Type A memory cards

Kurooi

This qs might be a bit basic, but I have a sony A7iv and it support both SD and Type A memory. Now I know Type A memory is faster, a lot, but I also see my camera has a buffer, so it can take a burst of about 15 photos in quick succession. I don't generally need that to do more than that, I practically never hit the buffer and have the camera refuse to shoot.

Assuming the buffer is cleared,the camera just fired up, is there any extra speed then to the first, say , 5 photos? Because I do wildlife, if I shoot a brief moment of 2-3 seconds and currently get 5 photos and type A would let me shoot 8 then I want that, but if it's only benefit is past the buffer then I'm quite happy with my SDs.

Gregor Samsa

The benefit is in how quick the buffer clears. On the A7iv, you're locked out of certain camera features while the buffer is clearing (changing modes and some settings, for instance), and your max burst rate will drop once the buffer is full.

Here's a very good article on the relationship between buffer and various Type A and SD cards on the A7iv: https://www.alphashooters.com/cameras/sony-a7iv/memory-cards/

If you're not filling the buffer, you won't get any benefit from the faster Type A cards. Your camera can shoot at a max speed of 10fps (6fps if you're in lossless or uncompressed raw). So no matter what card you shoot with, you'll get that speed until you fill the buffer, then things will slow down dramatically as the buffer clears. The speed of the card will determine two things: how many shots you can take before you fill the buffer, and how long it takes to clear the buffer. In practical terms, this means how long you can keep going at 10fps for, and how long it will take to get back to shooting at 10fps.

You say you can shoot about 15 shots before hitting the buffer. From the article above, that sounds like you're using a relatively slow SD card, coupled with with one of the more data hungry file formats (Uncompressed Raw, or one of the Raws with JPEG), because even with a fast SD card, you should be able to get more than that. In fact, with the fastest SD cards (Kingston Canvas React Plus UHS-II SDXC) and Lossless Compressed RAW, you should never hit the buffer. This is the card and setup I have in my A7iii, and it works great. In my A1, I do use Type A cards, because the files are so much bigger and the frame rate so much faster (30fps) that they're a noticeable benefit.

If that's all your shooting style needs, then a faster card isn't going to be of much benefit. However, if you would like to keep that fps up for longer, than either a faster card, or dropping down to Lossless Compressed RAW, will give you more latitude.

Also note that if you're writing to two cards simultaneously (say RAW to one and JPEG to the other), then even if you have a Type A in slot 1, since Slot 2 only supports SD cards, the camera will only write at the speed of the slowest card. So you wouldn't get the speed benefit of the Type A card. So if you wanted to exploit the speed of Type A, then set up to only write to that card (and have the SD slot for when you fill the Type A, or for video).

Kurooi

At this point I owe you a few beers Gregor. Poked around the settings and it appears I had my shortcuts mapped to Hi instead of Hi+ . Much faster now of course. And indeed then switching to compressed raw (I was on Lossless) I can now very much see the effect on the buffer.

I'm going to give that canvas card a shot. Thank you so much!

Gregor Samsa

No bother Kurooi, always glad to help if I can. I would have responded earlier, only I haven’t been around the forum much the past while.

Keep an eye on Amazon’s Black Friday sales starting tomorrow for those cards if you’re inn the market for them. There might be a discount.

Kurooi

I just got one today 64GB for £46 which is not bad , happy to report on burst compressed my old card does around 25 images to hit buffer , the new card shoots 50. That's just perfect for me, cant' wait to find a kingfisher :)