When we are considering fast SD Cards for our camera, there are just a handful of brands which popped in our minds such as the popular Sandisk. We bring to you another fast card by Kingston – The Canvas React Plus ultra-fast SD card
The Kingston Canvas React Plus is top-of-the-line UHS-II performance to capture professional-grade 4K/8K videos and high-resolution photos on industry-standard cameras. ultra-fast SD card could read up to 300 MB/s as claimed by Kingston.
As a content maker, we are less technical about the detail specification of any memory cards. We want a hassle-free, no drama and just buy-open-use kind of product, as long as it’s fast and reliable.
In our review, we will do some test with benchmark software on our faithful Mac Mini and the real test on the Sony A7R Mark 3 high burst mode to see how fast it write until its buffer is filled up. We are using the 256GB version of this Kingston product
Test Camera used
We have this Sony A7R Mark III – a full-frame camera with UHS-II compliance, very popular among photographers, famous for its build and performance. It is a 42 MP high-resolution camera and a fast continuous shooting rate at 10 frames per second. This camera demands a fast SD card to cope with its performance. If you just slot-in anything slower, it will be an insult to this camera.
Test 1 – JPEG M Extra Fine
Setting the camera to shoot JPEG only, at extra fine size M, with about 9 MB per photo, we got a result of approximately 15 seconds continuous with about 150 shots until the buffer bottleneck was reached. We released the shutter button to let the camera write to the SD card, it takes approximately 28 seconds to load off 74 photos from the buffer. It converts to about 24 MB/s for writing speed. (74-photo x 9MB each = 666 MB / 28 sec = 24 MB/s approx).
Test 2 – RAW Uncompressed
Next up, test shoot using the RAW uncompressed file format – about 85MB per file. It clocks approximately 5 seconds continuous with about 50 shots until the buffer bottleneck was reached, 17 seconds to load off 29 photos from the buffer. If we convert the data, the write speed is roughly 145 MB/s – almost half of what’s declared (29-photo x 85 MB each = 2,465 MB / 17 seconds = 145 MB/s)
Test 3 – JPEG M Extra Fine 18MB + RAW Uncompressed
This is a heavy-duty one. The SD card will work very hard to transfer more files with two formats. It took the same approximately 5 seconds continuous with about 50 shots (100 files) until the buffer bottleneck was reached, 21 seconds to load off 64 photos from the buffer with about 144 MB/s write speed.
As you can see, the card writes better in RAW photo or RAW + JPEG modes. By calculation, in test 1 it should take about 5 seconds to finish off with the writing. We just couldn’t achieve close to 300 MB/s with this camera. Watch the video link below for the camera testing.
Computer Files Transfer Test
We are using the Disk Speed benchmarking software in our Mac Mini to do the desktop transfer test. First off, we are using the SD card reader built-in with the Mac Mini, the result is a little slower than expected at 74 MB/s write and 86 MB/s read speed.
When we used the SD card with the USB 3.2 Mobile Lite Plus reader that comes with the package and connect it to Mac Mini’s USB 3.0 port it writes at 220 MB/s and reads at 262 MB/s, close to the what Kingston claims to reach up to 300 MB/s. Thus, this card’s speed claim is valid. It is now up to the specific recording devices if they are made to write fast enough.
Conclusion
The Kingston Canvas React Plus Kit is retailing at RM1,149. Contact Kingston if you need more information.