Sony A9 - two card slots but no overflow?

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Cheers, g

nomnomnom wrote:

Graham Hilling wrote:

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Overflow is not possible with the A9. Not only that, you have to change your recording card slot when it is full AND you also have to change the playback slot otherwise you won't read from where you shoot.

This is as nonsensical as omitting losslessly compressed raw. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of well done implementations of dual cards, and have been for years.

Jim

JimKasson wrote:

nomnomnom wrote:

Graham Hilling wrote:

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Overflow is not possible with the A9. Not only that, you have to change your recording card slot when it is full AND you also have to change the playback slot otherwise you won't read from where you shoot.

This is as nonsensical as omitting losslessly compressed raw. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of well done implementations of dual cards, and have been for years.

Jim

It sounds like sony's bizarre hubris again...like their stupid hotshoe...they decide to do things differently.

Graham Hilling wrote:

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Cheers, g

I haven't found a way to get it to automatically overflow. But I only tested one time and the second card may not have been formatted first if that makes a difference.

JimKasson wrote:

nomnomnom wrote:

Graham Hilling wrote:

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Overflow is not possible with the A9. Not only that, you have to change your recording card slot when it is full AND you also have to change the playback slot otherwise you won't read from where you shoot.

This is as nonsensical as omitting losslessly compressed raw. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of well done implementations of dual cards, and have been for years.

Jim

Is there some kind of intellectual property that they're avoiding or something? For example, is there a patent on a storage system whereby the data is automatically written to a second medium when the first is full? Perhaps the lossless compressed raw is also somehow patented? This is the only way it would make sense to me. It seems so trivially easy...

nomnomnom wrote:

JimKasson wrote:

nomnomnom wrote:

Graham Hilling wrote:

With the two card slots I was assuming that you could overflow from slot 1 to slot 2 but I can't find any mention of this in the manual, just how to use the slots for different purposes, eg. raw to one, jpg to the other, vid to 1, stills to the other.

Any insight into if this is possible appreciated.

Overflow is not possible with the A9. Not only that, you have to change your recording card slot when it is full AND you also have to change the playback slot otherwise you won't read from where you shoot.

This is as nonsensical as omitting losslessly compressed raw. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of well done implementations of dual cards, and have been for years.

Agree. But as far as I know, this is how all Sony cameras work. So it doesn't sound like they have "screwed up" with the A9. More like a list of things that was not looked at but desperately needed improvement.

Well, the a7x have only one slot...

Jim

sybersitizen wrote:

JimKasson wrote:

nomnomnom wrote:

JimKasson wrote:

This is as nonsensical as omitting losslessly compressed raw. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of well done implementations of dual cards, and have been for years.

Agree. But as far as I know, this is how all Sony cameras work. So it doesn't sound like they have "screwed up" with the A9. More like a list of things that was not looked at but desperately needed improvement.

Well, the a7x have only one slot...

There are four A-mount cameras with dual slots - all with poor implementation. As I said earlier: a Sony blind spot.

Gotcha. Thanks

OFremen wrote:

It sounds like sony's bizarre hubris again...like their stupid hotshoe...they decide to do things differently.

Sony's bizarre hubris? It's called the Minolta hotshoe mount because it was invented by... (drumroll...) Minolta! Way back in 1988. (For reference, Sony bought Minolta in 2006).

So, no. Not Sony's bizarre hubris, but rather Minolta's. However, I'd even argue with that choice of words, because it seems like a simple design oversight rather than anything to do with hubris. And it's not really bizarre, it's pretty natural for a feature that is only used by a marginal percentage of users to have some implementation problems.

sybersitizen wrote:

superchalupa wrote:

OFremen wrote:

It sounds like sony's bizarre hubris again...like their stupid hotshoe...they decide to do things differently.

Sony's bizarre hubris? It's called the Minolta hotshoe mount because it was invented by... (drumroll...) Minolta! Way back in 1988. (For reference, Sony bought Minolta in 2006).

So, no. Not Sony's bizarre hubris, but rather Minolta's. However, I'd even argue with that choice of words, because it seems like a simple design oversight rather than anything to do with hubris. And it's not really bizarre, it's pretty natural for a feature that is only used by a marginal percentage of users to have some implementation problems.

You're missing the possibility that OFremen was actually talking about Sony's 'bizarre hubris' in creating the Multi-Interface Shoe, which is in fact different from other well-established hot shoes. Many consider it unnecessarily and detrimentally different.

Doh, you're probably right there. However, in that case, what's the problem? The sony hotshoe works with every ISO standard flash. Is it bizarre hubris of Canon and Nikon that they have their own proprietary variations on the ISO mount that renders their flashes incompatible with advanced features when mounted on other cameras?

sybersitizen wrote:

superchalupa wrote:

sybersitizen wrote:

superchalupa wrote:

OFremen wrote:

It sounds like sony's bizarre hubris again...like their stupid hotshoe...they decide to do things differently.

Sony's bizarre hubris? It's called the Minolta hotshoe mount because it was invented by... (drumroll...) Minolta! Way back in 1988. (For reference, Sony bought Minolta in 2006).

So, no. Not Sony's bizarre hubris, but rather Minolta's. However, I'd even argue with that choice of words, because it seems like a simple design oversight rather than anything to do with hubris. And it's not really bizarre, it's pretty natural for a feature that is only used by a marginal percentage of users to have some implementation problems.

You're missing the possibility that OFremen was actually talking about Sony's 'bizarre hubris' in creating the Multi-Interface Shoe, which is in fact different from other well-established hot shoes. Many consider it unnecessarily and detrimentally different.

Doh, you're probably right there. However, in that case, what's the problem? The sony hotshoe works with every ISO standard flash.

If only that were true! There are documented examples of it not working with every 'standard' flash or with every 'standard' radio trigger system without some kind of modification.

Is it bizarre hubris of Canon and Nikon that they have their own proprietary variations on the ISO mount that renders their flashes incompatible with advanced features when mounted on other cameras?

The difference with Canon, Nikon, and other 'standard' flash systems is that they're designed with contacts in the base of the flash foot; they are not designed with contacts in extended 'toes' and a corresponding front overhang on the shoe itself. Those things have lead to physical incompatibilities with some non-Sony gear.

Don't get me wrong...I have no plans to switch back to Canon...I am quite happy with the results I get with my A7II and two FE lenses and a bunch of Godox flashes....but the hotshoe definitely sucks.  The hotshoe connections are tiny and easily get loose and don't make a good connection sometimes..and the plastic feet on all the flashes are not very sturdy like they are on nikon/canon hotshoes.   Just look at all those tiny connectors on it...I don't need or want all that extra functionality that I never use....

Of all the things sony did with these cameras, their weird hotshoe is the worst.

The dual card is to allow for redundancy. If it would overflow to the next card, there wouldn't be any redundancy. And in that case, you could just use a larger memory card on the fastest slot. 
Could it be done? I'm sure it could.

If you're recording photos to one card and video to another, you don't want the camera to start recording the images to the video card or video to the photo card. If you're recording jpegs to one card and raws to the other, you don't want the raws going to the jpeg card.
And that's exactly how all other cameras work.

The only feature missing from the sony compared to the others is one option where the camera does the overflow without separation of media or redundancy. But if you need that, wouldn't a bigger card be a better option?

You don't need two card slots for storage space. You need two cards because you either want redundancy or separation of media.