Sony A7 III Slot 1 Memory Card Recommendation

[Vajmeng]

What kind of memory cards are you all using for slot 1? I want to invest in a V-90 (up to 250MB/s) card, but i am unsure if I should purchase one. They are a bit pricey. I mainly shoot as a hobby, but sometimes capturing the moment might take a couple of burst shots. You know what I mean?

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Sony Tough 64gb V90, which has just been recalled. I'd like to shoot with the super fast cards but they are silly money at the moment, and the V90 cards are fast enough in burst shooting.

 

[Paul stuart]

I use the tough 300mb 299mb read /write in a 64gb mine luckily has a code that did not need recalling i have had to send 2 back to to where i purchased ,i got so fed i purchased a tough 128gb m 277mb read 150 write luckily the code on this was ok ,the ones i sent back came from e infinity uk ,any way has kev noted probably do not need super end card as there is at least a bottle neck on my a7r3 that limits the write speed .

 

[Tim Mayo]

Which camera? I've tested a few cards using various shooting modes in my a7 III and put all my findings together in this article:

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

Here's the summary from that article:

The Sony SF-G UHS-II (300/299) cards came out on top for speed when shooting both uncompressed and compressed RAW but Sony has discontinued these cards.

The Sony SF-G Tough UHS-II (300/299) normally perform the same but they are expensive and there also appears to be a performance issue with them when used in my a7III with firmware 3.10.

The SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II (300/260) are only a hair slower than the Sony SF-G cards and cheaper as well. If you shoot a lot of continuous bursts and RAW files these are currently the cards I would recommend in slot 1.

If budget is a concern then the Sony SF-M UHS-II (277/150) are much more reasonably priced but around 25% slower (shooting RAW) than the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II (300/260) cards.

If you prefer shooting in JPEG than RAW then the extra overhead from compressing the files really hits the write times and there is no benefit to buying the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II cards. Instead I would recommend the Sony SF-M UHS-II (277/150) or even the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I (170/90) cards as these are only a fraction slower when shooting in JPEG file format.

If you don’t shoot a lot of continuous bursts then you don’t really need UHS-II cards and I’d recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I (170/90) that came out top in my tests. I’d recommend these cards for slot 2 as well.

I’d also recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I (170/90) cards for 4k video as these are V30 / U3 rated. You don’t need faster cards for 4k video in the a7III as it supports a maximum of 4k 100Mbps which is around 12.5 MB/s.

If you record simultaneously to both slots 1 and 2 then the write speed is restricted to the maximum write speed of the UHS-I card in slot 2. So if you shoot like this often you can save money by using UHS-I cards in slot 1.

If you want to record RAW files to one slot and JPEGs to the other slot then this will also be slower than writing to a single card. There is however still a benefit to using UHS-II cards in slot 1 if you shoot uncompressed RAW to slot 1 and JPEGs to slot 2. But if you shoot compressed RAW to slot 1 and JPEGs to slot 2 there is no benefit to using UHS-II cards in slot 1.

Of course, in-camera write speed isn’t everything, the card read speed can also be very important. So if you often get frustrated waiting for files to copy from your SD cards to your computer then you might still want to go for the faster UHS-II cards simply for the faster read speeds.

 

[tkny]

I have an a7rIV and have a Sony 64G SF-G Tough Series UHS-II SDXC in slot 1 and a Lexar 128GB Professional 2000x UHS-II SDXC Card in slot 2.

I save jpeg to the 64 GB and Raw to the 128 GB

jpeg to "share" with ppl and raw for editing etc.

They are very expensive but I love the speed of these cards - especially in burst mode with birds in flight.

 

[Vajmeng]

Which camera? I've tested a few cards using various shooting modes in my a7 III and put all my findings together in this article:

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

Here's the summary from that article:

Thank you

 

[Jeff A]

I'm a new Alpha Shooter and I just popped in a SanDisk Extreme Pro - 64 GB - SDXC UHS-II. I have always used SanDisk cards and have had good luck.

 

[Paul stuart]

I'm a new Alpha Shooter and I just popped in a SanDisk Extreme Pro - 64 GB - SDXC UHS-II. I have always used SanDisk cards and have had good luck.

Good cards in performance but longevity get a tough card ,my sandisk pros have broke or fallen apart i had to glue it back together not what you want from a £80-100 card, also sandisk cards are the most copied card in existence so always buy from top retailer.

 

[Jeff A]

Good cards in performance but longevity get a tough card ,my sandisk pros have broke or fallen apart i had to glue it back together not what you want from a £80-100 card, also sandisk cards are the most copied card in existence so always buy from top retailer.

I only buy from Top Retailers. That's why my pockets are empty. But, that way, I only cry once!