The Sony A1 with its dual memory card slots can take two different types of Memory Cards, SD cards, and CFexpress Type A cards.
Recommended Memory Cards Sony A1
Professional sports shooters will want the CFexpress Type A cards for improved speeds. Hobbyists can get by with the UHS-II cards unless 4k S&Q mode with the S-I intra-frame recording is needed. You can also just use XAVC HS if you want to work with only v90 cards in this S&Q mode.
With many of the CFexpress Type-A memory cards now being priced very competitively against SD UHS-II V90 cards, I recommend going with CFeA cards for the Sony A1.
I haven’t been able to benchmark all the new CFexpress Type-A cards in the Sony A1 but with USB speeds they are notably faster than any other card.
The best CFExpress Type-A memory cards for the Sony A1
Although not yet tested in the Sony A1, we have tested this card in other cameras, and its sustained performance outperforms every other card out there. When looking for the best memory cards for the Sony A7rV, this card came out on top, so I also recommend it for the Sony A1.
Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A Memory Card
Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A memory card comes in sizes from 80GB to 320GB
Tested Write Speed: 825 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 886 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 817MB/s
See Details: Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A Review
Limited 10-Year Manufacturer Warranty.
Although we again have not tested the Lexar Silver card in the Sony A1, it also outperformed any other non-Lexar card with sustained speed. Also, it’s priced very competitively against the SD UHS-II V90 card. If you were considering just going with V90 SD cards, I recommend getting this card instead.
Lexar CFexpress Type-A Silver Series
Lexar Silver CFexpress Type-A memory card comes in sizes from 160GB to 320GB
Tested Write Speed: 776 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 861 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 687 MB/s
See Details: Lexar Silver CFexpress Type-A Review
Limited 10-Year Manufacturer Warranty
Although Sony CFexpress cards haven’t consistently been top performers, if you’re seeking a reliable and robust card that operates flawlessly in the Sony A1, these are excellent choices. However, if Sony increases the video bitrate in future camera models, these cards may not maintain sufficient speeds to handle it based on their current specifications.
Sony TOUGH CFexpress Type-A Memory Card
Sony Tough G – Sizes from 80GB to 640GB.
Tested Write: 658 MB/s
Tested Read: 847 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 276 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 400 MB/s
Sony Tough M Sizes from 960GB to 1920GB.
Rated Sustain: 200 MB/s
See Details: Sony Tough CFexpress Type-A Memory Card Review
The Best SD UHS-II memory cards for the Sony A7rV
The Sony Tough G SD V90 UHS-II cards are among the best UHS-II memory cards and are my top recommendation for high-performance cameras like the Sony A1.
However, it’s essential to consider the price. Nowadays, CFexpress cards offer significantly higher speeds and are often priced similarly. For instance, the Lexar Silver CFeA cards are competitively priced compared to these SD UHS-II cards.
Sony G Tough V90 UHS-II SD Memory Cards
The Sony G Tough v90 UHS-II SD memory card has a tough build and comes in sizes between 32-256GB.
Tested Write Speed: 258 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 296 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 90 MB/s – 720Mbps
See Details: Sony Tough V90 UHS-II Review
Warranty: Limited 5-Year Manufacturer Warranty
The SanDisk Extreme Pro SD UHS-II is also an excellent SD memory card for the Sony A1.
Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II SD Memory Cards
The Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II SD is one of the most popular and reliable high-performance v90 memory cards.
Tested Write Speed: 268 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 293 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 90 MB/s
See Details: Sandisk Extreme Pro V90 UHS-II Review
Warranty: Limited Lifetime Warranty
Memory Card Benchmarks
These benchmarks are measured by shooting a series of bursts in Uncompressed RAW until the buffer fills, then measuring how much data was written against the time it took the clear the buffer. Learn more information about CFexpress Type-A Memory Cards in this guide or this one Best SD Memory Cards
Do You Need CFexpress Cards?
CFexpress Type A will clear the buffer more than twice as fast as UHS-II memory cards, but they will only be required by the camera to record in some of the high frame rates (120p) in S&Q mode with the XAVC S-I codec, this is an H.264 codec that uses an intra-frame compression. You can use other codecs with S&Q mode like XAVC HS which uses H.265 with standard UHS-II v90 cards. This is also how it works in the Sony A7sIII and Sony FX7.
For all other types of video, including 600Mbps H.264, UHS-II cards will work as long as they are rated at the v90 speed class.
CFexpress cards will also clear the buffer quicker than UHS-II cards, how much faster? Sony lists it at 155 frames at 30fps, 238 frames at 20fps, then it will give you unlimited recording at 15fps and slower.
After benchmarking the camera, the difference between CFexpress and UHS-II cards was significant. With the Sony CFx Type A card, I was getting write speeds in-camera at around 600MB/s. With the fastest UHS-II card, I was only able to write at speeds of around 250MB/s, this will make a big difference when it comes to shooting long bursts.
Using a Second Card For Backup
For photographers, if you use a second card for backup that is a slower card, like UHS-II or UHS-I, it will slow down the whole system to that speed.
Do not buy CFeA cards and then use UHS-II cards or UHS-I cards in the second slot as a backup. Use equally rated cards in both slots so the speed of the camera does not get bottlenecked by the slower card.
If you shoot RAW+JPG, can you use a slower card in slot two? The JPGs are smaller, but still not that much smaller, and can still slow the system down, plus the camera writing the JPGs slows down with the processor a little bit as well. So expect a minor performance hit writing RAW+JPG. It would be best to do RAW+RAW with equally rated cards.
Camera Specs Related To Memory Card Performance
Sensor: 50MP Full-Frame, Exmor RS BSI CMOS Processor: BIONZ XR Image Processor Memory Card Slots: 2 UHS-II / 2 CFe A Continuous Shoot Electronic: 30fps Continuous Shoot Manual: 10fps Est. Buffer Size: 7GB RAW Shots To Fill Buffer: 155 Frames @ 30fps Max Memory Card Capacity: Unlimited 4k Datarate: H.265 280Mbps / H.264 600Mbps 8k Datarate: H.265 400Mbps / No 8k With H.264 |
Best SD Cards For 8k Video
The max bitrate for 8k in the Sony A1 is 400Mbps. This means you have a data stream of 50MB/s, which is a speed rating supported by even the slower v60 UHS-II memory cards. You do not need CFexpress or v90 memory cards for 8k video. You only need faster cards for h.265 at 600Mbps or when shooting high frame rate S&Q modes.
Editing With H.264 vs H.265
You cannot record 8k at H.264, or 8k at 4:2:2.
When a camera records in H.265 and H.264 it is hardware Sony buys that they put into their cameras. Usually, it’s a custom part of the Arm Architecture that is licensed from third parties, so these specs are often locked in and can’t be changed with firmware.
This Is Important – When editing, you need to be very careful about using hardware accelerators to export and edit when dealing with 4:2:2 10-bit. A lot of computers and graphics cards like Nvidia and AMD still do not support 4k 4:2:2 10-bit, often it’s only 4:2:0 10-bit and they don’t give you any warning that you’re out of spec. They will just export an inferior image to what you recorded.
Test this, and consider exporting your video with Software encoding only. If you’re in Premiere, this also means switching your sequence settings to also be software only before encoding.
If you’re on a new Intel (2021 Alder Lake, I think even Tiger Lake) or M1 Mac, you may not need to worry about this as long as you’re using the native encoders. Avoid anything that uses Nvidia and AMD accelerators for now, as of early 2022.
Also, M1 and new Intel processors will be able to handle H.265 much easier than older computers as they now finally have improved H.265 encoders and decoders. But again, be careful when using hardware encoders for your final output, or test to make sure your hardware supports 4:2:2 at 10-bit and not just 4:2:0 at 10-bit.
8k & 4k Record Times Based On Memory Card Sizes
What memory card size is the best for the Sony A1?
Remember, that 8k maxes at 400Mbps. Only 4k at H.264 is 600Mbps – and you don’t want H.264 if you can help it, it’s an old codec that’s not nearly as efficient as H.265.
Note that H.265 even at 400Mbps is vastly superior to ProresHQ in terms of the information stored in the compression. Prores is nice because it’s very easy on the CPU, however, because the data rate of Prores 8k is massive, you’ll need fast drives to work with it.
This chart shows the maximum record times each bitrate is capable of based on the memory card size. Information is taken from the record time bitrate calculator.
Bitrates | 80GB | 120GB | 160GB | 256GB |
200Mbps | 53min | 80min | 107min | 171min |
280Mbps | 38min | 57min | 76min | 122min |
400Mbps | 27min | 40min | 53min | 85min |
600Mbps (4k h.264) | 18min | 27min | 36min | 57min |
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