SDXC Cards
 

I bought a transcend 64gb SDXC card for my 60D. I have had no problems with it but many reviews on the B&H website say its too slowto record video without unexpectedly stopping.

Now I am looking to buy more cards 64gb or even 128gb cards but dont want to risk issues buying more Transcends. Before anyone recommends I i use cards os smaller capacities, I'd rather use 64GB plus as there is more chance of losing \ damaging a card swapping one out of a shoot in my opinion.

The is a Sandisk Extreme Pro 64gb which has high write speeds but is more or less the same price a a Lexar Professional 128GB card. Does anyone have experience with these cards?

Thanks

Re: SDXC Cards
 

I have 3 of the 16GB SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC 45MB/s cards and a 95MB/s that is due to be delivered today. The Extreme Pro series is a very much "ruggedized" version of their SDHC line, clad in steel, waterproof, shockproof and such. The write speed really exceeds what our 60D (and Rebels) need but I look at it as a bit of "futureproofing".

I've never had even a hint of a problem with older SanDisk cards, and I see way far fewer problem reports involving them or Hoodman RAW.

Transcend is probably about the best of the "bargain" brand media cards but quality control is not up to the level SanDisk or Hoodman RAW have and I see just enough problem reports on Transcend that I stick with SanDisk.

Re: SDXC Cards
 

The Canon DSLRs are not picky at all about what cards you use. I have to use SanDisk Extreme CF in my XF305 but the 5DII is quite happy with lower spec cards. I agree that the Transcend are the best budget but decent brand. The only consideration is that slower cards may work well in the camera but they do take longer to unload.

Re: SDXC Cards
 

The 60D only needs a Class 6 card for video, that's a fairly low spec. Perhaps the complaints about the Transcend SDXC are from people using them in high-bitrate uncompressed recorders or other high end video cameras.

Re: SDXC Cards
 

Transcend cards are indeed cheap but IMHO are accidents waiting to happen...thank goodness i tried both of them prior to using them for filming a wedding..one was corrupted and the other one stopped recording for unknown reasons...Now .we only use Sandisk Extreme Pro Class 6 and 10 ....never had any problems whatsoever... gladly paid the extra $$ for the piece of mind. Also not sure what your using the cards for but might not be a good idea to "put all your footages in one basket" aka 64GB card...if something goes wrong with that card, there would be a lot of footages you may lose...

Cheers!

Kren

Re: SDXC Cards
 

My 2p worth:

All of this anecdotal "evidence" that brand "X" card is better than "Y" just because they've experienced corrupt clips is highly questionable.

We did a 5 cam shoot with UK band, Madness, last week. Our lead singer CU cam - a 7D - corrupted the files on 3 of the tracks. Thankfully - and unusually - we were able to re-shoot them.

The card in question? A Sandisk Extreme Pro 16GB.

Transcend an accident waiting to happen? Possibly - although, in over a year of shooting exclusively on regular Transcend cards, I've never had a single issue - and they've had a quite a punishing schedule.

I don't know the truth about digital cards and I'm not going to pretend to.

My gut feeling is that I'm delighted with the 15 Transcend cards I've bought - they're cheap and they've been far more reliable (in "my" experience) than tape and film (oh, and the aforementioned Sandisk card - but it doesn't mean I now have an issue with Sandisk.)

If you want to eliminate risk, go and work in a library. Or you can go for the cognitive dissonance option - convince yourself that brand "X" is better and live in blissful ignorance. Works for many people - possibly because most digital cards, irrespective of brand, are actually very reliable.

My tips for any shoot - build in as much contingency time/resources as possible, shoot more than one camera when you can and use smaller cards when you can - on balance, it's going to be easier to cope with losing 8GB than 32 GB.

Ben.

Re: SDXC Cards
 

Ben,

It is not a question of which brand fails more, but that all brands will eventually fail. And in the case of these larger-capacity SD cards, reliability-wise it'a a race to the very bottom. You see, manufacturers have been switching to cheaper but less reliable NAND flash chips for all capacities (even the smallest 2GB capacity) over the past couple of years. And as someone noted, it is the newer Transcend-branded cards that have been having greater than their fair share of problems.

Unfortunately, there is no solution for this quality rot in newer SD cards regardless of capacity besides raising the cost and prices of the NAND flash chips to exhorbitant levels (say, $8,000 USD, or £5.500, per GB) and thus eliminating HD and high resolution entirely and permanently revert to low-definition (352x240p or 352x288p) videos and VGA-resolution (640x480 or 852x480) stills. And then, the cards might as well be permanently restricted to 8MB or 16MB (not GB) maximum.