We asked the camera to record both RAW and the highest quality JPEG to load it with the most amount of data. We tested how many seconds we could fire a Canon R5 at maximum framerate and resolution before we hit the limits of the buffer. The final test is the most relevant for photographers. The R5 will overheat after about 20 minutes of recording at this resolution, so if the card is able to continuously log that data for that whole time without dropping visible frames, we logged it as a “PASS.” Basically, if the card is able to record for as long as the camera is able to send it data, it would be unlikely that a photographer or videographer would find any issue with the cards in the field. In the third test, we put all the cards in a Canon EOS R5 and asked it to record at 8K RAW for as long as it could. These tests are performed with HD Tune, one of a few industry-standard benchmarks for measuring memory performance, and are shown as an average of read and write speed performance, referred to as transfer speed. The second test goes beyond peak speeds and looks at sustained speeds, which are a lot harder for memory card manufacturers to hit consistently high numbers. These tests provide us with a baseline level of performance to expect. We then filled the cards at more than three-quarters of each of their capacities and tested the speed again to make sure that adding data to the cards does not affect performance.

If a company did not provide PetaPixel with a reader, tests were performed on the ProGrade Digital CFexpress Type B and SD UHS-II dual card reader.įirst, we tested the cards with Blackmagic Speed Test to get numbers for the average peak read and write speeds that can be expected when loading and unloading data to a computer. In the case where a card manufacturer also supplies a card reader, we used paired those products together. To evaluate which cards performed best, we subjected each to a series of tests. PetaPixel will update these results periodically as we obtain more cards, so make sure to bookmark this story and check back when you’re ready to make a purchase.

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