dleebrick Loc: Indian Land, South Carolina

I've always used SanDisk Ultra PLUS 80MB/s 32GB cards in my Canon 80D, thinking I was getting pretty decent speed. But last week, I saw the camera speed test at https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/canon-80d/sd-card-comparison/ and decided to try it out for myself. I set up the camera per the test conditions in that web site and fired .jpg images in high speed mode. 30 seconds later, I had shot 52 images. Then I swapped out my standard card and inserted the highest performing SanDisk Card, the Extreme PRO rated 95 MB/s, and pushed the expose button. 30 seconds later, I had shot 206 images. Wow! For the labeled write speed being only 18% faster, I actually got 396% more images recorded. Exactly the same subject, no changes to camera settings or subject lighting.
Has anyone else done this experiment with their camera? Incidently, the Extreme PRO card only cost $22.95 thru Adorama, so it's a much better deal than the "standard" Ultra PLUS card, in my opinion.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

What's the maximum speed specified in the 80D user's manual. That's the definitive answer ...

[EDIT] I went to the manual and couldn't find a 'max' write speed myself defined for the 80D. Hmmmm. I did find Canon's quoted maximum burst for an UHS-I class 16GB was only 150 images when using JPEG and one of the multiple 'small' sizes. Your experience seems to show even better possible performance.

dleebrick Loc: Indian Land, South Carolina

Manual says for the highest resolution .jpg, 7.6MB image file, can shoot 110 shots at the maximum burst rate, into a UHS-1 class card. My file was 6.95MB, and the camera ran at maximum burst rate for about 17 seconds, then momentary stops for the buffer to clear enough to receive more files. So that's about right.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

No reason to waste $, but buying fast cards, for the small difference in price, has always made sense to me. Even if your camera can't use the additional write speed as yours obviously did, you benefit from the increased read speed when you download and the cards will deliver max speed when/if you upgrade your body.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

As you said, "Wow!"

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Yes, but you can also test it by going to a web site that simulates upload and downloading to the card for speed comparisons. I've done that and compared how many images I get before the buffer fills up.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

What you've discovered is that Sandisk's "speed" ratings are kinda misleading. What's indicated on the cards themselves are actually "read speeds", not write speeds. In fact, it's difficult to find write speeds for Sandisk cards... they hide them pretty carefully on their website and don't even bother reporting some.

In SDHC, Sandisk's "Extreme PRO" (black label) have a read speed of 95 MB/s imprinted on them, but while their max write speed is 90 MB/s, their minimum write speed is 30 MB/s.

Sandisk's "Extreme" (gold label) are imprinted with their 90 MB/s read speed, but max write speed is 40 MB/s and min write speed is 30 MB/s.

The "Ultra" and "Ultra PLUS" (silver label) boasts 80 MB/s read speed, Sandisk makes no indication or claim of a maximum write speed, only specifies a minimum write speed of 10 MB/s. So, it's entirely possible your "Ultra PLUS" cards only write at 1/3 or 1/4 the speed of the more expensive Extreme Pro cards.

Sandisk's justification for not clearly indicating write speeds or for only giving a fairly wide range of max and minimum speeds when they do make a claim, is that there's some variation depending upon the particular device the card is being used in.

In your case, if your JPEGs were 6.95MB and you were shooting 30 second bursts... you were getting about 48MB/s write speed with the Extreme PRO card (206 x 7MB = 1442 divided by 30 = 48MB/s) in your 80D. With your older card you were getting approx. 12MB/s write speed (52 x 7MB = 364 divided by 30 = 12 MB/s).

So, how often do you shoot 206... or even 52 frames continuously? Personally I use some 30 MB/s and 40 MB/s cards, along with faster stuff, and hardly notice the difference. But I only shoot short bursts... usually 3 or 4 frames max, occasion 5 or 6. I get tired of sitting and editing thousands of images, so try to keep bursts to a minimum! I'd rather shoot single frames, but do use bursts for subjects that are difficult to time precisely...


(Two out of four are "usable": first image, rider's face is partially hidden... last image, looks a bit awkward)


(Maybe three out of five usable shots: 2nd, 4th and 5th. 1st one, rider's face to heavily shaded, 3rd shot is too "head on" & not as dramatic as the other three)

My point is that super fast memory cards aren't really all that important in the vast majority of shooting situations. They can be nice for faster downloading, though.