New 300MB/s Sony SD cards almost as fast as SSDs. Time for RAW video on Sony and Panasonic cameras?

[Andrew Reid]

It's definitely possible, so where is it?

Read the full post here

[Mattias Burling]

Maybe a A7iii at NAB?

It will of course cost your soul plus one million in gold

[Andrew Reid]

If you are reading this PR people... IMAGINE THE MARGINS!!! GOLLDDDD

[JurijTurnsek]

Sony needs offer the option of XAVC-S at more than 100mbs first, then RAW.

[Liszon]

Ehh, what Sony forgets to mention in the headline grabbing campaign is that the card is still V30 meaning the minimum sequential write speed can easily drop to 30MB/s. Even the upcoming GH5 400Mbps firmware will need V60 at least and that's far from raw. At the moment only Delkin makes V90 cards, offering a 90MB/s minimum speed.

[zerocool22]

That would be the day, but I think they are holding RAW back because of the higher up camera's. It would make higher end camera's obsolete for me and a lot of others.

[hoodlum]

The Lexar 2000x supported a max. write speed of 260mb/s in 2015.  Tests have shown this write speed to be attainable with a card reader.  The problem today is that cameras are still not able to take full advantage of this write speed with the E-M1ii and D500 topping out at 163mb/s.

http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/sd-cards/lexar-professional-2000x-uhs-ii-64gb-sdxc-memory-card/

I am not sure if this is a processor limitation or card hardware interface limitation.  But considering the very similar results results between the E-M1 and D500 it looks like they are using the same hardware to read/write to the card.  I suspect there are only a couple of 3rd party companies supplying this hardware and that is where the limitation lies.

[Guy Calaf]

I'd be very happy if sony will offer 10bit 1080p even if at 24p on their new mirrorless. A very deep HD would be enough. A treat if they can pull a 4k image 10bit, but HD is enough for me from such a little camera. I love my a7rii for backup and stills but the picture from my FS7 is another world from what you can get now with the 8bit of the A7 series. 

[theSUBVERSIVE]

Sure, they could offer that but I doubt. I mean, marketing 1080p RAW is not as appealing as anything 4K, they probably don't think it's worth it. But it didn't need to be now, if BlackMagic is using SD cards to record 4K ProRes HQ with their 4K recorder, that's more than what is needed for their 1080p CinemaDNG RAW, so this argument could have been made quite earlier.

[Juxx989]

Hmmm... Wonder if I can use this memory card  for better performance on my NX-1 Hack... It goes up to 300mb but even with an sandisk extreme pro it can only record 1-2 secs until disc write failure... I but now can get it to run 200mb continuously though   

[tungah]

So, what is the right way to write it? RAW or raw?

[sanveer]

1 hour ago, hoodlum said:

The Lexar 2000x supported a max. write speed of 260mb/s in 2015.  Tests have shown this write speed to be attainable with a card reader.  The problem today is that cameras are still not able to take full advantage of this write speed with the E-M1ii and D500 topping out at 163mb/s.

http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/sd-cards/lexar-professional-2000x-uhs-ii-64gb-sdxc-memory-card/

I am not sure if this is a processor limitation or card hardware interface limitation.  But considering the very similar results results between the E-M1 and D500 it looks like they are using the same hardware to read/write to the card.  I suspect there are only a couple of 3rd party companies supplying this hardware and that is where the limitation lies.

I am NOT sure this figure is correct. The D500 does 14-Bit RAW with a file size of  25MP photos at a burst speed of 10.2 fps. That's 255 MB/s.

The maximum transfer rate cannot be measured with SDXC Cards. They are much slower than the XQD standard. 

 

[dbp]

From reading about cards when trying to shoot raw on the pocket, I think minimum speed is often the bottleneck. Many have a fast enough max speed, but dropping below the minimum even for a moment is bad news. 

[Window_Frame]

This is exciting news! Can't wait to see what Sony does with their next generation of cameras. Already saving up for a7sIII

[Andrew Reid]

2 hours ago, tungah said:

So, what is the right way to write it? RAW or raw?

RAWis correct.

[Jimmy]

Sorry to be the pedant... but it is Raw or raw... not RAW... RAW would be used if it were an acronym.

No once cares though, so use what you want!

[Emanuel]

Nope. rAw, RaW, raW, rAW or yet RAw like IMDb, no other :-P

[hoodlum]

4 hours ago, sanveer said:

I am NOT sure this figure is correct. The D500 does 14-Bit RAW with a file size of  25MP photos at a burst speed of 10.2 fps. That's 255 MB/s.

The maximum transfer rate cannot be measured with SDXC Cards. They are much slower than the XQD standard. 

 

Yes, the XQD results are much faster but that just confirms the limitation is not CPU but the camera's hardware interface to the SD card.

http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/nikon-d500/sd-and-xqd-card-speed-test/

 

[sanveer]

11 minutes ago, hoodlum said:

Yes, the XQD results are much faster but that just confirms the limitation is not CPU but the camera's hardware interface to the SD card.

http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/nikon-d500/sd-and-xqd-card-speed-test/

 

Actually, I feel, even the SD II (or SD III) Standard will hit about 500MB/s. Which should be more than sufficient for most DSLRs. If they ever made a medium Format Camera that does like 100MPs @ 10fps at 14 bit RAW, then it might fall short.

For video, though, 400mbps = 50MB/s. So to be safe, anything over rated 200MB/s (write speed) should be sufficient, I guess.

[mercer]

By owning and running a very popular blog for professional, enthusiast and hobbyist videographers, you should reach out to Nikon and suggest they include Raw video on their upcoming D750 successor.

Based upon the semi-recent news from Nikon hacker, we know that Raw video is at least possible with their hardware/software.

I believe the D500 shoots 12 & 14 bit Raw, so these new cards should be more than fast enough for at least 12bit Raw.

Since Nikon has zero high end video products to protect, they may be the perfect fit for the first prosumer camera to include Raw video...

Unlikely they would take a chance on it, but I bet you could get an ear to listen and argue your case.