Best Memory Cards Canon 6D II – Real Benchmarks

In-Camera speed comparison between memory cards in the Canon 6D II. This guide will show which memory cards perform best and are the fastest in the Canon 6D Mark II.

Canon 6D Mark II – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto

I test each memory card inside the Canon 6D II to see how they actually perform – real-world performance since speeds written on the cards are never accurate.

Top 5 Recommended Memory Cards For The Canon 6D Mark II

The Canon 6D Mark II uses a single memory card slot that supports UHS-I cards with a maximum capacity that is not specified by Canon. Usually, you can at least use 128GB memory cards.

These are the best memory cards for the EOS 6D Mark II. Also, you will notice from the speed test that UHS-II memory cards do perform slightly faster, however, you should still buy UHS-I cards since the speed difference is not significant enough to justify the cost and the 6D II does not have UHS-II technology. Only buy UHS-II if you want to get fast file transfer speeds from your card to your computer. In that case, I would recommend the Sony M or Sony E cards.

Speed Chart

Here is the chart that shows how each memory card performed in Camera which I get by calculating the time it takes to clear the buffer against how much data is written.

USB3.0 speeds are done with Crystal Disk in windows 10.

Canon 6D Mark II Memory Card Related Stats

Canon 6D MarkII Review & Sample Photos

Frequently Asked Questions

A list of some topics that hopefully will answer any questions you have.

Should I use USH-I or UHS-II and what’s the difference?

The Canon 6D II does not take advantage of the second set of pins on UHS-II cards to run at their maximum speed. So you don’t get any speed benefit that comes with UHS-II when using the card in the camera. However, if you have a fast hard drive and a fast UHS-II memory card reader, you can cut down transfer times significantly.

This, of course, depends on your needs. If you’re a professional in a studio that needs fast transfer speeds then this might be something to consider. If you’re just an average Joe, I recommend going with UHS-I memory cards.

What do all the numbers and letters on the memory cards mean?

All the numbers and letters on memory cards have to do with speeds, like UHS-II or UHS-I, but also minimum speeds.

If you see U1 or U3, this means the card is capable of running at a minimum speed of 10MB/s with U1, or 30MB/s with U3. They’re now starting to use V30, V60, and V90 as a new format for listing these speeds.

What size memory card do I need?

I’ve always been fine with 64GB. Even when I’m shooting video 64GB has been enough for me, and I usually carry around multiple cards. I’ve never filled a 64GB card in a day of shooting with photography but I have with 32GB cards. So as long as you transfer the photos of your card every night, you should be fine with a 64GB card. 

If you shoot a lot of videos, you might want to go with the 128GB cards.

Best Memory Cards For The Canon 6D Mark II | Bottom Line

While the fastest cards are the UHS-II cards, the difference is marginal and you won’t notice it in real-world shooting. Because of this, I recommend you buy the Sandisk Extreme Pro cards or the Kingston.

There are also a lot of other great cards by Sandisk, Samsung, Lexar, and other brands. If you’re not doing a lot of burst high-speed photography, then you don’t need the fastest card, a transfer speed of around 50MB/s is going to be fine for most people, but I would stay away from anything slower than that. So you could save yourself some money by buying one of the other brands, or a lower-class card.

Considering video in the Canon 6D II, you won’t need the fastest card either, because the 6D II doesn’t have a very high bitrate like the Canon 5D IV does. I tested all these cards for video performance in the Canon 6D II and didn’t run into any issues.