies.
Prove me wrong 😏
f2.8 or so...highly palatable:)
Tony finally got the message.
carl porter It’s going to be different when showing objects at a macro distance as he did several times.
Well yeah but it abruptly changes at 2:13 and then back again later. ;) no hate tho, nice looking video
Y'all know that with video there is very little leeway on shutter speed, right? This shot is using natural light. The only way to maintain proper exposure is to adjust aperture. Y'all know this, right?
Chelsea and Tony are like the memory card fairies. 1) Keep one on you at all times 2) Stash them EVERYWHERE 3) Buy the right one(s)
How would I find the space to stash Chelsea and Tony everywhere?!? And where can I buy them?
Or memory fairie godparents.
Memory-doola carda-ca-doola, bibbety bobbety boo!
Stash them everywhere? That’s some supremely bad advice you’re propagating there. How can you ever know if one card, or even several, go missing? Always carry a known number of hard plastic card cases (usually only one) that HAVE EVERY AVAILABLE SPACE FILLED AT ALL TIMES. A model that’s solid, safe and secure. Yet small enough to be convenient, BUT AT THE SAME TIME BIG ENOUGH NOT TO EVER GO UNNOTICED IN A POCKET OR FABRIC FOLD OF THE CAMERA CASE. Better yet, always stored in the transparent zippered pocket found under the lid INSIDE many soft cases. That way, it’s almost impossible to misplace a card. Two cards in the camera, eight cards always fill the wallet.
If you ever spy an empty space in the wallet while on assignment..........a major red flag......and time to immediately retrace your steps to locate and secure the missing card!
I am always learning from your videos Tony. Thanks so much. I am a bird photographer and I like to use the Extreme Sankdisk SD cards, 64GB @ 90MB/s. I find one card lasts the whole day and I don't have trouble with buffering when shooting high speed flight shots. They are often on special too, which means I can buy lots of them. I like to limit the size to 64GB just in case one fails, then at least I have the other cards.
Same here, but using 170MB/s cards this season, clears buffer faster.
I use that exact card too. You are right, it really opens the camera up to its real performance and they are honest about their numbers. For me its been trouble finding cards that are up front with their Write speeds. And it turns out that the 'Class 10' rating means nothing. There's 15 mbps write speeds on class 10 cards out there. My camera wants to spit out 64mbps on video and never gave good speeds with JPEG & RAW. I remember when 64 GB wasn't even available. When it popped up, it was just too expensive. Now, it's like $9 a card. The 32 GB size is more than enough for a 2-3 hour studio shoot with JPEG and RAW. The people getting their photos taken usually run out of interest after 2 hrs anyway. The 64 GB size is gigantic. The 128 GB and beyond offer very little in benefit compared to their jump in price. There's no way I'd buy 3 back up cards per camera at $500 - $1,000 a card. Great, great card, you are so very right.
I can't stop thinking about bokeh cause "camera conspiracy"
I love the Tough cards, and while they were stiff to go in to slots at the beginning, they seem to go in a lot easier after a few days of use. I do recommend the SF-M tough cards over the SF-G, though...they are still very fast (150MB/s write vs 200 for the G), but are like 1/3 the cost.
Same. No regrets with my Tough card.
Same, got the cheaper but still fast Sony tough cards. No regrets. I once had a card fall apart from pulling it out of a camera. Never buying cheap cards again.
I've never had any issues either with the Tough Cards, especially with the fitting
Jeff Sereno me too. Tough cards are great. I have 2x 64GB.
I went with the SF-M cards too. They were tight on the first few inserts, but quickly normalized.
Yeah any card can fail. I had a supposedly reliable (and seriously expensive) XQD that crapped out. Was able to get the shots of with some special software
The good Tony is back. Was the evil Tony returned to the mirror universe?
Lol
Like Shstner in Star Trek
Hahahahaha, perfect, love this!
@@innercynic2784 Like Nimoy in Star Trek.
@@innercynic2784 Like Nimoy in Star Trek. But beards on the "evil twin" has been a stock trope in American soap operas for at least half a century.
My understanding is, if you have a single slot camera, it's better to use a collection of smaller cards like rolls of film so that if one gets corrupted, your whole trip isn't gone. If I'm planning to shoot high quality video, I'll keep a high capacity high speed card on hand for that purpose. In a pinch, it can also be my overflow card for when everything else fills up.
Two 128gb cards are better than one 256gb. Basically, I couldn't agree more with your comment.
The V30/V60/V90 ratings aren't just good for video, but also for knowing that your camera will be able to write it's entire buffer at a semi-reasonable speed without dipping below the rating. I think V30 is the minimum you want, with V60 being the sweet spot and V90 being overkill
I have a three 32 GB and two 64 GB SD cards in my camera bag at all times. Never failed me, yet
What sd card models do you recommend?
7:10 is the most helpful section.
Made in Taiwan wow nice Sony 🤗
256GB card is just a couple extra dollars, 🤣😂🤣l
Great information Tony! One little asterisk though. As you mentioned, the Sony is significantly handicapped while writing pictures to the card, but other cameras such as a D750 are not. They allow you to switch to video and record while your pictures are buffering. As a Sony user myself, I hate this and wish they'd take a page out of Nikon's book!
No way would any sensible person keep several days of shooting on the one card, what if the card fails or if it gets lost.
My only tip: *On Workflow* I got burned once by failing to do this, so... never again. The very first thing I do with an SD card now when returning from shooting is *back it up* . It should be STEP ONE. Don't review your images, don't "move" your images off the card. I have a large network attached storage but if you don't just copy the files to a spot where you won't mess them up - preferably a storage location that is independent (hard drive-wise) from your normal workspace. The backup location you choose should not be the same hard drive as your normal workspace for images - a cheap external USB drive will serve in a pinch if you have nothing else. Then you can move the files off to your normal workspace and begin working with the images.
one good suggestion i learned is dont buy the giant memory cards so you dont need multiple cards. Say you go on vacation and bring a 256gb card with you, plenty of room for the vacation. However if that card dies you lose EVERYTHING. Better to buy 4 64gb cards and just swap out so that if you do lose a card you dont lose the whole trip, same goes for a lot of shooting scenarios.
I also think that is the best way to do it. I would never trust one big card to do the job.
From my experience, if you're not shooting hardcore action or video, go with Cheap.
About the failures: I once had a card feck up during a wedding once, the camera would show "corrupted file" for every picture I took that day. I was terrified. Luckily the files were just fine on the computer but damn that was scary for a second.
@Red Nexican ;)
Were you looking for a quick getaway from the bride's mother? The scariest animal in the forest!
I have bought a cheap off brand 16 GB class 4 card and for years, no problems or anything but after a day's shoot I just copy them to an external 2tb portable drive and reformat the card. No problems since 2017
Great video idea ..! What about XQD cards & the CF Express Tony ...? Which cards are best for burst wildlife (birding) shots ...!?!? Thanks 🙏
XQD and CFexpress can also break. Physically they are more robust, similar to the Sony TOUGH Cards. But the electronics inside, the Flash and the Controller chip are as vulnerable as any other Card if electrically goes wrong.
One benefit of the "Tough" Sony UHS II cards is the absence of ribs between the contacts. I have had a standard 256GB UHS II card fail after a 2-week trip when one of the ribs became detached. I could not download a single file from the card and would have had no images from this trip. Fortunately, I was shooting simultaneously with two cards, as per your suggestion. Thank you very much for that advise! After that card failure, I now invest in the expensive "Tough" cards.
Just stay away from SD cards sold by AliExpress sellers. Most of them are fake.
I’ve had a few plastic SD cards split down the sides revealing the chip inside, I haphazardly click the shell back together but I don’t trust them very much. I can see the appeal of the ‘tough’ cards, really I’d just like a metal or carbon fibre unibody card without weak seams.
I guess I'd replace those cards at the first possible opportunity. Not worth the risk or the concern that they might not function properly.
Good video about SD cards Tony! Here’s a funny scenario I’ve ran into a couple of years ago: I was using the Canon 80D in combination with 2 SD cards: a 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS I (Read 95MB/s, Write 90MB/s according to Sandisk) and an 128GB Lexar Pro UHS II (Read 150MB/s according to Lexar). The Canon 80D having a UHS I reader, it was writing at almost half the speed on the Lexar, at about 70~75MB/s and at about 80+ MB/s on the Sandisk. Here’s the funny thing: I was using JPEGmini to compress my JPEGs when I was using RAW+JPEG and when I was doing that directly on the card, the new files would start physically on the same spots as the old uncompressed ones but since they were occupying less space, there would be gaps of free space in the card. For some reason, only the Lexar out of the two cards, and only inside the camera would take about 1 minute to save a new picture while the Sandisk would not slowdown at all! On the computer I didn’t notice any difference in performance and later on, doing the same with a 5D Mark IV I had the same results! Now with the 90D which has a UHS II card reader, I can still see a significant slowdown on the Lexar if I do the same but nothing compared to my experience with the 80D. It seems that file system fragmentation is also handled differently from manufacturer to manufacturer of SD cards. While I was testing this to see if for any reason it was the JPEGs themselves that the camera had any issues with and it was slowing down, I copied them all to the computer, I formatted the card and then copied them back to the card and the camera would not slow down at all this time which also backs up the statement for avoiding file system fragmentation, at least for certain manufacturers/models of SD cards.
Life hack(?) to all of you, feeling your card get slower? Try deep formatting instead of quick formatting your card.
what is deep formatting?
@@gosman949 Format the card on your computer and un-check the box that says "quick format". It then formats every sector of your card, not just the table of contents. No data is then recoverable when done this way.
@@billmastrippolito7132 - mostly true, but the flash block mapping function and spare block pool can still cause the card hold some data. Also, given the average flash block these days is only good for a couple thousand prog/erase cycles (or less!), doing this often will cause premature flash wear-out. It would be great if the SD cards would support the built-in "Secure Erase" seen on SSD's - quick, easy and secure.
@@tim1398 Another wives' tale I guess, is that you should always format your SD card in the camera??
@@gosman949 Format in your camera is just quick formatting. It basically hide all the file from you, you will not experience any changes in read write the card.
Not reformatting (along with never deleting single images) *until the card is full* reduces the write function stress on your memory card. Writing to the card is what causes it to degrade. If you don't reformat until the card no longer has enough space for your next shoot, then the software will write to each-and-every sector, thereby ensuring it is stressed in an even manner. Whereas, if you continually format a card, there is a higher usage of fewer sectors, because the software's pseudo-random choice of which sectors to write to will, invariably, write to certain sectors more often than others; and, with a large GB card, some sectors may never get used. So, Tony's strategy is good for extending the life of his cards.
Formatting your cards does have a positive bonus, in that the formatting software checks for bad sectors, which it marks as unusable, so giving a kind of health check. Keep an eye of the reported available storage of a newly formatted card. It will always be slightly less than the manufacturer's stated storage, even when new, but what you're looking for is a degradation over time. This is a warning indicator that tells you when the card is nearing end of life. A small degradation is ok, but when you see a sharper decrease in available storage, it's time to retire the card to less stressful duties; such as storing your music playlist.
Rick
Professional photographer & technology consultant
This is such a helpful tip! Does this apply even if writing to different folders on the card?
So I should never delete photos off my card?
@@nikitat5687 I am assuming that you keep the card in your camera, but transfer any valued images to your laptop and some online safe backup website. If that's what you're doing, and you only ever shoot enough pictures to use up a small amount of the storage on your card, I'm saying that it's probably not a good idea to routinely delete/reformat the card until you have to.
Any time you write something to a sector of the card, that's when that sector is most likely to fail. Of course, today's cards are designed to be reused over-and-over, so a sector or the whole card failing is unlikely. What I'm really warning about is the practice that some photographers have of always reformatting the card every time they use it.
What you do NOT want to happen is that the photos on a card a lost when the card decides to FAIL out of a sudden. The bigger the card, the more you lose.
Thus I'd rather carry around FOUR cards with a capacity of 64 GB than one with 256.
Ha! People have been saying that ever since card capacity was measured in megabytes not gigabytes. It's all relative. Tomorrow people will be saying the same when card capacity choice will be either 500 Gigabytes or 1.5 Terabytes
Lol you posted this video 10 min after I bought the Sony tough 128g card...
Hahaha same here. I regret nothing!
The tough cards aren't just about capacity or speed though, they are waterproof, submerge proof, dirt proof, party proof, etc. That's what you're paying the extra money for.
Can they still fail? Sure they can, but there's not a single brand that claims to be absolutely 100% reliable anyway.
Michael Kung I have the tough cards in all my cameras now, for some reason they were all “tough” to put in and take out the first couple times, now they all go in and out great. I got really tired of that lock switch getting flipped and having to take the card out and get it in just right. I don’t really get my cards dirty or wet but not having that little switch is nice, I’ve had some of the normal cards that are squishy or pop apart after heavy use and then they are useless. Hopefully these Sony cards last a lot longer.
Tony loves the attention by saying things like "waste of money" but then comes back later to say "but if you shoot action..." 😂, so it's not really a waste of money then, at least for some people 🙄
I feel happy that I'm not alone 😆😆😆
I used to have the old macbooks where you can stick the SD card in there and it sticks out halfway. I was uploading some pictures and my macbook battery was getting low so I put on the magsafe charger and laid it on it's side to keep the fan from blowing too hard and the laptop overheating. I didn't realize that I laid it on the SD card side and it snapped in half and I lost a good chunk of my files. The Tough SD is NOT a gimmick and you can never be too careful IMO
Good point.
a7III user here. I just recently bought two 64GB UHS-II cards from ProGrade. V90 rated. Replaced the 32GB and 64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I cards I was using, which are now spares in my bag. The buffer clears over twice as fast (when shooting to one card), and now I can transfer the files to my computer at about 130 MB/s instead of 88 MB/s. (I'm limited by drive speed at this point, not the card's read speed.) It may have cost me $140 on sale for the two of them and slot 2 may only be UHS-I, but that $140 was worth the speed otherwise and it didn't cost $220 like two equally fast Sony Tough cards would have.
Also there's this website called CameraMemorySpeed that's done some tests on a fair few cameras and SD cards to see how fast they write. That's what helped a bit in my decision to use the SanDisk cards at first.
Sony overpriced trash sandisk is 4x better ans cheaper 😎
When you did that survey on card failure did you happen to find out which brand had the most failures?
Lexar. Don't buy.
VIDJACK haha, Tony had a video with their SDP link to the lexar cards a while back. I have a couple because of the price and so far they work but they are backup cards. They feel flimsy.
@@VIDJACK i thought they were the best brand, sandisk is good?
Our Camera club did one for a year. We have eighty members who all bought through the club as control for that year and we all agreed to try as many brands as possible. The photographers all had their own cameras and their own interests in what they were taking pictures of and there were some noticeable trends. Anyway every brand we tried had at least one failure except one which was Samsung and we tried Sony, Integral, Kingston, Sandisk, Toshiba, Lexar, PNY, Advent, Kodak, Fuji, Transcend, E memory and Memzi to name a few. We all had to have used at least five brands in that year and the brands were evenly distributed between members. Then any failures were noted on what cameras were used and what they were photographing at the time and things like the weather and how many pictures the memory cards had through them and how they were stored. We found no discerning patterns with any of the controls we had entered except one. This was people using the drive options for bursts of pictures to capture Motorcycle racing and birds in flight. This accounted for 80% of the failures on the subjects that were being covered. All on upper level cameras with Canon being way out in front as the brand of camera but this is no surprise as 60% of the members own Canon Cameras. Failures of cards only happened to 30% of the members and two camera brands had no failures Nikon and Olympus. To be fair though outside of this I own two Nikon Cameras which have had cards fail so it is pot luck. But most important to anyone that reads this the Cards that failed more than once were all off them with the highest three fails being PNY, Integral and Sandisk all with three each. Again I have used Sandisk for a number of years and have had just one failure so I think what we generally learned from the whole experience which we entered into because of there being so much Brand loyalty displayed was exactly what Tony has just said and that is all Memory Cards can fail no matter what brand and our test suggest some uses may have a bearing on a cards failure ( sports wildlife ) but it really is pot luck.
Paul Wood Very useful. Thanks, Paul.
I have had SD cards fail a few times, no compact flash failures and no XQD cards fail yet. But the best thing is to always have backups as long as the cards are those you personally trust
How do you recover the files?
@@gabrielto4990 I don't have any real way to recover files. Unfortunately if they get corrupted you just have to hope you can reinterpret the files into a readable format. Sometimes it's possible using 3rd party programs and sometimes it's not
*DON'T DELETE SINGLE IMAGES from your memory card* because you are putting unnecessary stress (or wear) onto the weakest part of the card. SD-Cards are generally pretty tough and long lasting. What causes them to wear out is whenever you write data to a particular sector of the card. In normal use, if you keep writing images to the card until it's full, the software will pseudo-randomly choose a sector to write your image to. Therefore, if you completely fill a large GB storage data card, all of the sectors will get used equally, and what we might describe as wear is even across the card. This is good, as it'll maximize the life of your card. Whereas, if you routinely re-format a card that's only partially full, the randomisation of which sectors to write to isn't really random; it's what we term "pseudo" random, which means that some sectors will be written to again-and-again, while other sectors are never written to. You avoid this problem if you mostly fill the card before re-formatting it.
Ok, so *why you shouldn't delete single images:* the weaknesses of any digital storage media is the sectors where the Index is stored. This is where the software records where each of your images are randomly stored in the rest of the card's sectors. Unfortunately, because the Index sectors are written to every time you store (or delete) an image, the Index sectors are put under a very high stress. If writing to a sector causes wear, then the Index sectors are where card failures most commonly occur. It makes sense, therefore, to avoid asking the software to write a note saying a certain image is "deleted" when you don't have to. I know that in the scheme of things this is only a single write operation that deletes the pointer to a stored image, and that your card is capable of withstanding many hundreds of thousands of such write operations, but why do it when you don't have to? Each and every write operation degrades the Index sectors, so you're only shortening the life of the card by deleting single files. In any case, you can easily afford the minuscule storage taken by one or ten or even forty images on your high GB capacity card. It's a small thing, but it all adds up.
Finally, don't forget what I said about the storage algorithm being "pseudo" random. If you regularly only use a small portion of a large GB card, and you then routinely delete the images you don't want when you get home, you'll be exasperating that problem of not evenly wearing the whole card. It is probable that the pseudo-random storage algorithm will re-use the sector you just freed up before it moves on to using other sectors. Your best practice is to keep adding images until the card is full, then do a complete format. That way the card's life is maximized and you are also performing a bad sectors check on a routine basis.
And, don't forget to download and securely store your images after every shoot. If the card isn't full, do not reformat or delete anything. It's an additional backup as well as the best preventative maintenance for your SD-Cards.
Rick
Professional photographer and technology consultant
Thanks, Rick. Would this apply to any storage device? Spinning hard drive, SSD, floppy discs, etc.?
This is right on time, I can attest to this. Once I landed a exceptionally good interview, only to have card fill up and fail. Now I backup and carry extra cards.
Nice one ! Love the channel , keep up the great work Tony.
A local wedding shooter I know, just factors in a set of cards into his cost, and keeps them for a year at which point he archives everything
That's a really bad idea. SD cards are not ideal for medium to long term storage. If the photographer knew anything about storage he would make a backup immediately on to both HDD media and writable Blu-ray, which has a very long shelf life. Keeping them on SD card is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Not to mention the fact that he could use the same SD cards over and over again and not need a whole drawer full of easily corruptible data.
@@phaikyouser9499
Not true
For me personally, the Sony Tough Cards provide peace of mind that’s well worth the extra money. We all get in a hurry at times and end up jamming a card in our cameras at the wrong angle. Standard SD cards have that nasty little switch on the side which can dislodge after a lot of handling and potentially drop inside the camera. And there’s a similar problem with the little ribs on the back of the card which run between the contacts. At times those wear and I have had them break off, and the last thing I need is a sliver of plastic getting caught in my camera or card reader when I’m under the gun for a deadline. The Tough Cards eliminate these potential sources of workflow disruption. As for shooting multiple days on a card, that’s I suppose a personal preference thing, and certainly acceptable for non-commercial shooting; but when I absolutely can’t afford to lose work, then I get the shots off the card and onto multiple hard drives as immediately as possible. I don’t trust cards or cameras to be bullet proof enough, nor do I necessarily trust myself to keep the equipment perfectly safe, cameras get wet or dropped (or both) cards get dropped, stepped on, cracked etc.
Agree, my biggest card issue is the little ribs on back of the card break off and then get stuck in the card slot. It is just a little extra money for a tough card of equal speed.
Absolutely agreed. Everyone's use-case is different. There are plenty of "rough" shooters out there compared to the rest of us who baby our gear.
I’ve had one Sandisk Extreme break, not only the ribs but a chunk came off the side as well. That said, not only does it still work, though it is now just a backup, it was also my fault as I shoved it in my front pocket without a plastic case at a concert.
1:10 don't do that! I always come home with one mission: get those photos onto my computer. If I'd leave them photos on my SD card, maybe it will die once and all your photos of the month are gone!
Well of course! But he’s not walking around with his only copy of these files. I’m sure he also downloads everything immediately. This should be obvious to anyone. Leaving stuff on the card is only an ADDITIONAL back up copy....
What sd card do you personally use in the a7riv? Any experience comparing the speeds between the sandisk extreme pro 300mb/s and the sony tough g series?
Of all the photos you have taken in your career how many have you retained, and actually go back to look at.
TL:DW
Sports, wedding, video shooters or high MP camera? Buy fast brand name V90 cards.
Casual shooter? Old camera? Can get away with off brand stuff.
You will know yourself if you need backup cards. Duh.
DO format your card if it’s an old or very cheap card. It causes less fragmentation. Newer cards have much better wear leveling firmware on board.
tough card isn't a marketing gimmick. I use trough card in dash cams, when I used regular cards they fail almost always within a year, after switching to tough card, they are 2 years at least and still going, no errors no bad footage.
A dash cam is subjected to extremes in temperature, where a camera usually isn't. You are comparing two separate uses and devices.
@@mikezupancic2182 true. But Tony here labeled as gimmick. While it made little sense for an average shooter to use tough card in digital camera, the card itself is useful in other applications such as dash cam. So it shouldn't be called a gimmick. Also, I think the card is useful if the shooting is under extreme conditions such as high heat or extreme low temperatures.
@@sweetpoison5341 even that is incorrect. The temperatures in your car in the windshield will always far exceed any temperature you will be shooting in for 99.99% of the people. For photographers, it is a gimmick.
@@mikezupancic2182 i agree with you that most (I would say less than 99.99% but still more than 80%) photographers don't need tough cards in their camera. but here is the thing, it's still maybe 1% less likely to fail due to external reasons ( temperature, blunt force, x-ray?). Let say you accidentally leave your memory card in a hot car in the middle of summer, or in icy water, it just gave you that much protection against those accidents. Think of it as a little insurance policy, since price wise it's not much difference,(maybe ~$20 diff. for a 64Gb card?), I know what Tony said about the chance of even the cheap card failing is small but from my personal experience, I have had cards fail with less than 100 cards that I've ever had from multiple card brands. Once the card fail there is no other means to revive them, you just have to throw them out along with your content is some cases, so if a tough card can give you any extra protection for not a lot of money, I would say it's worth it. besides, it's choice not a mandate. If you don't want to pay extra, it's your choice.
@@sweetpoison5341
Some replies are confusing physically tough cards, built well and unlikely to be harmed by even the most ham-fisted careless of users, like the Sony Tough range, with 'high endurance' cards which have a greatly increased capacity to be overwritten again and again.
These high endurance cards are more likely to be average-performance micro-SD cards which are the suitable alternative to ordinary micro-SD cards especially designed for continuous video loupe shooting, being overwritten hundreds of times, such as in dashcams and surveillance cameras.
And I still use CF cards.
I only buy 4 GB cards. If I can't get the shoot in 70 shots or less with no cropping or editing then I'm a rank amateur. - Moose
Moose shoots RAW but says he does not crop or edit. Why does he shoot RAW?
If you try to use a UHS one card to record In canon log it won’t be usable. I’m having this problem right now with the canon R6. I used a UHS one instead of the UHS II And I cannot transfer the footage into Vegas pro 17 to edit because he doesn’t understand it because I think information is missing. So I have to buy a UHS2 card to prove that I’m right. Something to look into. Thank you Tony and Chelsea.
Been shooting for 15-years on both cheap and high-end cards, and NEVER had one fail. How does this happen? I don't know a photographer where this has happened.
You're very lucky! Just read through the comments here and you'll read some horror stories.
Hey tony! I shoot in a lot of snow/mush and the tough cards are a must. Fumbling with gloves means I drop cards sometimes. I’ve dropped them in puddles and had them get buried in snow and they still work.
Gimmicky for 80% of shooters I think. But not for me!
Perfect example of why there is a variety out there. We all need to match our equipment to our needs.
Working in news I go through plenty of memory cards daily, they travel a lot and exchange hands a lot. I've mostly used the traditional highspeed sandisks cards but time and time again they fail structurally. Either they split open at the seam or the little switch brakes off. This happens probably at least to 3-4 cards a year. Which may not sound like a lot but when every job is a day turn it is very crucial to have reliable cards. As a result i've found that tough cards are a great value for me. Also I find the lock switch completely useless and annoying when it locks the card unintentionally. If you need to lock a card just put it back in the individual case that it came with and tape a "Do not use" on it.
99.9% of normal people just want to take photos and videos.
Talking about a few seconds faster or slow no one cares, you never mentioned any cards by name, you video is only about selling your junk books
I currently use a Lexar professional 64GB UHS3 card in my Nikon D5600 and also it has 2 numbers written on it 1000x and 150mb/s and as far as burst shots go, it 's writing speed can stay ahead of the buffer i shoot at full 24,2MP so files of about 15mb but it keeps up with the camera and i can shoot 3,6k photo's with the card, and that is plenty, i always transfer the photo's to my computer after every day of shooting
Very very very important topic. we use 3x sony a7iii for photography and video. we use always use the two sd card slots for extra back up. 128gb 150mbs cards. sandisk. looking to get faster ones.
Hi, I’m am not into video so much, so what card do you recommend for taking PHOTOS ONLY in Raw and maybe video in HD ? Thx. This is for the R5 and R6 and I don’t want to buy cards that are several hundred dollars but want a fast card
You are not meant to be regrowing the beard Tony.
Let your freak flag fly, Tony! lol
I’ve had cards, multiple, physically break. It’s usually those plastic ridge/rails at the top. The tough cards don’t have them and seem to work well.
When I got my D610, I borrowed the backup card from my D500, which had the UHS-II 299mb/s speed. It was overkill for the D610. So I bought dual UHS-I cards that are 95mb/s; which is the maximum speed supported by the D610. Thus far, I haven't had a single issue writing to either camera at instantaneous speeds. Although, the D610 is slow to bring up pictures on the viewfinder.
Hi, I'm also trying to not waste money with my sd card. For when recording movie internally on the Z6 ii, what is the maximum read and write speed that I need?
Like your video. Good production too! Bought a new 128GB SDXC card today for my old 2010 Lumix super zoom FZ35. Still a great camera. MIcro Center brand. Maybe this crazy cameral does not like the card: Keeps telling "Insert SD Card Again" or similar. I thought I would have to format the new card in the camera. Cannot get to a formatting screen. Can't get past the initial error message.
Maybe I got a card that is incompatible with this old camera. I bought the wrong card. MIcroCenter is about 1.5 hours from me too. Great . . .
5/29/2024
Great tutorial, Tony, and as usual, one designed and delivered at the right pace…along with pitch-perfect reiterations and helpful emphasis in order to meet the cognitive needs of the average viewer, i.e., hobbyists, non-engineers. Thank you!
One question about the Sony camera featured in this old video: Where did you find such a beautiful, leather case and strap?
I recently purchased a Sony a7IV and would like to protect it from occasional dings, dents and scratches that are an unfortunate possibility even with treating this beautiful “tool” with the loving care it deserves.
Hope you can help.
Best,
Will
Great advice ,thanks. everything Sony makes is fantastic ..right up until it isnt. The whole reason i got the three year extended warranty on my Canon is Sony.
I bought my first SD card back in 2007. It was 4GB Transcend. It was for my new camera. Snapped a lot of photos and video. I was still using it in 2011 without issues, when I upgraded to a 8GB card. I also bought a Samsung microSD 32GB in 2013 for my phone and I still have it and was using it just a week ago, I'm surprised it's still working, because I used that extensively over the decade.
I can't remember if a card ever failed on me. I have plenty of HDD failing just in last couple of years.(avoid Seagate like the plague)
ive actually physically broken 4 sd cards, dont ask me how, they just come apart.
i recently got this tough one and imo they're great
Having the dual memory cards is such a big deal, as well as having one on hand. I was shooting a dance event last month and my memory card failed half-way through. Luckily I was able to recover the photos and they had another guy doing video, but that was pretty embarrassing. I've invested in 2 awesome cards and have 1 backup that I will definitely bring with me next time, just in case.
(Nikon D500, w/SanDisk CF type B, 128g, and a Sabrent 64 gig USHII).
The only card failures I've had have been physical failures: The ribs between the contacts have broken or the write lock has broken. So I have been buying slow Sony Tough cards, which remove both points of failure I've actually suffered.
Great video...question, what memory cards do you recomment for the R5/R3? I do not do video as I focus more on portrait and landscape photography. I have regular cards for my RP and my trusty 7D. Any advice recommendations is appreciated. Keep up the great work.
Your Video's Are So Much Help !! Think For Taking The Time To Make Them..GregM From EXPLORING DARKNESS.
I buy only scandisk microsd for 4K and use them with adapter in most of my equipment and never have issues
You two are the best photographers I learnt so much from you guys Matt from England 👍👍👍😄😄keep up good work
don't forget that the cameras have also a LIMITED speed of wrighting to a memory card - so You don;t need a SUper fast card when You have a old camera - abother way to make a better use of You monay.
I put my money on SanDisk Extreme PRO
Those are probably the best but damn so expensive when you need 512GB or more.
Those are fast cards but my team broke so many of them we had to switch to tough cards. (The first thing to go are the lock tabs)
I don't know if this is true but I've heard that memory cards and batteries are a lot alike in terms that they should not be completely filled to the max.I can see how the read and write speed could be beneficial in terms of the camera writing the files to the card as well as copying the files from the card to your computer. Also I've heard that some cameras won't even allow full functionality if the memory card is not fast enough. Meaning such as 4K capability.
With seperate spots having different performance potential I would still get two UHS II cards. If I need to do a quick card change the last thing I need to be doing is having to make sure the correct thing is in the right hole - that is reserved for other activities than film and photos!
i was in Istanbul 2019 2 sony a6500,, both expensive cards cards failed ...no names ..so i had to hunt down new cards i ended up in a phone shop ..they only had micro cards the name i've never heard of before .but on the bottom in small writing ...microsoft...10 uk pounds each..now almost 2023 still going strong..
Hi , I bought a used Panasonic lumix dmc fz 100 .....no manual.....it's an older model like 2010 ....but I want a memory card I can video about 2 hours worth video footage 🤔
You said 'unless it is securely formatted which is never the default option.' From my research Sony uses low-level formatting with the Sony a7r series cameras and it's the only therefor the (default) formatting option. This writes 00’s to the entire card and overwrites all data making it unrecoverable... Have you taken images with the Sony a7r series cameras then formatted the card in camera then later successfully recovered those images? If so I'd like to know how you did this, thanks! :).
Sony doesn't write zeros--which isn't that secure with flash anyway since there is over provisioning. Sony sends a command to the controller. The data is probably still in flash cells, but as far as the controller is concerned it no longer exists.
@@QuietOC Thanks Matthew for that information. So how would you get the data back in that case after formatting the sd card in camera with the Sony a series cameras, have you tried this and been successful? I have managed it with Canon cameras but not with Sony. Which controller are you referring to the one on the sd card or card slot interface? Also if you could point me to some relevant documentation on that controller process Sony uses with their cameras, I would be very grateful? Thanks!
I was just going on what I was told by LC Tech Support Services in an email back in Feb 2016 (I left out the images from email and it was the a7rii...) -
'from LC Tech, we spoke on the phone about your formatted card in your Sony A7S camera.
As you couldn’t see any files recovered in the RescuePRO scan, the card may have been low-level or destructively formatted. This writes 00’s to the entire card and overwrites all data making it unrecoverable unfortunately.
As discussed, scroll to about 5% and onwards and see if there is any data (as shown below) or if it’s all 00’s from that point.
Ok download this our best tool:
FILERECOVERY 2015: You can check for sure with FILERECOVERY to look if any data is on the card or if it is all zeros:
Select the drive (DISK) in the drive list (make sure the size is about right). Then, continue and select ‘DISK tools’ then continue and select ‘View Disk’. This will let you look at the drive forensically, scroll down on the right a small way and see if there is any data showing. Scroll down half way too etc. See if any data shows (numbers and letters).
This is showing a drive with data like this: An empty drive would look like this: If there is data showing go back and run one of the scans to see what is recoverable. Let me know how it goes or if I can assist further.'
:).
What's the point of using an expensive 35mm camera any more? Now EVERYONE has a camera at their fingertips......their so-called "Smart Phone". It can do nearly 90% of what a 35mm camera can do.
Tony.... Why are you so close to the camera .... It's weird buddy... Back up a smidge for us??? I love you though bro... Def appreciate the quality content 👌
Funny thing… I’m shooting with cheap €22,- 128gb Micro sd cards with a adapter… have done about 1.000.000 Photho’s in my life as an professional photographer. Never had a failure… nowadays I have a canon R6 and I can shoot raw burst of 140-180 photo’s… (in my professional life I’ve never had made more than 15 photo bursts/ had more than 50 in buffer) and it was professional working time on some cheap sd-cards… it al depends on the writing speed🤷🏼♂️ if I do jpeg (just did is once for a test, I shoot raw🙃) I can just hold the button until the card is full. Witch is pretty useless in reallife.
Side note: I have done some research about the writing and reading speeds, 90/170 and the cards are from a well known company like SanDisk, Samsung etc
Personall, I don't think huge capacity cards are a good idea. Why? If one big card fails, you're in a bad spot. OR... if you lose a nearly full large capacity card... well, it could be a whole days' work.
Better you use smaller cards and more of them. Perhaps, do one subject on one card. If you have one subject on one card and the card fails or gets lost, you have lost one project only.
In the film days, I did not keep all of the film I shot in one place for the same reason and I don't do that with cards either.
Losing a whole days work, no matter the reason would be a nightmare.
Let me get this straight...you do not format your card because you want to carry it as a working backup?
You are in the wrong business my friend. And I strongly disagree with your memory card opinions. Good lord... please dont give bad info based on the way you use cheap memory cards as having any weight next to what us real professionals use.
The number one place sd cards get abused as by accident washing machines runs. Your comments about formatting and the photos still being there are laughable. You have been watching too much tlc or discovery fbi tv.
For your own good, pretend you never watched this video and get your information from somewhere else. Anywhere else for that matter... wow.
p.s. using one memory card for a major shoot at 256gig is about THE dumbest thing I have ever heard. Lose that card and you are screwed . You even tell us this after you say use one card! wtf are you talking about ,hahaha and who in the hell ever uses the locking mechanism? 🙈
I just bought a Sony XQD sd SC II card reader for my Nikon D850. I have Sony 128 GB XQD card and a 128 GB extreme pro 170 mb San Disc and finding that the secondary slot San disk card is screwing up my windows explorer on my new Dell XPS desktop PC when I put it in the Sony card reader but there is no problem when I put the San disk card directly into the card slot on the PC. The card reader has no problem with the XQD card. As far as I know the card has been properly formatted. All this points to a faulty Sony card reader but has anybody else had this problem?
Also note that there is complete bullshit written on cards because it matches theoretical requirements. Long time ago I had a card with read speeds above 30 MB/s, which was stated many times on package; but write speeds were below 3 MB/s.
If you really need specific speeds, it is always better to google test results before buying ANY storage device. Manufacturers can lie or at least hide numbers behind marketing terms. For example, I've had USB stick labeled as "USB3 high speed" standard with writing speed lower than 2 MB/s. But yes, it was compatible with USB3 (like anything else).
I no longer remove cards from the camera, I use a cable to the camera: I noticed that Sandisk SD cards were scraping the edges of the slot and shaving particles of plastic off. I changed brands after I noticed
im looking memory card for my 1st camera. But this is my problem for canon m100. I want to buy sandisk extrme but im also afraid that extreme card will useless bcz m100 cant perform 4k.
Lexar really sh!t in my mouth on a shoot once. It was a V60 card and should have been overkill for my R10, but it quit working with a message saying that I've exceeded the bit rate for that card! Hanging my head in shame I got my ProGrade V60 equivalent and had no problems thereafter.
I've had issues when writing raw + jpeg and then only removing the raw files. After this, my card seems busy and acts weird. Has anyone else had this issue? Thanks.
You clearly don't know how sd cards works 🤣🤦♂️ the 5$ card will struggle in hot and cold weather. But I guess you don't shoot anymore, only for UA-cam views.
Buy the little bit more expensive catd, and be sure to get your shooting with you home. Buy the cheaper, and there is 50% chance you might lose everything!
I have even bough really expensive OEM industrial grade SLC chip cards, again, complete waist of money, and the MLC, and TLC which is the norm completely useless.
Can you please help? I need a memory card for a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX200V but I don’t know what will work. I want to record video in its highest quality
My old camera uses CF cards. I'm thinking of getting an adaptor for micro SD cards.
I auto backup to Dropbox and Onedrive when I put card in pc.
I need some help. I have a Cannon Rebel t3, it is saying "no SD card" (as if it isn't reading) but I can insert it into my laptop & it will read. could my card be damaged? I've saw somewhere that that could be my issue.
Hello Tony. Can you help me with something? Newbie here. You used for some time an Canon EOS 7D, as I do. I just upgraded the lens to a 400 mm f/5.6 prime and my CF card doesn't take more than a 5 frame burst! I love bird photography. What is the best card for me? The one I use is ask 32GB Kingston CF Ultimate 600x. Please help. Thanks Diogo
Wait, WHAT?! Those 'TOUGH' SD cards being hard to pull out is a result of its larger size? I thought I had a poorly manufactured card!!!
The corrupt bug 5:50 is real. Canon 60D had this issue when you attempted to delete photos in camera when close to max capacity of the card. It's the only time a card has ever failed on me.
I'm one of those you mentioned Tony! We have a review of Samsung EVO plus Micro SD released a couple of weeks ago. Hope u see it too. Thanks!
Delete pictures on memory card: Nikon doesn´t make it: With a D810, that is not too long ago, I lost a hole trip to Buenos Aires. I deleted single images in camera and at the end all the pictures were lost. Later on I could reproduce the error and already developed an strategy, how to recover the lost images. Hacking type like. With smaller losses. Nikon don´t know to manage it. I never more will trust in this process and prefer to transfer all the obsolet pictures to the computer and delete them there.