Sony A7 III Hi Guys ! SDXC 200mb vs 300mb speed

[Dimdev]

Hi guys !
i am a new member and totally a rookie. last 3 years i came in the world of backstage Video as my wife is a professional photographer on fashion world.
In about a week i will receive a new Sony A7iii. My first camera ! Few times i used my wife’s camera and i found out that i need to have mine.
I would like to find out the difference on a memory card SDXC 128GB 200mb and 300mb speed.
Price is like 4 times bigger of 300mb and i think there is a reason behind this.
thank you

 

[AlphaWorld]

With SD cards there are THREE speeds to care about, but they are not always clearly shown. There is the READ speed which is usually significantly higher than the WRITE speed. Unfortunately some companies only show the read speed on their cards, because it's a higher number. The third speed to think about for video is the SUSTAINED speed - some cards can write at a speed for a period, then there's a drop - perfectly fine for stills, but for video you need to be able to maintain a speed or your video will stutter - for video look for one of the video ratings like the V30 / V60 / V90 rating.

The cards rated at 300Mbps read are often rated for quite high write speeds - Sony's Tough G range are rated 300 read, 299 write, for example; another brand says 300 read, 260 write. By contrast, a number of the cards rated for around 200 read are rated for much lower write speeds (210 read and 95 write, for example).

When do read and write speeds matter?

Write speed is what matters in the camera. Well, when you are taking one photo at a time, you generally don't have to worry much. It's when you are shooting a burst of stills at maximum frame rate that the write speed matters. You shoot 20 frames, and then wait for them to be written from the camera buffer to the card. On a card with a fast write speed, the buffer clears quickly, and you can shoot your next burst. Slower write speed? Longer wait.

When you get home, and want to look at your shots on the computer, that's when read speed matters - put the card in, start downloading, go make coffee! With a fast card, the images may all be downloaded when you get back. I have a love of fast read speeds for that reason - I'm impatient and I do sometimes take a lot of photos...

One last consideration is that the higher rated and more expensive cards may be built to higher quality standards.

My personal preference is Sony Tough G cards - not cheap, but very reliable, and designed to withstand mistreatment. Note that Sony make two ranges of Tough cards - the G range are the fast ones: rated at 300 read / 299 write with a video rating of v90. The M range are somewhat slower - rated at 277 read, 150 write, video rating v60. One of the interesting features of these SD cards is that Sony has dropped the "write protect" switch on the side of the card - it's a vulnerable point on the card where dirt and liquid could theoretically enter - as far as I can tell, these cards are solid.

Tim has written up practical tests of memory card speeds and their applicability in various Sony cameras - have a look under the Blogs & Resources tab just under the title of this site above!

 

[AlphaWorld]

You need to post more info. If possible, post an image of the cards. Your camera is 24MP, so the image files won't be huge. I've used the one below before with good success on a camera that produces larger files. As long as you don't shoot continuous bursts or 4k video, they're fine.

277 is the read speed, or how fast files on the card can be read. The 150 is the write speed, or how fast the card can accept new files (images). The V60 is the video speed.

View attachment 43769

If you don't think this will be fast enough, go to the next step up.

And the much more expensive G version of this exact card looks almost exactly the same (I have one in front of me now). The only visible differences are:

• SF-G256T instead of SF-M256T
• red G on a white background in place of the M in a square
• 300 instead of 277
• 299 instead of 150
• V90 instead of V60

It's still U3. Still SDXC II.

Oh, and it costs more than twice as much.

very easy to see why people like the OP ask "what's the difference?"

 

[Tim Mayo]

Sorry for the slow reply here Dimitris. Have you seen my Sony A7III Memory Card Guide?

Best Sony A7III Memory Cards With Speed & Buffer Tests

A guide to the best memory cards compatible with the Sony a7III mirrorless camera including in-camera speed & buffer tests.

www.alphashooters.com

What you shoot will really determine the speed of the card that you want to buy, and the most expensive don't always perform best in-camera.

If you are shooting video then the A7III supports a maximum of 100Mbps 4k which is around 12.5 MB/s. Any SD cards that are rated v30, v60, v90 card will be perfectly fine. Just make sure they are SDXC which are 64GB and higher in capacity. Cards labelled SDHC are 32GB and smaller will break video files into 4GB chunks which creates more work in post.