Published: September 22, 2016
The Canon 80D camera is an enthusiast-level DSLR with 24.2MP megapixel APS-C sensor. It offers numerous upgrades over the 20.2MP 70D. The AF system has been improved to 45 cross-type point sensors, up from the 19 in the previous camera, and also shares the on-sensor dual pixel AF during live view. Video has been improved with 1080/60p. The 80D can capture up to 7 frames per second in continuous shooting. A single memory card slot accepts standard SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards and supports UHS-I.
To compare memory card performance in the 80D, a total of 87 SD cards were tested in the camera. The write speed was tested using continuous shooting of RAW images. The continuous shooting results show the number of RAW+JPEG, RAW and JPEG images captured during 30 seconds of continuous shooting. A detailed analysis has more information from the tests. Recommended SD cards for the 80D are drawn from the results and offer a guide to buying the fastest memory card for the camera.
The Canon 80D is mounted on a tripod and aimed at a detailed test scene under controlled lightning. The shutter is operated with a remote release timer. A manual lens is used with focus and aperture locked throughout the test. Write speed is the amount of data written to the card divided by the write time. The calculation is based on shot interval during extended continuous shooting with the buffer full because it provides the most consistent results. The card access light is not used because it illuminates as soon as the shutter is first activated rather than when the data is actually written. Results are in MB/s where 1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes.
Continuous shooting is a measurement of the number of images that can be taken in 30 seconds (not including the buffer clearing time). Three image modes are used for this test: RAW+JPEG, RAW, and JPEG. The JPEG setting is large, fine quality. The camera is set to continuous high release mode. The subject is a detailed test scene. The average RAW file size is 35.1 MB, average JPEG file size is 14.4 MB.
The Canon 80D can use UHS-I SD cards and supports the fastest SDR104 bus mode. Average write speed using the fastest cards reached 81.5MB/s. The 70D only reached up to 36.4MB/s average write speed (its speed is limited because it does not support SDR104). UHS-II cards are not supported by the 80D, however UHS-II cards are backwards compatible and can operate in UHS-I mode, although their speed is limited in this mode and offer offer no benefit in the 80D compared with fast UHS-I cards.
The buffer capacity and write speed of the 80D is improved over the 70D. When shooting RAW+JPEG, the 80D captured 17-20 shots at full frame rate (depending on the card), where the 70D only captured 7 images. In RAW mode the 80D captured 20-24 shots at full frame rate, while the 70D only captured 12-13. In JPEG mode the 80D was able to take 25 shots using the slowest card and up to 130 shots using the fastest card at full frame rate, the 70D only captured 20-27 shots in a similar test. The buffer capacity varies according to the card write speed because the camera clears the buffer while shooting; cards with faster write speed allow longer shooting at full frame rate.
Card write speed also affects the frame rate after the buffer has reached capacity. In RAW mode, frame rate with the buffer full varied from 0.3 to 2.3 fps, depending on card speed. In addition to card write speed, the frame rate depends on camera settings and the subject of the image. The detailed test scene in these tests creates 35.1 MB average RAW files and 14.4 MB average JPEG files. When shooting less detailed subjects the file size is smaller and increases the frame rate while the buffer is full.
The fastest SD card for the Canon 80D is a tie between the SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-I and Lexar Professional 2000x UHS-II cards. Both performed up to 81.5 MB/s average write speed during continuous RAW shooting. Since the 80D only supports UHS-I, the UHS-II card operates in UHS-I mode and offers no write speed advantage in the camera, however in a UHS-II card reader the UHS-II card offers a much higher download speed (about 250 MB/s compared with 90MB/s for UHS-I cards when downloading images to a computer). (Note that the SanDisk Extreme Pro 280MB/s UHS-II card was much slower in UHS-I mode, only reaching 41.7 MB/s average write speed because the card does not support UHS-I SDR104 mode.)
Several cards offer a good value by offering high write speed and relatively low cost. The most notable is the Kingston Class 10 64GB SDXC card (SDA10/64GB), which was much faster than the 32GB capacity card. The above tables can be sorted by price and limited to specific card sizes by clicking on the titles in the header.
The Canon 80D is equipped with a USB 2.0 port on the camera that can be used to transfer images to a computer. To test the transfer speed, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB SDXC card with 5GB of RAW images was placed in the camera and a USB cable was connected to a computer with a SSD drive. The transfer took 166 seconds, which was just over 30MB/s transfer rate. While the performance is about what could be expected from USB 2.0, it is far below the speed a USB 3.0 card reader can provide. Transfer speeds up to 90 MB/s are possible with UHS-I cards when using a separate USB 3.0 card reader. And UHS-II cards such as the Lexar Professional 2000x UHS-II are capable of average transfer speeds around 250 MB/s when copying RAW files using a UHS-II card reader. Additional card reader tests and benchmarks can be found in the Card Reader Reviews.