Fastest SD card for SL?

[robgo2]

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My question relates to still shooting in continuous drive mode. What is the fastest card that the SL can utilize?

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

Husain Bolt is pretty quick

 

 

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[robgo2]

Husain Bolt is pretty quick

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Thanks, but I can't find that one on the B&H website.

[ramarren]

I did testing way long ago and determined that any card that lives up to the the real data transfer speed of either a Sandisk Extreme Pro (95Mbps listed on card by Sandisk) or Lexar 1000 Pro (150Mbps listed on card by Lexar) is going to be faster than the Leica SL's internal bus. In fact, I found that there was extremely little difference between these two cards, and that the write speed to the cards in the SL was about 25% of the write speeds using the same cards in my Mac mini's built-in card reader. 

 

However, I wouldn't recommend using anything slower if you're capturing using continuous drive mode and outputting raw files. The Leica SL was designed to be used with cards in this IO speed class and can have some issues if slower cards are used. 

[steppenw0lf]

I suggest you save your money. The very fastest cards are not giving you faster writes than the "ordinary" fast cards.

A card in the range of a Lexar 1000 gives you all you need (and that the camera can deliver).

(The specs are UHS-II, 150 MB/s (class 10), even 100 MB/s will be fast enough.)

[douglas fry]

I find the Lexar 1000x SD cards will write MUCH faster than the Sandisk 95MB/s, especially noticeable if I need to take a few shots in succession. With the Lexars I can more or less view the images immediately, with the Sandisk I have to wait a while with the red light flickering away (which can be a bit frustrating) - so I would stick to the Lexars, or perhaps Sandisk if they make the new super speedy cards (as generally its a preferred brand for Leica)

 

Try SDFormatter to do a big wipe and format every now and then, that seems to help with write speeds too

 

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/eula_mac/

[robgo2]

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I have been using the Sandisk 95MB/s, but I will consider the Lexar 1000s in the hope of reducing buffering times.

 

Thanks,

Rob

[amoebahydra]

Leica SL is using UHS II in card slot one,  this means the card slot has an additional data bus in addition to the usual SD data bus and as such data transfer is faster than usual SD card slot.  To make use of this feature, you have to use UHS II SD card, card with an addition row of "gold fingers" below the usual "gold finger", and on slot one of the camera only (slot two is comply to UHS II standard).

 

I am using Lexar Professional SDXC UHS II class 3 256GB card with speed of 150MB/s, I found Lexar SD cards are more reliable than cards from many other brands. Unfortunately, Lexar decided to drop the memory card line and focus on higher profit margin products.

[Irakly Shanidze]

There is also Lexar 2000x UHS-II, which comes with its own card reader and, if I remember correctly, compatible only with the lower card slot of the SL. I only use those with an external recorder, and so far this is the only card type that never skips a frame with 4K UHD video.

[frame-it]

this one right ?

 

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[scott kirkpatrick]

Slot 1 (upper) in several of the newer cameras is the one which has extra contacts for UHS II SD cards.  The lower slot has only the older single row of contacts.  Lexar 1000 and 2000 cards have the new interface.  SanDisk also makes some, but they are surprisingly expensive and still hard to find..

Edited September 13, 2017 by scott kirkpatrick

[steppenw0lf]

this one right ?

 

overkill. But if you bought it already ....

Irakly is talking about video - you about still photos.  Irakly gets his equipment for nothing - then it is easy to always take the most expensive.

 

Compatibility is not the issue. UHS-II cards can also be used in both slots (they are compatible), but they can use the extra contacts only in the UHS-II slot. In a UHS-I slot speed is further reduced.

Edited September 17, 2017 by steppenw0lf

[frame-it]

i use a single USH2 32gb sandisk card [got it free from the dealer]..seems fine

Edited September 17, 2017 by frame-it

[Irakly Shanidze]

this one right ?

 

Yes, that's the one. It is indeed an overkill for stills. The only advantage is a much faster card unload time.

[scott kirkpatrick]

The workloads on a card might be graded:

  single shot stills  easy  45 Mbps ought to do just fine

  bursts and continuous stills    the 95 Mbps Sandisk  is fine

  video at 8 bits of color (4:2:0) in-camera -- here's where UHB-II helps, but the Lexar 1000 would seem sufficient and they are cheap.

  video at 10 bits of color, over HDMI (4:2:2 ProRes) to an external recorder.  Find a recorder which records to SD cards, since the older ones record to hard disks that are expensive and hard to find.  Then the Lexar 2000 UHB-II series makes good sense.  For video this may be the future, in camera, a model or two down the road.

 

I haven't done all of this, but this is my impression of current practice.

[Irakly Shanidze]

The workloads on a card might be graded:

  single shot stills  easy  45 Mbps ought to do just fine

  bursts and continuous stills    the 95 Mbps Sandisk  is fine

  video at 8 bits of color (4:2:0) in-camera -- here's where UHB-II helps, but the Lexar 1000 would seem sufficient and they are cheap.

  video at 10 bits of color, over HDMI (4:2:2 ProRes) to an external recorder.  Find a recorder which records to SD cards, since the older ones record to hard disks that are expensive and hard to find.  Then the Lexar 2000 UHB-II series makes good sense.  For video this may be the future, in camera, a model or two down the road.

 

I haven't done all of this, but this is my impression of current practice.

 

In my experience, 95MB/s write speed is enough for 4K 4:2:2 ProResHQ UltraHD on BlackMagic Video Assist 4K to not drop frames. UHS-II Lexar 2000x write speed is twice that at least. In fact, I recently recorded a 10-bit 4K ProRes (not HQ) clip to a 40MB/s card, without dropping a single frame. It was a ballet variation with only one dancer on a dark background and did not involve anything like fast panning. I knew that it was really pushing the envelope hence tried to be super careful not to make Spiderman's style leaps. I would say that 10-bit 4K ProRes can be safely recorded at a 80MB/s write speed, while ProResHQ requires solid 95MB/s performance. Higher write speeds may be required for full 4K in 10 bit, but I do not have a recorder capable of that and therefore have no way to test whether SL is capable of pumping this much through HDMI.

[jrp]

Is there an up to date card compatibility list somewhere? The 95Mb Sandisk cards seem to be end of lifed. Lesar is no more. Etc.

[Chuck Albertson]

I use the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II 300 MB/s card in slot 1, the Extreme Pro UHS-I 95 MB/s card in slot 2. I rarely shoot high-speed bursts (or vid), it leaves me with too many identical images to sort through at the end of the day. But the UHS-II card moves images to my computer or outboard SSD much faster, especially through a USB 3.0 or USB-C card reader.

 

I use the 32MB cards for both. You can also find more info on cards here http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/ but I don't see that they've run any tests with the SL.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Chuck Albertson

[Guest]

In my experience, 95MB/s write speed is enough for 4K 4:2:2 ProResHQ UltraHD on BlackMagic Video Assist 4K to not drop frames. UHS-II Lexar 2000x write speed is twice that at least. In fact, I recently recorded a 10-bit 4K ProRes (not HQ) clip to a 40MB/s card, without dropping a single frame. It was a ballet variation with only one dancer on a dark background and did not involve anything like fast panning. I knew that it was really pushing the envelope hence tried to be super careful not to make Spiderman's style leaps. I would say that 10-bit 4K ProRes can be safely recorded at a 80MB/s write speed, while ProResHQ requires solid 95MB/s performance. Higher write speeds may be required for full 4K in 10 bit, but I do not have a recorder capable of that and therefore have no way to test whether SL is capable of pumping this much through HDMI.

 

 

I now am using a PIX-E5 via HDMI and am able to shoot 4K DCI at 24P 10 bit PR HQ without any drawback ... takes a bit of space but I have four 1Tb Speeddrive enclosures and the files are wonderful ... so much latitude in grading.

 

Prior I had a couple of small Sandisk SD cards 320MB/s in slot one and 95MB/s in slot two ... both handled 4K 8 bit internal without a problem.

 

The difference in 10 bit versus 8 bit is more than can be imagined ... and ProRES HQ can be edited so easily in Davinci Resolve Studio.

 

Bob

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[AlanJW]

I have been using Sandisk 32GB 280mbs Extreme Pro without issue.   The 280 may be overkill for stills but it is my impression the higher speed cards will also transfer faster to your computer for editing.   I believe the 280s have been supplanted by 300s.   They are not cheap but the 32G size I believe is under $60.

 

I run an identical card in the second slot, even though it will not run at the higher speeds, so that I have that card to move to slot 1 in case of a failure.