D4s, Raw to which card?

Cowleystjames

Senior Member
I'm just throwing a curve ball out there and wondering if anyone can advise me as to which format to send to which card?
I shoot raw and jpg, and currently save raw to the xqd card and jpg to the compact flash. My theory being that raw files are bigger and xqd is supposed to be the faster format.
Is my reasoning flawed?
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Sure seems right, largest files to the fastest card. You can judge card write speed with a burst of several files (totaling X MB), timed on the green access LED on the rear of the camera. That will give MB/second.
 

gqtuazon

Gear Head
I'm just throwing a curve ball out there and wondering if anyone can advise me as to which format to send to which card?
I shoot raw and jpg, and currently save raw to the xqd card and jpg to the compact flash. My theory being that raw files are bigger and xqd is supposed to be the faster format.
Is my reasoning flawed?

There is no right or wrong way to do this. This is more of a personal preference.

I assign both JPG + RAW to the same card so that whenever I transfer the memory card to my desktop computer, they will be on the same folder. I then use the jpg (basic / small) to preview the image using Windows. If I like that image, then I open and use the RAW file for processing. Some members here also convert the NEF file to DNG file.
 

kevy73

Senior Member
Your reasoning isn't flawed, I personally do it the other way around but only because my CF card is 32gb and my XQD is 16gb... so I do raw to CF and JPG to XQD.

Further to this, if I leave my XQD reader plugged into my Mac, when I start my Mac up, it takes an ETERNITY to boot up. So I leave my XQD reader unplugged and only go to it if there is an issue with my CF card, which 'touch wood' so far there hasn't been.
 

Cowleystjames

Senior Member
Do you leave a card in your xqd reader? Because your mac may be looking for a playable file. I had similar with a Sony xqd reader but now i have the Lexar Workflow card reader, for some reason I don't have that issue any more.
 

kevy73

Senior Member
Doesn't seem to matter if the XQD card is in the reader or not, if the reader is plugged in then my MAC takes literally 30 minutes to boot up. Easier just to leave it unplugged.
 

Cowleystjames

Senior Member
Mental issue, I did however have similar as I said. Whether a card was in the Sony reader or not, it was looking for a playable file after booting and it would literally hang and all resources would grind to a halt.
 

crycocyon

Senior Member
Exactly what I do as well, RAW to XQD first, CF as a backup. I don't shoot jpeg as I am able to view the NEF files in Preview on my Mac no problem, then throw them into Lightroom, make the changes and export to jpeg for posting online. I'd rather have corrected jpegs than ones out of the camera.
 

Cowleystjames

Senior Member
Not exactly a lab comparison, but I ran a three second raw image burst to XQD and then CF and compared time to save via the write light on the D4s yesterday. Which was about thirty three images.
The XQD card was faster probably by a couple of seconds overall. Okay, not a massive amount and in the field of work that I do, not critical, but this was just out of curiosity mainly.
 

GeeAirMo

Senior Member
There are different speeds of the XQD cards too. I've got the Sony "N" series that are up to 125MB/sec.

My CF cards are the Sandisk Extreme Pro that has 160MB/sec.

I always have the Raw Files written to the XQD, and use the CF card as a backup unless the client wants JPEG images also.
 
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