DP2 Quattro to SD card write speed

joshualutz wrote:

Hello! I have not been able to find out at what maximum speed the Sigma DP2 Quattro camera writes files to the SD card. Is it worth getting the faster and more expensive SDXC cards, or is this just overkill. Has anyone noticed a difference in write speeds between SDHC cards and SDXC cards? Thanks.

Joshua,

Look for card reliability and not necessarily speed. Each image takes about 8-10 seconds click to finish. For the interval settings I mentioned at 10 seconds, the writing of the image completes just before the next click.

The may well be a difference among cards of different speeds when I comes to uploading via a card reader. Again, I think the card reader is far more important than the card in terms of speed. I have a Firewire 800 reader for some cards and a UsB 2.0 for others. The former is twice as fast as the latter.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner wrote:

Apsphoto wrote:

I don't know the speed, but I have not noticed a difference using 45mb/s cards or using 95mb/s cards, so it can use the cheaper cards without a penalty.

On my Quattro, my Sony 64GB U1 40MB/s card, takes about five seconds longer to write an image than does a Sandisk 32GB U1 95MB/s card.

Some of that could be the brand but I just thought people should know there was a very notable difference between some cards.

Any update on user experiences with this?

First, I buy SanDisk or Kingston as they seem to be the most reliable and have given me the best performance.

Second, it pays to reformat your cards periodically. I reformatted all my cards - a dozen or so and my older ones had substantial decreases in write times.

I shoot mainly SanDisk 95mbs with Quattros. I measure combined processing and write times. I.E. times from pushing the shutter until the write light goes off. Here are some figures:

Times: 95 mb/s 5-6 seconds; 80 mb/s 8-10 seconds; kingston 60 mb/s 7 to 9.

Hope this helps.

rick decker wrote:

First, I buy SanDisk or Kingston as they seem to be the most reliable and have given me the best performance.

Second, it pays to reformat your cards periodically. I reformatted all my cards - a dozen or so and my older ones had substantial decreases in write times.

I shoot mainly SanDisk 95mbs with Quattros. I measure combined processing and write times. I.E. times from pushing the shutter until the write light goes off. Here are some figures:

Times: 95 mb/s 5-6 seconds; 80 mb/s 8-10 seconds; kingston 60 mb/s 7 to 9.

Hope this helps.

Thanks - that's helpful. In the DP2Q am using a Sandisk Ultra 64 GB ( ) and was wondering if the camera is capable of processing faster than that particular SD card can write data:

From your info, it seems that indeed there is some speed to be gained from spending more on a card. I guess the question becomes: "how much is 5-7 seconds worth"?

joshualutz wrote:

Hello! I have not been able to find out at what maximum speed the Sigma DP2 Quattro camera writes files to the SD card. Is it worth getting the faster and more expensive SDXC cards, or is this just overkill. Has anyone noticed a difference in write speeds between SDHC cards and SDXC cards? Thanks.

Jashua, I use one of these for my DP1Q;

SANDISK #SDSDXPB032GA46 Extreme PRO SDHC 32GB UHS-II up to 280 MB/s read

I previously purchased the 16GB version for my X-T1 and it has been excellent in terms of reliability and the speed of getting the images off the card using this card reader;

Sandisk Extreme PRO Card Reader - External (SDDR-329-A46)

So far, having shot about 8000 images, the 32Gb card has worked perfectly. I just erase the images in the camera not on the computer, and I have reformatted the card a couple of times in camera.

The super speed card doesn't seem to make any different in user experience over i suppose a 95MB/s card, but I certainly enjoy the speed I get when reading the images into the computer.

By the way, the computer is probably the limiting point for data transfer. I have a newer iMac with a Fusion drive, and the card reader brings in a hundred images in seconds. Then when i copy the folder to an external USB3 drive, it takes several times longer. So be warned that unless you have a really fast computer it probably won't make any difference.

Finally, there is the processing time of SPP, which doesn't get any faster, so it may all be a moot point.

I use the dos formatting which is (most likely) the slowest (start-cmd-format x:). I have not tried it off windows explorer or in-camera

I just start taking photos.  I was surprised how much formatting could help.  Not that it helped with all of them and I did about 12 cards.  But with some of the cards I was bitching to myself about performance and those were the ones that were improved significantly.  The max size card I  have is 16GB and most are 8.  I haven't gone much larger as I don't have the need.

R

rick decker wrote:

I just start taking photos. I was surprised how much formatting could help.

Yes, but what sort of formatting are you talking about here ?

joshualutz wrote:

Hello! I have not been able to find out at what maximum speed the Sigma DP2 Quattro camera writes files to the SD card. Is it worth getting the faster and more expensive SDXC cards, or is this just overkill. Has anyone noticed a difference in write speeds between SDHC cards and SDXC cards? Thanks.

Since this seems to have wrought a bit of controversy, here is the rule:

Best formatting practice is to do it in the primary computer you use for the images. This makes sure that the computer will read the card - highly likely if you know what you are doing, in any case - and leaves the camera up to writing. If the camera will not write - try a test shot - it will ask for reformatting permission. Try it there, but just make sure that the computer will read it by taking one shot. The latter is also highly likely but not as certain as suggestion one.

All of this excitement is far less relevant than 20 years ago, when formatting was closer to rocket science than common procedure.

Finally, it appears that the Q cameras respond better to faster cards than was previously the case in other Sigma cameras .

http://www.computerhope.com/formathl.htm and I use the default parameters.

Laurence Matson wrote:

Since this seems to have wrought a bit of controversy, here is the rule:

Best formatting practice is to do it in the primary computer you use for the images.

Surely this is incorrect ?

Accepted best practice is to format the memory card in the camera that's going to be used to take the pictures ?!?

Unless of course we are discussing doing wholesale block erasure of the flash memory chips to restore 'from the factory' performance.

But I'm not sure if that is what indeed is being talked about.