High speed memory card & buffer

Can anyone vouch about the more expensive high speed memory cards? I would like to know if the buffer on my 7D2 will clear out faster (RAW format) shooting in high speed continuous. I could care less about transfer speed from camera to pc, only buffer speed.

Thank you for any advice & if you have a link to any tests, that would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't seen any reports specifically for the 7D2, but I have seen conflicting reports with regards to earlier cameras, and it appears to really depend on the cards involved. My 7D does lose out on a shot or two during high speed bursts with one old card I had, but I don't notice any difference between the different Lexar cards I normally use (Which appears to be because they're all actually faster cards than the 7D write stream anyway)

I've seen some posts online claiming that there is no impact, but I suspect this may be due to poorly reported card speeds more than anything, or people mistakenly testing with cards that are all faster than the body write speed.

Personally I like high speed cards simply for the high speed read after the fact.

Here is a little reading for you.
http://www.cameramemor​yspeed.com …st-sd-cf-card-comparison/

I have both the Lexar and Sandisk and have no issue with either.

JJD.Photography wrote in post #17727544
Can anyone vouch about the more expensive high speed memory cards? I would like to know if the buffer on my 7D2 will clear out faster (RAW format) shooting in high speed continuous. I could care less about transfer speed from camera to pc, only buffer speed.

Thank you for any advice & if you have a link to any tests, that would be greatly appreciated.

I cannot say anything specific to the 7d2 but...
It does make a difference. When I had a 1000D, I had a low end slow card in it. I couldn't figure out why it kept buffering so often. Then I looked at the speed and it was very low (can't remember exactly) and I went and bought a 32gb 90mbs card and never had the problem again! It made a night and day difference for sure.

Read this and this.

I worry more about A) The cards reliability not to fail
And B) Never using anything slower than 60Mb write and 80Mb read.
While perhaps a lower card would do,
I can say from experience after using a faster card to batch files
Going back to a slower card is painfully slow.

I recently ordered two 128Gb SD cards and plan to use them both in my camera and my Mac.
6D can't write that fast, but my Mac's 3.0 is able to save me time writing to them.

I ended up buying CF 1066X & SD 1000X Lexar Professional cards. My current cards were a variety of slower cards that would average 21 or 22 RAW bursts before the buffer would fill. The time from starting the burst to the buffer completely clearing ranged from 22-48 seconds.

The CF 1066X grabs 27 RAW files and can have the buffer cleared in 8 seconds on a 7DII!
The SD 1000X grabs 23/24 RAW files and buffer cleared in 10 seconds on a 7DII!

I did some panning of cars passing on a highway. Never came close to filling the buffer! I'm looking forward to shooting a local race event later this month. Now, I need to decide if a 64 & 32 GB card will be enough. I did buy the multi pack, but the wife will be shooting as well It's going to be painful if we fill the cards and have to resort to the slower ones. I'll most likely order more high speed cards. Anyone have the SD 2000X Lexar Professional? Wonder if there is even faster performance?

Thanks for all the feedback!!

I always recommend the larger card option because even if you don't use it right away six months or a year from now you may be wanting a larger card.

I went from a couple 8Gb card on the T4i to two 32gb cards.
Within 3 months I regretted and swapped to 64Gb and just last I order two 128gb cards at a good price.

Not I will keep 64 and 128 cards between my Mac and my cameras.
(Used for file storage in addition to pics)
(Formatted in exfFat and never formatted inside my 6D, works perfectly)


Buy once and be done.

As far as the 2000x speed, that is for transferring batches of files to your computer.
I believe it is using their required special reader to achieve those speeds.

I know Sandisk offers 280Mb/s SD cards but require their reader because of the extra set of pins on the card.

I am a little concerned with the "too many eggs in one basket" with the 128GB+. The 7D2 captures about 1900 RAW files with a 64GB card. But, with the buffer clearing so quickly I'm sure the card will fill rather quickly with circuit car shooting. I'll probably order another 2 pack of 64GB 1066X CF. I will still have about 200GB of slower cards on hand, which I hope to not use.

Since I'm not concerned with upload of pics to pc speed I'll pass on the SD 2000X cards. Thank you for the feedback.

Card testing software can be reassuring, and it's difficult to lose a card that's in a camera. I test my cards every year or so - they last well if you buy quality.