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Samsung’s no newcomer to the memory card market. They’ve been producing memory cards for years. Typically, however, they’ve never really been the go-to cards for photographers. Samsung’s cards were historically just too slow.
Now, though, Samsung’s launched its new Pro Ultimate series UHS-I SD and microSD cards (buy here). The company says they are designed for “professional content creators” with write speeds of up to 130MB/sec and read speeds of up to 200MB/sec.
ProGrade Digital has announced a new memory card reader and this one’s designed for mobile creators to let them quickly copy and shift files two and from their Android and other portable Type-C USB devices. It supports UHS-II microSD and SD cards on the USB 3.2 Gen 1 protocol (which is way more than UHS-II SD cards need), letting you transfer to and from laptops and mobile devices at maximum speed.
ProGrade says that the new ProGrade PGM0.5 reader is in response to the “new wave of content creators [that] has emerged over the last couple of years”, primarily targeting platforms like TikTok and YouTube with many creators working in a mobile environment that doesn’t always afford the luxuries of weight and space that a home desktop solution demands. The PGM0.5 is their way to help support these more mobile creators.
In ancient times, when movies and music were stored on tapes and computers used floppy disks, we were told that magnets were basically the devil. Even watching VHS tapes over and over would eventually cause them to lose all their information. That’s because the tape and the disks themselves were magnetic. That’s how the data was stored.
Now, though, this old warning has become a modern-day myth with the digital memory cards we use in our DSLRs and mirrorless cameras today. But it turns out that no, magnets will have zero effect on your memory cards – even REALLY powerful ones, as proven by Braniac75.
There aren’t many companies out there making UHS-II microSD cards, as there are virtually no cameras out there that can fully support them yet (still). One of the companies that does make them, though, is ProGrade Digital. They launched their initial V60 UHS-II microSD cards back in September 2018 with read and write speeds of up to 200MB/sec and 80MB/sec respectively.
Now, ProGrade has launched new V60 UHS-II microSD cards with increased read and write speeds of 250MB/sec and 130MB/sec respectively. As well as speeding up the cards, a new higher capacity 256GB version will be available. Oh, and they’ve cut the prices virtually in half.
Well, this is a surprise. Manfrotto has entered the world of memory cards. And they’ve done it with UHS-II V90 SD cards, V30 microSD cards, and UDMA7 CompactFlash. They’re called Pro RUGGED memory cards, and Manfrotto says that they are “the toughest memory cards on the market” for professionals.
Although unexpected, the launch of SD and microSD cards makes some sense, but the CompactFlash is an odd choice when everybody else seems to be piling onto the CFexpress bandwagon right now.
The massive SanDisk 1TB microSD cards announced in February are now available to buy. Priced at $449, the 160MB/sec SanDisk A2 card is listed on the SanDisk Website, B&H and Amazon. The latter two aren’t showing it as being in stock yet, although you can pre-order. The 512GB card comes in at $199.99.
The race for more and more storage on tiny little cards just keeps on trucking. Although SanDisk showed off a proof-of-concept 1TB SD card way back at Photokina 2016 and ProGrade announced their 1TB CFexpress cards last April, it wasn’t until recently that Lexar had released a 1TB memory SD card that you could actually buy.
Now, though, both SanDisk and Micron (the people who used to own Lexar) have beaten Lexar to the punch when it comes to scaling that down, having both announced their own 1TB microSD cards at Mobile World Congress 2019.
The SD card market seems to be hotting up, and getting pretty competitive (and fast!). With Lexar seemingly back, ProGrade taking square aim at the high-end market, and SanDisk & Sony releasing new cards boasting big numbers like there’s no tomorrow, who really is the fastest these days?
That’s what the folks at Camera Memory Speed wanted to find out when they tested 113 different UHS-I and UHS-II SD cards to find out which is the fastest in the Canon EOS R mirrorless camera.
Although this won’t be of much to iOS users, Lexar has announced a new 512GB 633x (100MB/sec) A2 microSD card for smartphones. Designed for lots of fast read and write operations per second, this card is ideal for Android smartphones. Especially those used by photographers and filmmakers shooting lots of photos and footage.
Since Lexar’s move from Micron to Longsys, their future has been in doubt. But it looks like they’re finally back and ready to get serious.
ProGrade Digital certainly seems to have settled into the swing of things nicely since their launch earlier in the year. Initially starting up with a range of CFast 2.0 UHS-II V60 SD cards, and a dual format card reader, they quickly expanded out into UHS-II V90 SD and the next major high-end format; CFexpress.
Now, they’re going small, announcing three new V60 UHS-II microSD cards. With users demanding higher quality footage from their drones, action cameras & 360 cameras, it’s a logical path to pursue. They’ve also announced two new USB 3.1 Gen 2 card readers, too. One contains SD and CompactFlash slots while the other takes a pair of microSD cards.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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