5D MIV SD cards

C

chad whelan

Active member
I cannot seem to find a concise answer on this searching. Will a V30 SD card record 4K video without any issue on the M4 with the massive data rates or will a faster CF card or V60 SD card absolutely be needed? Thanks
 
What you want from trying lots is a UHS-1 V30 U3 Class 10 like the Sandisk Extreme Pro. The UHS-II which is faster isn't the spec the camera is made for. I have a few and they work but I get the overhead/bottleneck icon sometimes.
 
According to the camera's specifications on Canon's website, a V30 card (minimum sustained 30MB/s write speed) is fine for any HD video mode. However, since the camera uses MJPEG for 4K at a 500Mbps (i.e. 62.5MB/s) bit rate, you'll need a V90 card to avoid hiccups.

Other cards without a V90 rating may work, but without an advertised minimum write speed, they make no guarantees.
 
Speaking from my own experience - recording 4K onto SD cards with the Canon 5D Mark IV is unreliable. Sometimes it will work if you're lucky, sometimes you will get that "movie has automatically stopped recording" message.

It even happens sometimes when I'm recording a lot of 1080p at 60fps.

So I recommend recording onto Compact Flash cards if you're doing 4K video or lots of 1080p @ 60fps on the Canon 5D Mark IV.

I had to rush out in the middle of a shoot once to purchase compact flash cards because the SD cards kept automatically stopping recording everytime I recorded more than 5 seconds of 4K.
It was terrible.

I think it's because the read/write speed of what Canon has in there for the SD card reader can't keep up with the data rates for video.

Hope this helps. I do really like filming with the Canon, the dual pixel auto focus is incredible, and combining it with the Ronin-S is amazing.
But you gotta be aware of the quirks to work around.
 
SD cards work perfectly fine, but the 5D Mark IV is beyond picky.

Try Extreme Pros...will never fail. I have put in over 500 hours with the 5D Mark IV and 4K MJPEG and these cards have not dropped a single frame.

If I try one of my Lexars, recording only lasts for a few seconds and then stops.
 
NorBro said:
SD cards work perfectly fine, but the 5D Mark IV is beyond picky.

Try Extreme Pros...will never fail. I have put in over 500 hours with the 5D Mark IV and 4K MJPEG and these cards have not dropped a single frame.

If I try one of my Lexars, recording only lasts for a few seconds and then stops.
Click to expand...

Ahh interesting.

I use Lexar SD cards.
 
Extreme Pros work here as well... but make sure they’re the UHS-I variants. The 5D4 has been shown to be one of the cameras where UHS-II cards perform worse than UHS-I cards.
 
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