Sony A7R V – Do You Really Need a CFexpress Card?

The Sony a7R V now supports the much faster CFexpress Type-A memory cards in both of its memory card slots.

However, because only Sony, Prograde, Delkin, Lexar and more recently Exascend are making CFexpress Type-A cards, they are still rather expensive.

Due to their high price you might be wondering whether or not you really need to use a CFexpress Type-A card?

Especially when the a7RV also supports UHS-II/I SD cards which are much cheaper per GB.

Well, although you can certainly use UHS-II and UHS-I cards, there are two instances when you might want to use a CFexpress Type-A card.

Shooting in S&Q Mode With XAVC S-I 4k (2x Slow Motion)

If you want to shoot in S&Q Mode with the file format XAVC S-I 4k, a record frame rate of 30p/25p/24p and a frame rate of 60fps / 50fps (2x slow motion) then you will need a CFexpress Type A card. The a7R V will not let you record in this specific format with a V90 card.

However, you could still record in one of the none S&Q video formats and then interpret the footage in post. You won’t be able to view the S&Q footage in camera and this is an extra post processing step, but now you won’t require a CFexpress card and you’ll also get audio since recording in S&Q does not record audio.

Burst Shooting

If you enjoy shooting any type of action then you will probably be shooting a lot of bursts. If you use a CFexpress Type-A card not only will you be able to take more shots before hitting the buffer compared to a UHS-II card, the buffer will also clear much faster.

Here are the results of my Sony a7RV in-Camera Speed and Buffer Tests using a Lexar Professional CFexpress Type-A Gold card which was the fastest CFexpress Type-A card in my tests.

Image Type	Shots Before Hitting Buffer	Time to Clear Buffer (Seconds)
Uncompressed RAW (132.8MB) – 7 fps	199	7.08
Compressed RAW (71.4MB) – 10 fps	Over 1000	< 2s
Lossless Compressed RAW L (80.1MB) – 7 fps	Over 1000	< 2s
Lossless Compressed RAW M (48.3MB) – 7 fps	Over 1000	< 2s
Lossless Compressed RAW S (37.1MB) – 7 fps	Over 1000	< 2s
JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 10 fps	Over 1000	< 2s
Uncompressed RAW (132.8MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 7 fps	65	10.78
Compressed RAW (71.4MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 10 fps	104	18.35
Lossless Compressed RAW L (80.1MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 7 fps	72	9.95
HEIF (4:2:2) Extra Fine (24.9MB) – 10 fps	771	7.90

And here are the results of my Sony a7RV in-camera speed and buffer tests using a Sony SF-G Tough UHS-II card which was the fastest UHS-II card in my tests.

Image Type	Shots Before Hitting Buffer	Time to Clear Buffer (Seconds)
Uncompressed RAW (132.8MB) – 7 fps	50	19.81
Compressed RAW (71.4MB) – 10 fps	105	21.28
Lossless Compressed RAW L (80.1MB) – 7 fps	66	12.26
Lossless Compressed RAW M (48.3MB) – 7 fps	151	7.43
Lossless Compressed RAW S (37.1MB) – 7 fps	Over 1000	< 2
JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 10 fps	143	14.73
Uncompressed RAW (132.8MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 7 fps	43	26.81
Compressed RAW (71.4MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 10 fps	84	33.05
Lossless Compressed RAW L (80.1MB) + JPEG Extra Fine (49.6MB) – 7 fps	47	18.95
HEIF (4:2:2) Extra Fine (24.9MB) – 10 fps	658	8.11

As you can hopefully see, the CFexpress cards allow you to take many more shots before hitting the buffer and clear it a lot faster.

Summary

If you want to shoot in S&Q Mode with the file format XAVC S-I 4k, a record frame rate of 30p/25p/24p and a frame rate of 60fps / 50fps (2x slow motion) then you will need to use a CFexpress Type A card.

If you like shooting continuous bursts then a CFexpress Type-A card will allow you to take many more shots before hitting the buffer, it will also clear the buffer a lot faster than UHS-II cards will allow.

If you are interested in further speed and buffer tests then I’ve tested 6 CFexpress Type-A and 13 UHS-II memory cards in my Sony A7R V Memory Card Guide.

Sony A7R V Resources