SDXC in 5D3

I just started shooting my 5D3 and decided to try SDXC, even though I have a significant investment and inventory of fast CF cards. I bought a "Lexar Professional 400x 128 GB SDXC UHS-I Card LSD128CTBNA400" from Adorama for US$129 and it seems to be OK. The reason I'm motivated to go this way rather than CF is that my new Macbook Pro Retina has an SDXC slot built-in and I don't need to carry a CF device in the field. I'm not a speed demon in terms of FPS (but I do shoot RAW+JPG) so I don't really need anything that fast. It sure is far more convenient in terms of transferring!

One more thing. The 128GB is huge. I'm thinking of buying another one of these.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

What kind of thoughts are you looking for?

I just bought an SD for my 5D3 for backup reasons. Just a 16GB Lexar for $20 from B&H. CF cards will always be faster and IMO, more durable and better to use. My girlfriend has broke two or three Sandisk Extreme SD cards because the lock switches somehow fail (she never uses them) and you can no longer use them. Very weird...

I like the CF cards myself... I use (2) 32GB Lexar 400x CF's... Plenty fast enough for the 5D3.

It sounds like the SD format works well for your workflow with your laptop. Personally, I have yet to use the SD slot in my 5D3, and have no plans to do so.

More experiences than thoughts. I have a substantial investment in professional-grade CF cards (32GB and 64GB) that I use now in my 5D2. I have to have a reader for them when I travel which is another thing to lose or break down. I can attach the camera directly via USB so that's the backup plan if I lose or break the reader but it's still one more thing to worry about when living out of a suitcase.

I have never had a problem with SD cards except for cheap ones that ended up giving data checks. Professional-grade ones have never been a problem so far. I'm just wondering if going exclusively high-grade SDXC for the 5D3 is viable. It's certainly much, much cheaper, especially for 128GB capacity. I can live with class 10 speed.

Invertalon wrote in post #14861592
What kind of thoughts are you looking for?

I just bought an SD for my 5D3 for backup reasons. Just a 16GB Lexar for $20 from B&H. CF cards will always be faster and IMO, more durable and better to use. My girlfriend has broke two or three Sandisk Extreme SD cards because the lock switches somehow fail (she never uses them) and you can no longer use them. Very weird...

I like the CF cards myself... I use (2) 32GB Lexar 400x CF's... Plenty fast enough for the 5D3.

CF cards are faster to write to than SD cards. I only use the SD as a backup in my 5D3. It's come in very very handy at times in that use.

Route246 wrote in post #14862126
..........I'm just wondering if going exclusively high-grade SDXC for the 5D3 is viable. It's certainly much, much cheaper, especially for 128GB capacity. I can live with class 10 speed.

If you can live with the speed, and the price is definitely right, where is the problem? Sounds like a win-win to me.

What is the speed difference between the class 10 sd card and a CF 400x? I know class 10 sandisk extreme has 45MB and the CF 400x has 60MB

What is the real world different in the 5d mk iii with CF? With my sandisk 16gb extreme I can get 12 raw images in a burst.

It all depends how quickly the body can write to the card, I know the 1D Mark IV can write to the CF card at a maximum of 135mbs, so I assume the 5dm3 will be faster, a CF card 1000x card will give you much better buffer clearance speed than a SDXC card