Angelbird launches new Type B SE and SX CFexpress cards with higher capacity and performance

[Canon Rumors]

Angelbird has launched new CFexpress Type B SE and SX memory cards, with larger capacities and improbeved speed and performance. Angelbird AV Pro CFexpress B SX The AV PRO CFexpress B SX memory card is specifically designed to meet the demands of professional photographers and videographers shooting in up to 12K+ RAW. An uninterrupted sustained

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[Besisika]

I hate this "use the Firmware Update Tool accesssible exclusively via an Angelbird CFexpress B Card Reader". It forces you to stick to their own cards. I have a Sandisk reader, and I can't update my Prograde with it. Now, I bought and Angelbird card, and I have to buy their reader as well.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

I am glad that I do not need video or a lot of frames per second. That saves me a lot of money. Even with RAW+JPEG I never managed to fill a 32 GB card on a single day so far. If cameras can do 8K or even 12K, I wonder how many consumers, who do not make any money from their videos, will really be able to afford and manage the storage necessary for those files.

If you really fill a 1 TB card, that means you also need at least 3 TB of storage for those files and at least two backups. We might sooner or later need storage solutions with hundreds of Terabytes. Even the files of my Insta360 camera are about 1 GB per minute. That forces me to delete the original files once I have converted them.

 

[Besisika]

I am glad that I do not need video or a lot of frames per second. That saves me a lot of money. Even with RAW+JPEG I never managed to fill a 32 GB card on a single day so far. If cameras can do 8K or even 12K, I wonder how many consumers, who do not make any money from their videos, will really be able to afford and manage the storage necessary for those files.

If you really fill a 1 TB card, that means you also need at least 3 TB of storage for those files and at least two backups. We might sooner or later need storage solutions with hundreds of Terabytes. Even the files of my Insta360 camera are about 1 GB per minute. That forces me to delete the original files once I have converted them.

That is true. I shoot 8k light on an R5. 40min of video eats up 512GB. I transcode it to prores 444 before putting into the NLE creating another file of slightly larger. When I am done, I export the entire thing to Prores 422 1080P, which is approximately a quarter to half the size of the original file, before I outputing it to the right format for people to use. I usually keep only the second file (8K prores 444) because of the size, losing the original Raw light. If you need a backup, then indeed, the storage you need is triple the original size.

 

[koenkooi]

I am glad that I do not need video or a lot of frames per second. That saves me a lot of money. Even with RAW+JPEG I never managed to fill a 32 GB card on a single day so far. If cameras can do 8K or even 12K, I wonder how many consumers, who do not make any money from their videos, will really be able to afford and manage the storage necessary for those files.

If you really fill a 1 TB card, that means you also need at least 3 TB of storage for those files and at least two backups. We might sooner or later need storage solutions with hundreds of Terabytes. Even the files of my Insta360 camera are about 1 GB per minute. That forces me to delete the original files once I have converted them.

At night I use R5 as a camera trap to catch the toads living near our garden. I'm using electronic shutter at 20fps and I've filled up a 128G card multiple times already. Especially if a snail crawls into the IR trigger and stays there for the night

I'm now looking at having the R5 record video instead of stills and a 128G is looking mighty small. This is mainly due to Canon limiting the ways you can configure the shutter button in movie mode. For capturing it only supports "start+stop recording", while I'd like the following options:

1) Record only when it's fully pressed, the IR trigger will hold it down for the duration of motion, plus 5 seconds
2) Only start recording when pressing the shutter, don't stop. If the trigger sees movement, it will start the recording, but if it detects another movement while the camera is still recording, it will actually stop the recording.

Unlimited recording times would also get around that, but then I'd need an automated process to remove the non-interesting bits from the 10 hours of footage each night I've very, very jealous of the Nikon Z 9 'autocapture' mode they added in the most recent firmware. With that and a big USB-C power bank I wouldn't even need the triggers!

An example from last week, the R5 had trouble focussing, so I could stack 4 frames to get slightly more DoF

 

[Canon Rumors]

Yeah, that "limitation" needed readers from same manufacturer to update firmwares is downright foolish. I always avoid such brands and leave a negative feedback with manufacturer through mail in case I find it after the fact.

I have reached out to Angelbird about this feedback. I imagine there are some very good reasons for this requirement, but I'll wait to hear something official that is beyond marketing fluff.

 

[gbasilemc]

i have already seen Angelbird card CFexpress type B up to 2 or 4 TB and the speed written on the card was the same so I don't really understand the difference, maybe the old ones have speed decrease over time and the new ones don't ?

BTW when I travel for photography I often have several hundreds of GB of RAW (last 2 trips very close to 1TB each), and I know people saying they prefer smaller cards so they loose less if the card has a problem, I prefer a very big card to not have to change it every time and not having to worry about the free space ; I may be lucky I never had a card issue (I make a copy on computer in case sh*t happens )

 

[LSXPhotog]

I personally don't understand why cards with sustained writing speeds of 1480 MB/s are being pushed right now. It's double the needs for 8K. The Angelbird 512GB cards were so affordable, I wish I knew about them earlier before I waste so much money on ProGrade 650GB Cobalt cards. They perform no differently in my R3 for photo and stills. The only camera that does seem to benefit from the ProGrade was the R5...the Angelbird cards make start up time on the camera slower -even after the firmware update that was claimed to help with that.

Angerlbird makes a great card, but their firmware updates and potential compatibility issues with some cameras is sort of strange, seeing that the likes of SanDisk, ProGrade, Lexar, Delkin, and other top manufactures don't have this issue.

 

[koenkooi]

i have already seen Angelbird card CFexpress type B up to 2 or 4 TB and the speed written on the card was the same so I don't really understand the difference, maybe the old ones have speed decrease over time and the new ones don't ?

Look at the small print: the speeds printed
on the card are the maximum the cards can do. But sustained writes (e.g. video, holding down the shutter a long time at 20/30/40fps) are way below that. With the new SE cards this article talks about, the 512GB drops down to 800Mbyte/s quickly, the 1TB keeps going at 1300+ Mbyte/s.

@tiggy@mac.com will know the exact numbers, but I think the R5 itself tops out at 400-ish Mbyte/s, regardless of card.

 

[David - Sydney]

Look at the small print: the speeds printed
on the card are the maximum the cards can do. But sustained writes (e.g. video, holding down the shutter a long time at 20/30/40fps) are way below that. With the new SE cards this article talks about, the 512GB drops down to 800Mbyte/s quickly, the 1TB keeps going at 1300+ Mbyte/s.

@tiggy@mac.com will know the exact numbers, but I think the R5 itself tops out at 400-ish Mbyte/s, regardless of card.

R5 8K/30 DCI RAW is 2600Mbps ie ~325MB/s
The Z9's 8.3K/60 raw requires about 750MB/s write speed. Still well within the faster CFe Type B card capabilities.
Can't see a lot of long form video at 60fps though.

 

[koenkooi]

You're running on assumptions, let's wait to hear from the horses mouth. Perhaps it's a firmware encryption thing, or something else.

SanDisk does this, you don't get max read speeds without their card reader. There are still card manufacturers that require certain cards be sent back to them for firmware updates.

My guess would be that the cards likely use a standard part of the NVME spec to do firmware updates, but not all bridge chips that turn the NVME into USB process that the same.

If the cards are using a non-standard way for firmware updates, we're out of luck and need to shell out the €110 for the reader or send the card to Angelbird for flashing.

Slightly related: you can install linux on your hard drives controller if you're bored: http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1

 

[Canon Rumors]

This is from the CEO of Angelbird in regards to the card reader requirement for firmware updates.

The communication between the software and the card must be stable and secure, plus the commands have to be interpreted the correct way.

If there is one thing that goes wrong or wrongly translated, the card will be locked / dead.

So the update process is not trivial and we have to make sure it will be successful.

Every reader on the market is using different controller ICs and FW. So that’s the reason we only support our own readers.