SDXC Card Errors on Fujifilm GFX100S + Reader Comment on Leica Failing to Report Card Errors
Related: camera cards, Fujifilm, Fujifilm GFX100S, Fujifilm medium format, Fujifilm mirrorless, Howard D, medium format, memory, Other World Computing, reader comment, remote release, Roy P, SDXC camera storage card, shutter
re: TESTED: 256GB OWC Atlas S Pro SDXC Card (plus comparison to Sony TOUGH SF-G)
Today I was doing some work with the Fujifilm GFX100S and I got both "read error" and "write error", using the Sony TOUGH SF-G128T card. I made the issue seemingly go away by reformatting it, but this is not exactly something you can do in the field if there are shots on the card!
Whether this was a card problem or a camera problem or both (compatibility oddities) is hard to say, but at least the GFX100S reported the error—some cameras do no—see below.
I have had zero problems using the OWC Atlas S Pro cards in the Fujifilm GFX100S or the Sony A1, at least not yet. So they are now my go-to choice, replacing Sony TOUGH, though I’m hoping I just have a bad card and Sony will see fit to replace it. I’m short on cards right now for all the cameras I’m using, so I had temporarily been using the Sony TOUGH card in the GFX100S.
Howard D writes:
This seems to be a known issue to Hasselblad. I tried the Sony Tough cards initially, as I had several of them, and got error messages and failure to write issues. The current owner's manual clearly states this:
"...some Sony high-speed SF-G UHS-II SD 300MB/ss memory cards might have poor compatibility, and therefore might not be able to read and write image data properly”
DIGLLOYD: I’ll see if Sony can comment.
Roy P writes
I had a big problem with my Leica M10 Monochrom failing to recognize a Sony 128 GB Tough card. What is really strange is, the same camera worked just fine with other Sony cards, and Tough SD card that failed on the M10 Mono worked just fine in other cameras.
The way the problem manifested was, when I clicked the shutter release button, nothing would happen. The LCD back would go blank, there was no sound of the shutter, and the camera would just hang up, requiring me to power it off, putt out the battery, reinsert the battery and restart. There was zero feedback from the camera that it had any problem accessing the memory card, or for that matter, anything at all - the screen would just go blank and the camera would just die.
This problem occurred right after I was trying to take some shots with my M10 Monochrom on a tripod while using an old shutter release cable that screwed into the shutter release button my M10 M. I fell into the trap of the "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy - this happened AFTER I tried the shutter release cable, therefore, it must have happened BECAUSE of the shutter release cable.
Convinced that something in the shutter release mechanism in the camera must have been damaged by the cable, I brought the camera to an authorized Leica dealer with a resident expert in M cameras, who tried taking some test shots and became convinced that the shutter must have been indeed damaged.
To make a long story short, my camera made two trips for warranty repair, one to New Jersey and one to Germany, where some unknown repair was done to it, and my camera was gone for over 3 months. After all that, when my camera came back, I was dismayed that it still had the same problem, when on a hunch, I tried a different SD card, and the camera worked absolutely flawlessly.
The moral of the story is, Leica did an absolutely terrible job in the firmware by not reporting a card access or write error. With any computer + storage system, even working together based on well-established industry protocols, it is at least understandable if not forgivable that there could be some problem in the interface. But it is absolutely unforgivable that the camera did not at least put out an error message saying it couldn't talk to the memory card.
So anyone using a Leica camera should be aware that there is such a problem. If the camera mysteriously hangs up while shooting, I would recommend trying a different memory card, perhaps a different brand altogether. Leica cameras have a tendency to just hang up like this, instead of at least communicating the problem.
DIGLLOYD: not reporting an I/O error is a cardinal sin in a computer, or a camera.
