Memory card(s) for G9

Minstadave wrote:

I dont understand how you get high shooting speeds with a faster card if the buffer isn't full or am I missing something?

I don't understand it, either. Of course card speed becomes limiting factor for cameras with small buffer. However, for example in this old thread about G9 slow burst rate, no-one mentions card speed: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4370544

Then I realized that there is only one way to find out, so I did a test with SH2 mode on G9 with two cards:

• 128GB Kingston Canvas React UHS-I card (specified write speed 80MB/s)
• Old Lexar 2GB card (read or write was about 4MB/s based on my own tests back in the day)

I could not see a difference in burst speeds, it was so fast I could not reliably measure it while pointing the camera to the subject I had.

While I was it, I measured how long it takes to clear the 50 image buffer (raw + lower quality JPEG):

• With Kingston: about 39 seconds to clear about 1,3GB of data (50 images) - about 32MB/s
• With old Lexar: about 400 seconds (8 minutes) to clear similar amount of data - about 3 MB/s.*

*The card became full, but I did count how long it took to clear one image, it was about 8 seconds.

Harold66 wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

itisasitis wrote:

I own a G9, started out with just one smaller 32 GB UHS-I card and then got two 64 GB ADATA UHS-II cards. I do a lot of birds in flight photography so I require high shooting speeds.

- ADATA Premier ONE 64 GB UHS-II cards are incredible value for money and have worked flawlessly so far. I strongly recommend them.

- I 100% recommend getting two cards as it's highly convenient. You can have it write jpeg to one card, RAW to the other; video to one card, photos to the other; or as redundancy.

- I have reached significantly higher shooting speeds with UHS-II cards. This is a material improvement if you do any kind of action shooting but won't really matter if you don't.

- The buffer does clear much faster but I have never maxed out the buffer anyway.

All in all, I strongly recommend getting two of those ADATA cards.

I dont understand how you get high shooting speeds with a faster card if the buffer isn't full or am I missing something?

The camera writes to the buffer when shooting, the card speed won't have any influence apart from how quickly the buffer empties. If you keep shooting once the buffer is full then yes a faster card will allow faster shooting speeds, but before this it shouldnt make a difference.

You need to investigate a little bit . You do not seem to be knowledgeable on the subject

Harold

Care to share your superior knowledge rather than just being flippant? It's not very becoming.

A camera has a fixed bandwidth to its buffer. The speed of the card it's writing to won't change that until the point the buffer is full.

I've not come across anything to suggest suggest the G9 can use the buffer and the SD bandwidth in combination. The usual flow is in serial - data from the camera to the buffer then from buffer to card via the SD card bus.

Once the buffer is full the speed of the card absolutely has a big effect as you can't take further photos until there's space in the buffer.

The data above seems to confirm this.

kalisti wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

kalisti wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

kalisti wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

Interceptor121 wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

Interceptor121 wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

rurikw wrote:

I'm sure this has been covered but a quick search didn't yield quite the answers I hoped for so would be grateful for any advice. I'm on the verge of buying a used G9 for 799€ and trying to calculate total cost including necessary accessories such as spare batteries and memory cards. I'd rather not pay more than 50€/card though I guess I don't need to buy two cards just because I have two slots.

I've tried to read up on card specs but am still a bit confused. Anyway I found a card on offer for 40€ that seems to have quite high specs and looks like it should be sufficient, maybe even overkill for my needs. I haven't ever shot long fast bursts and only little video but that doesn't mean I might not want to take advantage of the G9's capacities in the future and the 6K mode looks interesting.

The card is a Lexar Professional SDXC 250MB/s XCII V60 U3 C10 . How would you experts rate it? For comparison I might mention a Sandisk Extreme 150MB/s XCI V30 U3 C10 for 19€ which I guess just might be sufficient(?) but saving (2x?)21€ and then run into speed limits or just not taking advantage of the G9's potential doesn't sound very clever. Both are 64GB. Never came close to filling that on my GX7.

G9 has an odd SD card setup with really low write speeds on both UHS-I and II.

https://alikgriffin.com/best-memory-cards-panasonic-g9-a-speed-comparison/

I use Samsung UHS-I cards and they're perfect. Yes if you need to clear the buffer quickly then UHS-II is better but the G9 buffer is rarely an issue for me and the price of UHS-II cards is still nuts.

When you use a UHS-I card the speed drops. Even if the slot only write 90 MB/s when you use an UHS-I those become 45 MB/s. In addition when you download images to your PC you are also waiting longer

unless you are a casual photographer it is easy to clock 300 exposures in a short session so you wait second not minutes

Write speed only makes a difference to buffer clearance if taking stills. I very rarely fill the buffer using my G9 so the benefit to me is minimal of the UHS-II cards. Sure, if you're blasting away with high speed bursts it'll make a difference.

The faster read speeds make importing quicker but that doesn't seem a huge benefit, I'm not a pro so I'm not in a rush.

The price difference is minimal.

the camera uses the buffer for bursts and bracketing stacking etc

if you use none of those and are happy to wait you can save few bucks

128GB Samsung UHS-I is £15. Even a cheap Prograde UHS-II card is £75 and £125 for the faster one.

£41 for the uhs-ii 128gb card I have.

64GB is closer, Samsung is £9 and its £30 and £80 for the two Progrades compared.

with the price of the camera lenses etc, a £9 uhs-i card seems sub optimal imo.

The Sony Tough and G cards are even more expensive.

I dont think that's minimal. 4 times the price for even a cheap UHS-II card and almost 10 times for the high end ones.

Why does a card being cheap make it suboptimal?

thats not what I said, the sentiment being a £9 uhs-i card will not have the performance of a cheap uhs-ii card, and quoting prograde/sony tough prices seems a little misleading imo.

All I care about is how it functions. If a £9 card gives the same functionality as a card 4 or 10 times the price it being cheap is only a good thing.

4 times the price for a uhs-ii card thats double the size and higher performance seems fair, whether thats good value is up to you/the OP.

64gb version is only £22.

I don’t think my use would see any benefit. I'm sure it I was capturing hundreds if images doing action on nature pics there's a benefit.

optimal to me would be supporting the camera with a card that doesnt hinder its performance.

64GB for £22 is very cheap, can you share where you've seen that? Genuinely interested as that's a much better value proposition than anything I've seen on Amazon.

The reason for quoting Prograde and Sony is Prograde is about as cheap as you can get on Amazon apart from the nasty Lexar cards and Sony G is about the fastest you can get.

You camera can still perform entirely the same with a UHS-I card as with a UHS-II card if you're not filling the buffer as best I'm aware. Buying a UHS-II card can be an entirely pointless expense provided you're familiar with how you use your camera.

If you don't want to hinder its performance in any way then shouldn't you be buying top tier Sony G cards?

Edit:

Is this the card?

https://www.picstop.co.uk/sdxc-memory/lexar-professional-1667x-sdxc-uhs-ii-card-64gb.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw_JuGBhBkEiwA1xmbRT6IVrQ2QyQGbSBVRN6PH4LeK58cL5b114YAL9mlqT4FRKNVgwtt_BoCSVcQAvD_BwE

It's not a bad price at all but the speed comparison posted previously showed the Lexar 1000x and 2000x cards didnt perform any better than UHS-I cards and pretty awful value in that case. Not seen the 1667x tried on the G9 though.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lexar-Professional-1667x-UHS-II-LSD128CBNA1667/dp/B07NLWGKT4/ref=sr_1_4?crid=31BNYKN5GN9Z8&dchild=1&keywords=lexar%2Buhs-ii%2Bsd%2Bcard&qid=1623697033&sprefix=lexar%2Bu%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-4&th=1

I posted my results earlier with these cards, which arent nasty afaik, perfect performance (for me in the last year 10-20k pics) and at about max that the G9 can perform at, so pretty 'optimal' price to performance.

Not sure about the 1000x and 2000x cards and why the performed to badly, though whether they were genuine cards who knows.

Thanks. I struggle with the terrible threaded format of this site, maybe the 1667x isn't an issue on the G9 like its siblings.

Minstadave wrote:

Thanks. I struggle with the terrible threaded format of this site, maybe the 1667x isn't an issue on the G9 like its siblings.

so far so good, 2x 128gb going for a year and a 64gb (in the gx80) all flawless, burst modes and video modes seem to work as expected.

before testing them I assumed they'd be similar to the (lexar) ones on that website, they do seem to be one of the cheapest branded options (for uhs-ii), nice that their performance is decent.

maybe the flat view button top right might help with the forum layout? thats how I view it XD

kalisti wrote:

Minstadave wrote:

Thanks. I struggle with the terrible threaded format of this site, maybe the 1667x isn't an issue on the G9 like its siblings.

so far so good, 2x 128gb going for a year and a 64gb (in the gx80) all flawless, burst modes and video modes seem to work as expected.

before testing them I assumed they'd be similar to the (lexar) ones on that website, they do seem to be one of the cheapest branded options (for uhs-ii), nice that their performance is decent.

maybe the flat view button top right might help with the forum layout? thats how I view it XD

Yeah I tend to use flat view but then if people don't quote it's often a bit disjointed to follow that way too. Random quirk of DPR.

I'll order the Lexar and do some testing against my UHS-I cards. For £20 it's not a problem unlike some of the crazy priced cards.