Discussion Forum Leica S System S2 cf and sd cards– problems, speeds
  • October 25, 2011 at 1:55 am #1261
    rudlinfineart

    Can the S2 handle the fastest (400x , 600x) CF cards and
    can it handle cards larger than 16 GB?

    Does Leica recommend any particular brand?

    Analogously, what is the fastest speed and largest capacity for the SD
    card (SD or SDHC)?

    I would appreciate comments and recommendations based on your experience.

    (Note of explanation: Coming from Nikon where Nikon explicitly lists which
    cards they guarantee will work with each camera. Use any other card, and
    you are on your own– and some problems have been reported.)

    Thanks

  • October 25, 2011 at 2:57 am #1262
    Arif

    I have not had any problems with the 64GB Lexar Pro cards which I have been using on the S2 for over one and a half years.

  • October 25, 2011 at 3:30 am #1264
    David Farkas

    I use 16, 32 and 64GB Transcend CF cards in 300x, 400x and 600x varieties. Probably my most used is the 400x UDMA 32GB.

    The S2 will store to a fast card at about 50MB/s so a fast card does make a difference. For me, the bigger issue is download speed. With either a Firewire 800 or USB 3.0, I can get 90MB/s transfer. The Transcend 400x card has a 60MB/s write and 90MB/s read, so I find it to be the perfect match for the S2 and my workflow. It is also much less expensive than a corresponding SanDisk.

    In SD, your best bet is a Class 10 SDHC card, but you’ll be limited to download speeds of only about 30-40MB/s to your computer. Here, I find CF to be much, much faster.

    David Farkas
    Red Dot Forum
    Leica Store Miami
  • October 26, 2011 at 8:20 am #1272
    fotografz

    I’m using a Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro CF which is rated at 90MB/s.

    I back it up in Parallel with a Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro SD rated at 45MB/s. I almost never remove this card, and just reformat both cards after all the files from the CF are safely downloaded and redundantly stored.

    I use a 32GB card because I do not like changing cards while shooting a commercial job or an all day long wedding.

    The download speed is where the 90MB/s is apparent. I use 4 Lexar Pro FW800 readers that are daisy-chained … and download the S2, Sony A900 and my assistant’s Canon files simultaneously to one master file and sort by time shot.

    -Marc

  • October 28, 2011 at 2:43 pm #1313
    jrv

    David Farkas;1053 wrote:
    In SD, your best bet is a Class 10 SDHC card, but you’ll be limited to download speeds of only about 30-40MB/s to your computer. Here, I find CF to be much, much faster.

    SD cards with the UHS-1 spec should be as fast as the fastest CF cards, if the camera and card reader support UHS-1. Otherwise it will only do Class 10 speeds.

    You need a SD “UHS-1” USB3 card reader to get fast downloads. I don’t know if there is a Firewire-800 UHS-1 capable reader yet.

    I doubt the S2 can write at UHS-1 speeds. It’s a hardware change to support it so it probably doesn’t appear until later.

    As for high capacity SD cards, I vaguely recall testing a 128 GB SDXH card once and it didn’t work. I don’t know if that’s still true with current camera firmware. I believe this is probably just a firmware change and could be added to the S2 if Leica got enough requests.

  • October 28, 2011 at 5:36 pm #1317
    melantye

    Actually the fastest CF card right now is San Disk Extreme Pro 128GB, a UDMA 7 card with 100MB/s.

    I think S2 supports UDMA 6 cards, no idea about UDMA 7 though.

  • October 29, 2011 at 12:15 am #1319
    jrv

    Sandisk, Panasonic and Delkin all have 64GB UHS-1 SD cards rated at ~ 95 MB/s reads. The Panasonic is rated at 45 MB/s writes, Sandisk and Delkin ~ 90 MB/s.

    Just how fast any of them really are I do not know

  • November 24, 2011 at 8:21 pm #1573
    andyc

    I used the extreme pro 16 and it seems a lot slower in my S2 than 8s however although it previews in the S2 ok it shows as 0 kbs when using a lexar card reader to mac resulting in no files for downloading.. any ideas ???

  • November 25, 2011 at 4:53 am #1579
    rgk

    andyc;1390 wrote: I used the extreme pro 16 and it seems a lot slower in my S2 than 8s however although it previews in the S2 ok it shows as 0 kbs when using a lexar card reader to mac resulting in no files for downloading.. any ideas ???

    :confused:I have the same problem with a Lexar card reader and a current MacBook Pro 17″. I can use the Extreme Pro CF card in a Dell workstation with a built in card reader (2010 vintage) with no trouble. The Lexar card reader is a small unit that only reads CF and SD cards and I think that I have had it for 2-3 years. My solution is to load the images to NAS via the Dell and move the images into LR3 on the Mac. I could use a good portable CF card reader.

  • November 26, 2011 at 3:59 pm #1585
    rgk

    rgk;1396 wrote: :confused:I have the same problem with a Lexar card reader and a current MacBook Pro 17″. I can use the Extreme Pro CF card in a Dell workstation with a built in card reader (2010 vintage) with no trouble. The Lexar card reader is a small unit that only reads CF and SD cards and I think that I have had it for 2-3 years. My solution is to load the images to NAS via the Dell and move the images into LR3 on the Mac. I could use a good portable CF card reader.

    FYI, the card reader in question is a Lexar UDMA CompactFlash SD Reader (USB 2.0) Model # RW035-7000

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