DSLR/Compact Flash cards

[Phil Balsdon]

Make sure you buy cards that are capable of handling 60MBs or greater. I use Sandisk Extreme very successfully. Sandisk Extreme Pro would be good if you twice the money.

Consider purchasing smaller 16Gb or 32Gb cards rather than 64Gb. The transfer time from 64Gb will be long, with two smaller cards you can be transferring from one card on location whilst shooting to another.

You could also shoot all material from one location / topic to a card and transfer it using an appropriate title then shoot the next location on another card with a new title – this would help organise your workflow.

Finally if something goes wrong or gets lost it’s only half a disaster if using smaller cards.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[David Decker]

Great suggestions. I have also found that a firewire card reader (I have a Lexar) has really helped save time in transfer to my edit system.

[Richard Cooper]

Hi Dan,
All good tips thus far… Also BACK UP YOUR RAW DATA to multiple hard drives from the cards and make sure that you have the exact file structure intact (Put each card separately in folders named “card1, card2” etc.) FCP needs the file structure to be able to read and import/trans-code the files.
Also, make sure and bring the clips in as ProRes 422 through FCP “Log and Capture”. One caveat… While importing the clips DO NOT start messing around in FCP, looking at the clips that are coming in or looking at them in the Log and capture window…. This will cause random truncating of the clips with NO warning that parts are missing. It’s a bug and can bite you in the a*s. Once you start your import/trans-code just let it do its thing and don’t touch the computer. Will save a lot of headaches later on.

Some people use MPEG StreamClip to trans-code but I have never tried this work flow…

Once you have all your clips in FCP as ProRes you will be good to go and should have smooth sailing from there.

Good Luck!

Richard Cooper
FrostLine Productions, LLC
Anchorage, Alaska
http://www.frostlineproductions.com

[Phil Balsdon]

Hi Richard,
Did you mean “Log and Transfer” as oppose to “Log and Capture”?

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Richard Cooper]

Ha! Yes I did mean “log and transfer”…Sorry.
I am in “Log and capture” hell right now with 20 or so HDCMAM tapes to “capture” so it must have been on my mind! Man I hate tape work flows now!

Richard Cooper
FrostLine Productions, LLC
Anchorage, Alaska
http://www.frostlineproductions.com

[Bouke Vahl]

Two things.
I don’t agree on the smaller cards.
They are slower, and (in my case) caused dropped frames.

Sandisk Pro 64 gig does not have these problems.

To offload, as well as transfer to Prores (or any other QT compatible codec, or even Avid MXF), there is still Offloader:

https://www.videotoolshed.com/product/15/offloader/2

It copies to two locations, and / or transcodes as well.

Not the fastest, but transcoding starts while you are shooting.
So by the time you get home, you are ready to edit without any time waste in the edit suite.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Phil Balsdon]

Why would a SanDisk Extreme Pro / 60mbs / 64Gb card be faster than a SanDisk Extreme Pro / 60mbs / 32Gb or 16Gb card?

We’re talking identical 60Mbs transfer speed cards, here not card capacity.

Why are two smaller identical 60Mbs type cards more efficient than one card twice the size? Because firstly it takes less time to transfer the volume of information and secondly one card can be transferring whilst the second card is loaded into the camera and being used to shoot with whilst the transfer is happening.

If you have to stop production and wait while you transfer all 64Gbs you’re going to loose a lot of production time.

Secondly if something gets corrupted on the card, and it does happen, or a card gets misplaced, that happens too, you’ve got an awful lot more pick-ups to shoot, that is if its at all possible to do pick ups.

One 64Gb card or 2 x 32Gbs cards, I would choose the latter every time.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Norman Willis]

>>Why would a SanDisk Extreme Pro / 60mbs / 64Gb card be faster than a SanDisk Extreme Pro / 60mbs / 32Gb or 16Gb card?

I dunno, but other people say they are.

FIeld reports, y’know 🙂

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Phil Balsdon]

I just went through the 10 usual forums I visit then Googled “CF card problems with HD DSLRs” and visited another 8 websites which discussed card use in HD DSLRs.

I did not find one report of a problem that related to card capacity. Plenty relating to cheap cards, too slow write speed cards and lazy use, (ie not reformatting the card in the camera before re-recording) but not one about this problem due to card capacity.

I use SanDisk Extreme UDMA 32Gb 60Mb/s cards, other guys I know and converse with a lot use 32Gb and 16Gb versions of the same card, none of us have had a single problem, yet. When I do hopefully it won’t be a corrupted file on a 64Gb card with the last two days of shooting on it.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Bouke Vahl]

The comparison with small cards with same write speeds is not fair.
Smaller cards are typically slower. So in therory, your are right that there should be no difference.
In practice, those smaller cards do not exist.

32 gig is a nice balance between price / speed / capacaty.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros