Sony A7 V Recommended Memory Cards for the A7 V

[Tim Mayo]

I've just finished testing 50 memory cards in the Sony A7 V, 23 CFexpress Type A and 27 UHS-II SD cards.

Tested in Camera: The Best Sony A7 V Memory Cards - Alpha Shooters

In this article, I put 50 memory cards to the test in the 33-megapixel full-frame Sony A7 V, measuring real-world in-camera performance versus the label speeds. In case you are unaware, the Sony A7 V features two memory card slots. Slot one is a dual slot that is compatible with the CFexpress...

www.alphashooters.com

The A7 V isn't really pushing the cards that hard, so the vast majority of CFexpress Type A cards perform the same in-camera. The newer CFexpress 4.0 cards work just fine because the standard is backwards compatible with 2.0 devices, but there is no in-camera speed benefit to using them over a 2.0 card.

There is more of a variation in performance when it comes to UHS-II SD cards, especially the V60 rated cards. If you need to shoot to both slots at the same time, then you will always be restricted by the speed of the SD card, so it's best to go with a fast one!

If you plan to make use of the pre-capture feature a lot and shoot 30 fps, then this will eat into the buffer, so you'll probably be best going with a CFexpress Type A card to clear it as quickly as possible.

If you don't really shoot continuous bursts then a UHS-II V60 card is all you really need, unless you need faster transfer rates to your computer or want to record video in a mode that requires a V90 SD card or VPG200 rated CFexpress card.

It would be good to hear what cards people here are using, and if you've experienced any issues with them.

 

[snegron]

Thank you for testing all those memory cards! I had never heard of Nextorage cards, but I will definitely look into them now! I also really appreciate the info you provided on card readers.

Regarding the cards that I currently use on my A7c, and A7iv (also on my R6II and OM-5), my top choice are the older SanDisk Extreme Pro SD XC 1 (128gb). They are fast enough for me, since I mostly shoot stills and rarely use high speed frame rates. My A7iv came with a Lexar Professional SDXC UHS-II, but I have yet to take it out of its packaging.

My main priority when it comes to memory cards is reliability. Some years ago I had a Lexar memory card fail on me during a wedding shoot. I panicked! Luckily I was able to recover the images using recovery software. From that moment on, all I use are SanDisk Extreme Pro memory cards.

 

[Tim Mayo]

I've probably used most brands of memory cards over the last 20 odd years. The only one that failed was a SanDisk card which basically fell to pieces. Didn't stop me from buying SanDisk again though, sometimes you just have a little bit of bad luck. If I was a professional shooting everyday and abusing the cards more, I'd imagine that I would probably have a few more card failure stories to tell.

 

[Chris 3754]

I wasn’t going to say this but could not help myself; I have never had a memory card failure. There, I said it, now this weekend when shooting two hockey games one will explode in my camera .