EOS 5D Mark IV 256GB CF Memory Card Compatibility

[emipelaez17]

can someone tell me if a 256 gb memory card is compatible with the 5d mark IV?  I was thinking about getting a SanDisk or Lexar 256gb card but i'm seeing some reviews that say the 5D Mark II works with the 128gb card but not the 256gb card.  Does anyone have any experience with this?  Thanks!

[March411 · Accepted solution]

Good day emipelaez17

I travel a bit and needed the same answer so I did the research. Every thing I found really pointed to using a 128GB card max. The link I provided explains that you can use a larger card but it will format differently and the format needs to be completed on a PC.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART174049

I did find some people were using a 256GB card in the Mark IV but the camera would not format the card, they needed to I format it in exFAT on a PC.

Personally I did not go with the 256GB as it seemed like it could present challenges and I didn't want to put my images at risk. There is a fair amount of information on the topic and really no exact answer beyond knowing that 128GB appears to be the safest max. That was the overall consensus, the people that used exFat were doing so for video.

Search What is the CF capacity limitation for EOS 5D IV and you'll see what I mean.

Good luck!

[March411]

OK Ricky, but if you read closely I stated most owners reported that they would not format the 256GB card in camera. The details that I posted matter, I never stated that the 5D IV didn't use exFAT but thank you for the clarity.

[rs-eos]

The 5D IV can and does format cards in exFAT.  There's no need to format on a Mac or PC.

[March411]

I'm not sure if a firmware update resolved it but through my research the feedback was that 128GB worked fine, the 256GB would not, it required a PC.

From the Canon Website

CF cards up to 128 GB in capacity and SD/SDHC cards will be formatted in FAT32. CF cards exceeding 128 GB and SDXC cards will be formatted in exFAT. When shooting a movie with a card formatted in exFAT, the movie will be recorded in a single file (instead of being split into multiple files) even if it exceeds 4 GB. (The movie file will exceed 4 GB.)

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART174049

Things may have changed since I took a look into it. Have you formatted a 256GB card yourself to see if it did work. That would be great and I could go out and purchase larger cards.

[normadel]

There's an old question in the computer world regarding using very large storage drives......"How much data do you want to entrust to just one spindle?"  

Sure, it's handy to use a very large memory card and not have to swap cards in your camera. But what if that one single card fails, or gets corrupted somehow? You can lose a treasure trove of Thailand photography in one fell swoop  Spreading your efforts over multiple cards means that if one fails, you have not lost everything.

[rs-eos · Accepted solution]

The 5D IV is one of Canon's cameras with dual card slots.  And with two different card types on top of that.  I have used large cards over the years for both photos and videos (128 GB, 256 GB) and have not run into any issues.  I employ the usual best practices when working with media cards.

Cards can fail, yes, but with the redundancy of dual card slots, it's far less of an issue.  For crucial projects, I'll even set the camera to record RAW+JPEG to both slots.

And large capacity cards are very important when doing video work.