Having trouble shooting 4K 100M with your memory cards? I’ve been tackling this issue for some time and feel like I’m pretty close to figuring out what’s going on.
Before getting into it, you can see which memory cards perform best with your camera by checking out the memory card speed tests for the Sony A7S II, Sony A7r II, and the Sony RX100 IV. There are a few Sony cameras I haven’t tested that also shoot 4k like the RX10 II, but the results should be very close.
Best Memory Card For 4k 100M Video
The hot question is: which memory cards work best for 4 K 100M Video? I get asked this a lot, and it’s been a huge problem with Sony cameras. I get almost an email every day from people having problems with memory cards shooting 4K 100M on Sony cameras. Including the Sony A7rII, Sony RX100 IV and the Sony A7S II.
Requirements
To shoot 4 K 100M, Sony wants us to use SDXC U3 memory cards.
UHS-II memory cards will not offer any advantage, and SDHC memory cards simply will not work. U1 cards work sometimes.
The Problem
It’s very common for even SDXC U3 memory cards to not work. And it doesn’t seem to matter which brand you get. It’s totally random, although some brands like SanDisk Extreme do seem to have a better chance.
The problem is that people go out, buy a PNY card, it doesn’t work with their Sony camera, then forever hate PNY, say they’ll never buy them again, and give them bad ratings.
But here is what I think I’ve found.
Before you hate Lexar or PNY, it might not be your card; it’s likely the camera. Here is why!
Sony’s Still Using Old Memory Card Tech
Sony cameras still use old USB 2.0 type bus speeds to read / write to memory cards. The maximum speed you can get, even with your best memory cards, is around 31 MB/s. Compare that to the Fuji X-T1, which scores about 84MB/s, and you’ll immediately see that Sony is lagging.
Sony is the only camera brand relevant today that’s still so out of date in this regard. They have the best sensors on the planet, allowing you to shoot uncompressed on the Sony A7R II, but the buffer takes forever to clear, which completely gimps this feature. It’s like using pizza cutters for wheels on a hot rod and trying to take it to a race. It really makes zero sense, and it really nerfs their cameras.
What The Tests Show
After testing so many Sony cameras with my mountain of SD memory cards and talking to so many readers who have emailed me, I’m starting to notice something – some of my memory cards will shoot 4K 100M in some Sony cameras I rent / own, but not others.
Often, even my U1 cards work just fine, as in the last A7S II I rented, but in my Sony A7r II they don’t. I can trick them to work by using a U3 card, then immediately switching to a U1 card. But if I format a U1 card in my A7r II and try to use it without first using a U3 card, it will not work.
I’ve also seen people trick the camera into recording SDXC with a 32-bit or SDHC card. See this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-nNh-3n0g
This all leads me to believe that the SD Memory card problem when shooting 4k 100M is not the card’s problem but the camera’s. The camera simply can’t keep up with the speeds it needs, and you have to get lucky with a card that interfaces perfectly with your camera. And the only thing you can do is keep trying different cards if yours doesn’t work. Or you could try a different Sony camera altogether.
If it’s too late to return your card, you can try a few of these tricks first.
Few Tricks To Get Your SD Card To Shoot 4K 100M
First thing you should try is to clean your connectors. If it’s new, it’s probably not dirty, but just make sure there’s no lint or oil on them. Also, look inside your camera; make sure the SD Memory Card Pins look good. Sometimes these can go bad.
If that doesn’t work, reset your camera to factory defaults. It works for some people.
Take a few shots before recording video. Often, the first few shots will write to the card very slowly, but subsequent shots will record at normal speed. In my memory card speed tests, I run 5 tests per card, and it’s not uncommon for the very first test to be slightly slower than the others. And it’s not just in Sony cameras. I’m not sure if it’s a bad card or a strange connection; it seems random, but even those cards still record 4k 100M in the Sony A7S II, so that might not even be the issue.
4K 100M Not Working With SD Card Conclusions
People sharing what they learn with me has been absolutely fantastic, and I’ll continue to share with the community what I learn on this subject. The Sony cameras seem to be the only cameras with this crazy issue.
I’m not sure if it’s a hardware issue or if they could fix it with firmware, but it’s definitely Sony’s fault for putting cheap hardware into their high-end cameras, so don’t hate PNY because their memory card didn’t work for you, because it will likely work fine in every other camera on the planet.
As a side note, I sometimes get people asking me if microSD cards work. Has anyone had luck with these? I’ve yet to test them.
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