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We tested all the most popular memory cards in the Canon M50. While the Canon M50 has some incredible memory card write speeds for a UHS-I camera, not all cards will deliver the best performance, even if they are fast in the camera. We found a few brands had a few hiccups or problems when filming in 4k.
Use this guide to find the best memory cards for the Canon M50 / Canon Kiss M.
Must-Have Accessories For Canon M50
Recommended Memory Cards Canon M50
The Canon M50 is a very high-performance consumer camera with a small buffer and only UHS-I compatibility. It’s important with this camera to use a high-performance UHS-I card to avoid issues with burst shooting or 4 K video recording.
Here is our shortlist of recommended memory cards. These cards ran the best and are the most likely to give you the best results.
| Memory Cards | Review Links | USB Write | USB Read | Check Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UHS-I U3 | Hide | |||
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB-1TB | Sandisk Extreme Pro 170 | 137 | 175 | Amazon / B&H |
| Kingston CanvasGo! 128/256/512GB/1TB | 124 | 161 | Amazon / B&H | |
| Transcend 300s 128GB | Transcend U3 | 79 | 91 | Amazon / B&H |
| Delkin Black 32-256GB | 86 | 93 | Amazon / B&H | |
| Delkin Advantage 128GB-1TB | Delkin Advantage U3 | 77 | 93 | Amazon / B&H |
Other Cards That Work Or Don’t Work
All the Samsung cards performed well except the EVO card; PNY, Lexar, Kingston, and Sony had issues. For UHS-II cards, many worked great, like the Lexar 1000X, Sony G (not M), Toshiba, Delkin 1900x (not the V90), Adata, Transcend, Fujifilm, and Hoodman.
ProGrade had a few issues.
The test results below are the average. When we get numbers that are wildly different, the cards are reported as having issues. For example, one burst series might read the card at 50 MB/s, then the next burst series reads at 60 MB/s. A good, reliable card won’t do that; it will be consistent all the time.
In the past, many cameras didn’t have issues with this, but now 4k cameras, or cameras that require a lot of bandwidth while shooting bursts, like the Fujifilm X-H1, can experience lockups or buffer failures.
Memory Card Speed Test | In-Camera Test Results
If you don’t like the cards above and want something else, use the chart below to find the best cards for your needs. All cards with issues are marked with sad faces.
| SD Memory Cards | USB 3.0 Read | USB 3.0 Write | Canon M50 |
| UHS-II | |||
| Toshiba Exceria Pro | 258.8 MB/s | 226.5 MB/s | 63.26 MB/s |
| Sony G | 259.2 MB/s | 234.5 MB/s | 63.18 MB/s |
| Lexar 2000x | 272.7 MB/s | 244.5 MB/s | 63.11 MB/s |
| Adata V90 | 256.5 MB/s | 231.7 MB/s | 62.26 MB/s |
| Delkin V90 | 245.1 MB/s | 164.6 MB/s | 62.21 MB/s |
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 300 | 263.2 MB/s | 233.4 MB/s | 62.21 MB/s |
| Fujifilm Elite II | 294.0 MB/s | 181.6 MB/s | 62.09 MB/s |
| Hoodman Steel 2000x | 268.7 MB/s | 183.9 MB/s | 61.99 MB/s |
| Transcend | 290.2 MB/s | 182.1 MB/s | 61.17 MB/s |
| Lexar 1000x | 147.4 MB/s | 78.4 MB/s | 54.25 MB/s |
| Sony M | 253.2 MB/s | 91.62 MB/s | 55.38 MB/s 🙁 |
| Delkin 1900X v60 | 273.3 MB/s | 97.3 MB/s | 45.69 MB/s |
| ProGrade v60 | 166.7 MB/s | 64.54 MB/s | 38.83 MB/s 🙁 |
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 280 | 260.5 MB/s | 214.8 MB/s | 36.08 MB/s 🙁 |
| UHS-I | |||
| Sandisk Extreme Pro U3 | 98.6 MB/s | 90.8 MB/s | 62.59 MB/s |
| Kingston U3 | 98.1 MB/s | 90.4 MB/s | 61.36 MB/s |
| Transcend U3 | 96.7 MB/s | 84.9 MB/s | 60.71 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro+ U3 | 97.5 MB/s | 87.3 MB/s | 60.29 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro U1 | 96.3 MB/s | 82.2 MB/s | 59.23 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro U3 | 97.7 MB/s | 78.6 MB/s | 56.51 MB/s |
| Delkin 633x U3 | 98.3 MB/s | 88.7 MB/s | 54.42 MB/s 🙁 |
| Sandisk Extreme Plus U3 | 99.0 MB/s | 64.4 MB/s | 49.62 MB/s |
| PNY Elite Performance U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.1 MB/s | 49.19 MB/s |
| Sony U3 – Old Model | 96.5 MB/s | 84.5 MB/s | 46.95 MB/s |
| Lexar 633x U3 | 93.3 MB/s | 67.3 MB/s | 44.58 MB/s 🙁 |
| Sony U3 – New Model | 96.7 MB/s | 56.2 MB/s | 42.74 MB/s 🙁 |
| Lexar 600x U1 | 95.4 MB/s | 64.8 MB/s | 42.48 MB/s 🙁 |
| Sandisk Extreme U3 | 72.43 MB/s | 54.1 MB/s | 42.36 MB/s |
| PNY Elite Performance U1 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.5 MB/s | 39.83 MB/s 🙁 |
| Samsung U1 EVO | 47.7 MB/s | 21.96 MB/s | 26.91 MB/s 🙁 |
| Sandisk Ultra U1 | 99.3 MB/s | 36.1 MB/s | 24.22 MB/s 🙁 |
Canon M50 | Recommended Memory Card Sizes & Types
The Canon M50 user manual states that you can use any memory card size in any of the following formats.
SD memory cards
SDHC memory cards
SDXC memory cards
UHS-I memory cards
Further testing shows that UHS-II memory cards will work fine as well.
SDHC vs SDXC
The difference between SDHC and SDXC lies in how the memory cards are formatted. SDHC uses 32-bit (FAT32), and SDXC uses 64-bit (exFAT).
Best Cards for 4k Video
If you’re buying the Canon M50 for 4k video there are a few things to note, one is that the camera will crop down to 2.45x crop from the usual 1.7x APS-C crop. You will also lose dual-pixel autofocus.
The M50 will record MP4 at a 150 Mbps bitrate, which is not very memory-intensive, and most cards will handle it just fine, but some bogus cards will see the buffer fill very quickly, even though they read U1 or U3.
For 4 K video on the Canon M50, you will want a U3 memory card that is at least 64GB, since 150 Mbps will fill your card quickly.
128GB memory cards will work as well as 256GB, according to Canon. We don’t test cards this size.
You should only use UHS-I memory cards, since UHS-II cards offer no benefits.
Best Memory Cards For Still
If you’re just planning to use the Canon M50 for stills, there have been no reports of lockups with any memory cards, and most cards (even those not recommended) will work fine. However, the PNY U1 card had serious issues with the camera, so you should avoid it.
Best Memory Card Canon M50 | Bottom Line
The Canon M50 / Canon Kiss M is a powerful little camera, and it will require a nice memory card like a Sandisk Extreme Pro or Plus to get the most out of it. While 150MB/s with video doesn’t seem very demanding, a card that slows down or exhibits inconsistent performance could cause random problems while shooting.
4 comments
can i use a 512gb memory card in the Canon M50 ?
I haven’t tested it, but the user manual says you can use any capacity.
You said that sd with sad face has a problem.. can u tell me what problem you have?
Unfortunately my notes weren’t to descriptive. I wrote, cards were glitchy, some of them caused camera crashes. So what would happen sometimes is when I would first put the card in, on some cards I would get errors like No SD card. Sometimes they crash the camera. Sometimes I have to take them out and put them back in again before it reads them and I could format them. Little issues like that.
Often this is fixed as firmware evolves since I sometimes test these cameras with firmware v1. Also cards like the Sony M did have an advisory recall recently and that Sony M was the older version, the new Tough versions are faster and make sure you just get the card with the correct serial numbers.
And now you probably don’t need to worry about those sad faces too much because the cards with the sad faces mostly have been updated or discontinued. Delkin has updated their cards, Sony updated the M since then, Sandisk discontinued that card and Lexar cards are all new, owned by a different brand. So as long as you get something new, you’re probably ok especially since there have been a few revisions to the camera firmware.