Cameras writting speed on SD cards (1 Viewer)

[DRodrigues]

I'm going to update my NEX5 to an a6000 and have to decide what writing speed of SD card I need to purchase. I downloaded the camera manual and only mentions that card must be class 4 or faster. Has I noticed very different writing speeds with different class 6 SD cards and noticed that there are different writing speeds of class 10 / XC or HC class 1, I don't know if I will gain writing speed on using a 80-90 MB/s instead of a 40-45MB/s? Both have similar reading speeds but the first cost the double of the second...
I like action on ducks, so shoot bursts often and 11fps at 24MB make me think...

 

[5bellies]

Hey Dave,

I did some testing on this with the a6000. Using first of the 50mb/s MS Pro Duo cards I found that it took around 10 seconds longer to clear the buffer over my SDXC UHS-1 card and using the class 10 card the UHS-1 card was about 7 seconds faster. I've had the a6000 a little while now and I exclusively use it with the UHS-1 card and have yet to hit the buffer firing off shots in short bursts. The other advantage, though not important to me is that when you upload your images to PC they upload twice as quick.

Hope this helps
B Lucky

Gary

 

[DRodrigues]

Thanks Gary.
Do you know the write speed of your UHS-1 card?

Meanwhile I mixed the http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a6000/7 and the medium sizes of files mentioned by Sony on the manual and obtained the following minimum writing speeds:
JPG - 24.5 MB/s
RAW - 54 MB/s
JPG+RAW - 77.8 MB/s

By the way DPreview used a 95 MB/s writing speed card and obtained 11.5 fps...

 

[5bellies]

Dave,

My card is a Sandisk Extreme Pro SDXC 64GB 95mb/s and I get about 11 fps in RAW. I'm really impressed with the combi. Now if only the camera had in camera image stabilisation!

B Lucky

Gary

 

[DRodrigues]

Gary,
Based on my calculations I purchased a Samsung Pro 32 GB, that has write speed of 80 MB/s and read speed of 90 MB/s - it costed me about half of the price of Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB 95 MB/s and was the best speed/price relation I found.
I already have the a6000 but still hadn't time to use it on digiscopy or with the astrotelescope - probably just next month - too much work meanwhile...

 

[5bellies]

Dave,

I reckon you'll enjoy the combination you've gone for. For me the difference between the a6000 and card combo, and the NEX5 is like night and day!

Gary

 

[DRodrigues]

Gary,
Based on my calculations I purchased a Samsung Pro 32 GB, that has write speed of 80 MB/s and read speed of 90 MB/s - it costed me about half of the price of Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB 95 MB/s and was the best speed/price relation I found.

After updating the a6000 firmware to the 2.0 version, I just discovered that I should had purchased the 64GB version :-C
No difference on speed but it's a XC instead of HC format. Bottom line is: - if you are looking for a new SD card choose a XC version...
My wife will be pleased of having a 32GB card on my old NEX5...