Best Memory Card For The Canon 80D

An in-camera memory card speed comparison between all the most popular UHS-I and UHS-II cards in the Canon 80D.

The Canon 80D like the Canon 7D II has some amazing features with a very robust build quality. It fits perfectly between the T6 and the 7DII. Some people might think one of the three T6 cameras is good enough, but when it comes to performance, especially memory card performance, the 80D performs much more like the 7D II.

This guide will help you find the fastest and the best memory card for the Canon 80D.

Camera Specs

Sensor: APS-C 24.2 MP / Processor: Digic 6 Image Processor

Sensor SD Memory Card Type: UHS-I

Continuous Burst: 7fps

Size of Buffer: 500MB

RAW Shots Till Buffer Fills: 25 depending on card.

Est. Time Taken To Clear Buffer: 6 seconds with the Sandisk Extreme Pro

Canon 80D – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto

Best SD Memory Cards For The Canon 80D

Unlike the T6 the Canon 80D is very good at clearing its buffer, so you’re ready to shoot again without that annoying delay. This is absolutely essential when you’re doing a lot of burst photography. 

The Canon 80D is not just fast, it’s actually one of the faster cameras out there in terms of SD memory card write speeds, even outperforming the 7D II.

Take a look

Canon 80D Memory Card Speed Chart

You can see right away the difference in speed between card brands. This is rare with many cameras out there since so many of them have built in bottlenecks. Not so with the Canon 80D.

Be sure to use the chart above to find the right card for you as it seems Samsung, Sandisk and Kingston are taking the lead on this one.

Fastest UHS-II Memory Cards For The Canon 80D

The Canon 80D doesn’t take advantage of UHS-II memory cards but they still do function. You can use them to gain a performance boost when writing to your computer with a UHS-II USB 3.0 memory card reader. 

Toshiba 64GB UHS-II  – Amazon

Lexar 64GB 2000x UHS-II  – Amazon

Fastest UHS-I Memory Cards For The Canon 80D

UHS-I memory cards offer the best bang for the buck and they perform really good in this camera with a top speed of 75.98MB/s

Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 – Amazon

Samsung Pro+ 64GB U3 – Amazon

My Personal Recommendation For The Canon 80D

Sandisk is still my favorite brand, I have some very old cards that still work great and I’ve yet to ever have a problem. But I’m also starting to really like those Samsung cards.

Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Best SD Memory Card For Video In The Canon 80D

Although shooting video doesn’t require as much bandwidth as shooting burst stills, it’s still nice to have a quick card just so you never run into a buffer issue. Really any of these top performing cards are good enough for video in the Canon 80D.  However, I would stick with the premium brands like Sandisk, Lexar, Samsung and Transcend.

Fastest Memory Cards May Not Always The Best

Currently there are several different types of flash memory on the market. Some read and write faster, while some read and write slower but are rated with more life cycles. And then there are some that are fast with a high cycle count. 

What’s this mean?

Flash memory is rated typically from 5,000 cycles with old cards to 30,000+ cycles with new cards. Some types of flash memory can even last up to 100,000 cycles. This number of course is always going up as technology improves, but it plays an important role in choosing the best memory card for your needs, especially if you take a lot of photos.

It also means you should probably retire your old cards to prevent corrupting any files on an important shoot.

I personally take about 20,000 photos a year. So if I had an old memory card that was rated for only 5,000 cycles, it could start to run into issues with corrupted shots and it happens sometimes when I’m doing these memory card speed tests even with new cards. This is why some memory cards only have a 1-year warranty. They’ll be good for high intensity use for about 30,000 shots. 

Unfortunately cards manufacturers usually don’t tell you what kind of flash memory they are using and many now offer limited lifetime warranties, so you’re stuck not really knowing how long your card can really last.

This is why I still just recommend buying the fastest memory card at a price you’re comfortable with. Especially if you consider how much memory cards come down in price every year.

UHS-II Memory Cards Will They Work For The Canon 80D?

Short answer is yes they will work in the 80D, but with limited speeds. However, if you’re a casual shooter, they probably won’t be worth the higher price.

Right now UHS-II SD memory cards are the fastest you can buy, but few cameras can take advantage of them. However, if you like to buy large cards and find yourself filling them up a lot, then those UHS-II speeds can really benefit you when it comes to transferring the data to your computer. Really nice for studio photographers.

Be sure if you do get UHS-II cards to also get a UHS-II capable memory card reader found here. 

Best Memory Card For The Canon 80D – The Bottom Line

If you want a card that’s blazing fast at USB 3.0 transfer speeds to your computer, then go with a UHS-II memory card. If you want the fastest card at the best price, stick with UHS-I. If you want a card that will last you for years, be sure to look at the warranty. A higher warranty usually means better lifetime flash cycles, which means more photos taken over the years without risk of corruption. 

For Canon cameras I usually just stick with UHS-I cards, since they’re not very expensive and always coming down in price.