CF express question

[Adam Palmer]

I was wondering if I got a single CF express card and wrote the raw photos to the CF card and JPGS to the second slot if I could have almost instant buffer clearing.

Right now I can shoot JPG to my fast SD 300 mbs cards and almost never see the buffer fill up.

The reason I am interested in this is because I shoot weddings (stills) and I have started offering some video coverage as well. I find that I will shoot off a burst of still of something like the first kiss. They are still kissing so I think to myself I could get little video clip of this for them but I have to wait a few seconds for the buffer to clear before I can hit record.

I know 2 CF express cards could solve this but the thought of spending 1000 on two CFE cards seems a little much.

 

[AlephNull]

I was wondering if I got a single CF express card and wrote the raw photos to the CF card and JPGS to the second slot if I could have almost instant buffer clearing.

Right now I can shoot JPG to my fast SD 300 mbs cards and almost never see the buffer fill up.

The reason I am interested in this is because I shoot weddings (stills) and I have started offering some video coverage as well. I find that I will shoot off a burst of still of something like the first kiss. They are still kissing so I think to myself I could get little video clip of this for them but I have to wait a few seconds for the buffer to clear before I can hit record.

I know 2 CF express cards could solve this but the thought of spending 1000 on two CFE cards seems a little much.

Yes, two CFeA cards is the easy solution, but they should not cost you $1000. That’s assuming you are getting the 160GB cards. Where I’m buying cards, Lexar have been offering the 160GB cards for a little over half the price of Sony, and Sony offered a promotion recently selling theirs at a reduced price for a while.

Sony also brought out M series CFeA - supposedly a little slower, but bigger - if they bring out a smaller M card, that could be good for you.

Or you could put an 80GB CFeA in the second slot - that would hold a lot of JPEGs, and cost much less.

 

[Adam Palmer]

80gb in the second slot is a great idea. Is there anyone in the forum that has both a CFE and fast SD that could test it?

 

[Bill_A]

I was under the impression that the (A1) buffer would clear only as fast as the slowest memory card - regardless of the slot used.. I will be interested to learn more from anyone who has used different cards as described.

 

[panther fan]

Writing JPEGs to the SD card is just as fast as writing JPEGs to the SD card currently. So just test out how fast that is. And if that is fast enough for you

The slower slot dictates the overall completion time.

The RAWs on the CFexpress card should clear at the same, or a faster rate. (Depending on the ISO)

 

[LenRivers]

If you shoot a quantity of weddings maybe take the total cost needed $1000 and divide it by number of weddings and increase your fee accordingly.

It can be calculated in to what you charge to shoot the wedding , your editing time fees, travel expenses, what you charge to deliver the final images and wedding album. It could be an increase to the engagement shoot etc

 

[Hawkmooon]

80gb in the second slot is a great idea. Is there anyone in the forum that has both a CFE and fast SD that could test it?

I don't have a CF-E so can't help you....but you can do a pretty good test yourself by having your camera write JPEGs to both slots simultaneously (instead of RAW+JPEG). That will give you the idea of how fast the buffer would clear if you were to switch to CF-E for RAW and keeping SD for JPEG.

 

[Impulses]

I was under the impression that the (A1) buffer would clear only as fast as the slowest memory card - regardless of the slot used.. I will be interested to learn more from anyone who has used different cards as described.

Yes, but, JPEGs are much smaller than RAWs so they'll write much faster. It's not that both slots are automatically throttled to the speed of the slowest card, it's that the camera can't finish what it's doing until it's finished writing to both and if one holds things up then they both might as well be as slow as possible.

JPEGs on the slower card wouldn't necessarily hold up the faster card much tho... Since they're a fraction of the size.

 

[Cory Benton]

I was curious since you asked this question. I tried it out just now with a cfexpress sony 160gb and 128gp prograde V90 card.

- Shooting a burst of about 20 (HI Drive) with compressed raw written to the cf card it clears almost instantly.

- Shooting the same burst with the raws written to the cf and jpeg fine written to the sd card. I noticed a good 1.5 - 2 seconds or so for it to clear.

- Same as above, but with jpeg set to standard. It was maybe a little quicker.

I do not have 2 cf cards to test both slots, but if i were you and a wedding depended on it I would vote 2 cf cards.

 

[mkfed]

I would invest the $1000 in 2x Angelbird 1TB CF express cards, those are bigger than any card you have now, faster too and you will never fill them up during one job. Or just buy one for $500 and use your existing CF card for jpeg

 

[Mr_Win]

IMO, you are bringing in too much complexity. Record high quality video (using higher shutter speed similar to stills) and export the frame. Switching from one to another….. just not worth the trouble.

 

[AlephNull]

IMO, you are bringing in too much complexity. Record high quality video (using higher shutter speed similar to stills) and export the frame. Switching from one to another….. just not worth the trouble.

One of the reasons for shooting RAW to one slot and JPEG to the other is for backup against card failure. Your idea does not offer that backup. Worse, it does not offer the quality of RAW images, either.

 

[Mr_Win]

IMO, you are bringing in too much complexity. Record high quality video (using higher shutter speed similar to stills) and export the frame. Switching from one to another….. just not worth the trouble.

One of the reasons for shooting RAW to one slot and JPEG to the other is for backup against card failure. Your idea does not offer that backup. Worse, it does not offer the quality of RAW images, either.

1. Nobody cares

2. You can dual record video

The video portion likely more valuable, don’t put it at risk for “image quality” which means little if you miss the opportunity fiddling around.

 

[Adam Palmer]

I was curious since you asked this question. I tried it out just now with a cfexpress sony 160gb and 128gp prograde V90 card.

- Shooting a burst of about 20 (HI Drive) with compressed raw written to the cf card it clears almost instantly.

- Shooting the same burst with the raws written to the cf and jpeg fine written to the sd card. I noticed a good 1.5 - 2 seconds or so for it to clear.

- Same as above, but with jpeg set to standard. It was maybe a little quicker.

I do not have 2 cf cards to test both slots, but if i were you and a wedding depended on it I would vote 2 cf cards.

I think I can live with 2 seconds for a year or so until the CF card price drops

Thanks!

 

[Adam Palmer]

IMO, you are bringing in too much complexity. Record high quality video (using higher shutter speed similar to stills) and export the frame. Switching from one to another….. just not worth the trouble.

Yeah-- I could pull frames from the 8k video. I may test that quality and see if anyone notices.

 

[Adam Palmer]

I'm testing out the exascend 120gb card right now. I have put it through some read write tests on my PC so next step is to try it out in the real world. 460 ish writes and 600ish reads in my usb C card reader.