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Memory Cards

Lesson 13 from: Canon 1DX Mark II Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

13. Memory Cards

Lesson Info

Memory Cards

Alright next to the LCD screen down on the bottom we have our card and image size. And so by pressing that button and turning the back dial we'll be able to rotate through the different options as far as different size jpegs and raw formats that we can, raw sizes, excuse me that we can save to the card. We're gonna take a closer look at this in the menu because it's gonna have a better listing of it but it's just kind of a shortcut button for changing those file sizes right there on the back of the camera. We've talked already about the off, on and lock. Just to let you know, when you put it into the lock position it is locking a variety of functions on the camera. And so what it's locking is it's locking the quick control dial, the little joysticks, the multi-controllers, it'll even lock the main dial and you can control how much and what features it locks by diving into the menu and the multi-function lock feature and selecting what exactly does it lock when you have it in this lock ...

position. Normally though you're probably gonna wanna put your camera to the on position so that you have full access to all controls on your camera. If you wanna hook your camera up to a computer for tethered shooting there'll be a local area network, a LAN connection light that lights up that let's you know that that connection is working. We have a speaker on the back of the camera. This is just simply for playing back the movies and the voice memo. And then we have our card slot cover release which opens up our back door where we have access to inserting our different memory cards. So on the left side you can use the compact flash card. A popular card for the last 15 years or so at this point and is a standard in the system but it does have a little bit of a fault it uses a very small pin system, these pins in the camera which insert into the card. And you can see the card there has all those little holes in it that's where the pins connect up with it, it can sometimes easily get damaged. There's also a limitation to how fast these cards can get and so Cannon has decided to go with kind of the next generation of these cards which is known as a CFast card which is physically about the same size but has a different interface with the camera. It has a more solid connection rather than those pins. It uses more of a plate that connects in there. So the bad thing is is that there are two different cards but there's at least one card that a lot of us already have a lot of. The other bad thing is that these cards are physically virtually identical in size but what is different is the edges of the cards are very very different and so it is, what I would like to say, nearly impossible to shove the wrong card into the wrong slot. It just doesn't want to fit. And if you do put the wrong card in the wrong slot you have pushed way too hard in order to get that card in that camera. They just do not want to go there because they just don't fit in that size slot. And so it's the CF card on the left and the CFast card on the right. There's a little indicator right next to it which kind of explains which card goes where but you do need to be a little bit careful especially if you're in a very dark environment and you're not sure which card you have. So there is a little access lamp right below it that lets your camera or lets you know that your camera is working with the memory on the cards. You do not want to pull the cards out of the camera while that light is blinking. So on these two cards the difference is, right now is that the CF cards are available in larger sizes but I expect that to change in the very near future. The CFast cards are being quickly developed and they are changing fairly rapidly. The big difference in the cards is the speed of the cards. The CFast cards do a much better job at storing data much quicker. So if you plan to shoot either a lot of video, especially 4K video or you're gonna be shooting this camera at the upper edges of it's limitation of 14 frames a second then you're gonna wanna be looking at the CFast cards because that's gonna be able to store the information, the buffer's gonna get cleared much more quickly. It works quite well with both cards but if you're going forward with Cannon I'm thinking that they're gonna have more CFast cards on new cameras in the future but they haven't told me for sure. So if you are gonna be using the CF cards, make sure that you get those cards that are 100MB or better in their recording time if you are wanting to shoot some of the standard 4K stuff. If you wanna shoot the fast frame rate 4K stuff you absolutely need to have the Cfast card, so if you wanna shoot 4K at 50 or 60 frames a second. And a word of caution, if you're going to a garage sale and you're gonna buy a used CFast card there is an older version that's called the 1.0 version that you don't want to use in this camera. And this uses a 2.0 version of the CFast. We haven't seen those around for a bit, they're not very common. I don't even know if you can buy them anymore these days, at least it's not very easy. But you wanna make sure it's a CFast 2.0 version of the card. Now the camera does have USB 3. for connecting up to your computer but there is often connection problems when connecting a camera to a computer so what I recommend for most people is to use a card reader. Things just seem to go much more smoothly whether you're on a Mac or a PC system and so I highly recommend that. With all the new cards that you get with cards that you might get from somebody else especially cards coming from people who have different brands of cameras you're gonna wanna format that card. This is something that you're probably gonna wanna do on a regular basis. It's something that I do anytime I'm going out on a new shoot. I wanna go out with fresh cards that have tons of space, that are communicating properly with my camera. And so that's something that you should get used to doing as I say on a regular basis.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

CanonĀ® 1Dx Mark II Recommended Settings
CanonĀ® 1Dx Mark II Fast Start Class Slides

Ratings and Reviews

Joe Berkeley
 

I quite enjoyed John's course on the 1DX mark ii. To be frank, I should have taken it 122,000 shots ago when I bought the camera. I learned quite a bit. There were only a few occasions when I thought my cranium could explode. But I walked away from the course with some great tips and in the grand scheme of things, the money I invest in education is always more valuable than the latest and greatest camera strap, lens, or bag. It will probably take a few months for all of the information to sink in but I'm feeling good about what I learned and the price I paid for it. All in all, a good value.

Fred Innamorato
 

John does a great job as usual. He provides so many visual aides and demonstrations which really helps you understand how to operate and set up your camera. His step by step explanation of the entire menu and each tab is excellent. In addition to his many photography tips and instructions. What an excellent class and a great value for all the detailed instructions provided. Much better than the manual you get in the box. Plus you get to watch this as many times as needed. I highly recommend this course and all of John's other classes.

Ian Sherratt
 

Great video. Loved the clear explanations, great views and mixture of video and slides. Iā€™ve read a lot of manuals and books on settings and use of various Canon cameras but this is the first time Iā€™ve really understood the full range of functions.

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