Sony a7III Tutorial 5: Memory Card Slots - How to Address Them and Save Money on the Right Cards

Equipping the a7III, a7RIII and a9 with two memory card slots and UHS-II support, Sony caught up with professional camera bodies from Canon and Nikon. However, there is more to it than just the increased storage capacity, redundancy and speed. You can define what media - still images or movies - and what file formats you want to save to which memory card. You can prioritize a slot and you can also tell the camera to automatically switch to the next memory card when the capacity of the first one runs out. Since addressing the two memory card slots via the menu is not exactly intuitive, this video will teach you how to do it. Furthermore, I wanna give you some food for thought on whether you really need the expensive SDXC UHS-II memory cards with close to 300MB/s write speed. Have fun! :-)

[@majicworks3538]

Highly informative. Thank you. A must watch video for all those moving into the Sony 7iii world.

[@photovideographer7230]

Thank you! Highly appreciated.

[@alkisangel9961]

Hi, i just bought the sony a7iii, and i have a question about the slots. Is it possible to swift slots while shooting stills, with the use of one key? So that after a long day of shooting stills, i ll have portrait photos in slot 1 and nature photos in slot 2. Is it possible? Thank you

[@duleekwadanamby5715]

Very helpful thank a lot

[@mademoiselleohlala]

How do I know/view how much space is left on the SD card?

[@DesaLynn91]

I’d really like the answer to that

[@fakeem0777790788]

what about when you want to sheet a video in HD @120fps? is 90 mbps is sufficent?

[@miguelpena2583]

Many thanks for your videos, I will receive this week my Sony 7III and they are giving me a very interesting and useful information. A question, please: In my reflex camera I have two slots also, and I used to keep RAW in both and the videos in the slot two (I do not make too much videos), I suppose that is also possible with the Sony, isn’t? Thanks 🙏🙏

[@photovideographer7230]

Thanks for praising my videos. Always good to know that the hard work really helps people. In fact, saving your still images as RAWs in both slots/memory cards to provide redundancy plus recording videos is possible with the a7 III. The videos will be saved in the slot/memory card you have specified via Prioritize Recording Media.

[@miguelpena2583]

Photovideographer , I know what means to make this kind of videos so, actually, thanks to you. Still now I have seen all you videos about the Sony and I hope to see more 👍😉

[@sharajfun]

Thank you very much sir.. it was really imformative for me... thnak you again..

[@nic22bro]

Thanks mate, much appreciated

[@photovideographer7230]

Thanks for your positive comment. Good to know my work is helpful.

[@BallisticSniper1]

Hi, great vid 👍 how do I format my sd card in camera for the first time?

[@photovideographer7230]

Just go to the "setup" menu item (the suitcase icon). That one has several pages. On one of them you find the "format" feature. Press on it and then select the respective memory card slot, i.e. slot 1 or slot 2. Then on format. That's it! ;-)

[@kimsonpro]

thank you so much. I found the switch options once, couldn't find it once again. Hidden too well.

[@photovideographer7230]

Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm always glad to help!

[@LightSportMan]

I need some help I only have my a7iii for 1 day and I am trying to do the following.. As I am doing real estate I like to do 1 bracketing (3 shoots) first and want it to goto SD Card 1, then I want to do my non-flash and flash going to SD Card 2. I am trying to find some easy way to have the a7III to do the bracketing to SD Card 1 then I can click on a button and have it goto one shot and put it on SD Card 2. Can this be done?

[@photovideographer7230]

You can either save still images on one memory card and videos on the other card, or you can save RAWs on one card and JPEGs on the other. If you have pre-set the Recording Media Settings according to the latter, you could do your bracketing with RAWs (saved on card 1) , then switch to JPEGs and do your non-flash and flash (saved on card 2). Alternatively you can assign the function "Prioritize Rec. Media" to a Custom button (please see my tutorial #7 how to do this). Then you only have to press that custom button after you have done your bracketing and switch to the other card and then do your non-flashes and flashes. This way you you don't have to decide whether you do part of your shooting in RAW and the other part in JPEG.

[@danmendozar]

Thanks dude!!!

[@dgarcia77]

So, you only need a SD card that can write at least 15MB/s without problems?

[@photovideographer7230]

The maximum bitrate the Sony a7III can record videos is with 100 Mbps, which equals 12.5 MB/s. Consequently, a memory card offering would be sufficient. Since the real write speeds of memory cards are typically somewhat below the officially stated ones by the manufacturers, you should consider this in your calculation. With a memory vard that does 15 MB/s you should be on the save side. It's different though, if you you want to shoot multiple bursts in a row with uncompressed RAWs. Then you might have to wait for the buffrt to empty before you can do the next one.

[@BallisticSniper1]

Thanks 🙏

[@jdhaggard562]

I have bought over 20 cards now. All SDXC-I U3 of various brands and all 128gb. The A73 wont let me shoot 4k 100. Tells me I need a U3 card which is all I have. Just ordered a couple SDXC-II cards. Maybe I can get this paperweight working :( If these do not work I will try Sony cards but where I live even a SDXC-I card is insanely overpriced at about six times the cost of other brands.

[@photovideographer7230]

Have you updated the firmware of your a7III? There was an issue with memory cards in the old firmware. To my knowledge Sony has not disclosed manufacturer and type, but from what I found elsewhere the issues occured with SanDisk cards. There might be issues with other cards as well. Hence, updating the firmware might help. However, SanDisk cards worked well in my a7 III - even when combining with a Sony card in the other memory card slot and even with the old firmware 1.00. Apart from that, an SDXC UHS-I card with 90 MB/s is more than sufficient for recording 4K/100Mbps videos.

[@jdhaggard562]

@@photovideographer7230 The camera came with 2.1 installed so it is the latest right now. Still can not get memory cards to work though. Maybe it is a defective camera. However all memory cards work... just not for 4k.

[@photovideographer7230]

@@jdhaggard562 Have you formatted the memory cards in-camera before you used them? If not, do it and test again. If it still doesn't work, then try the following: While I can't think of any setting that inhibits 4K recording, go to the last page (page 7) of the last settings menu item (Setup; the suitcase icon) and select "Setting Reset". Reset the camera and test 4K recording again. Resetting the camera will erase almost all settings you have made, but I would give it a chance before sending in the camera. If you save your settings in the M1, M2, M3 or M4 memory slot prior to the reset, you can recover most of your functions after the reset.

[@goretochannel]

Bello sir i have SonyA7iii so i want to buy 128gb 170 mbs how to work

[@photovideographer7230]

You don't even need 170 MB/s, 90-95 MB/s write speed is sufficient for recording 4K videos. Only if you are a sports photographer who shoots multiple bursts in a row you need the faster, but much more expensive SDXC cards with UHS-II support. If you do both - 4K videos and sports photography - you can have the slower and cheaper SDXC card in one memory card slot for the 4K videos, and the faster and more expensive one in the other card slot for burst shooting. Just make sure that you assign videos to the memory slot with the slower card and still images to the one with the faster card - just as shown in my tutorial.

[@mohammedelony8457]

@@photovideographer7230 what about for the a7r III can I get away with the 95MB's if i am not a sports photographer. I mainly do events and at most will need around 4-5 fps for 2-3 seconds at the most.

[@photovideographer7230]

@@mohammedelony8457 Sure! The buffer of the a7r III is good for 28 uncpmpressed RAWs and 76 compressed RAWs. If you can wait a few seconds for the buffer to empty, you can get along with a 95 MB/s memory card quite comfortably.