Now that I’ve chosen a Raw Converter for my the Fujifilm GFX. It’s time to put things in order.
Here’s the story, I have a very old machine in today’s terms. Buy I’m not giving up on the old beast of a machine just yet. It has served me well over the years. So I have decided for another year with the giant cheese grater facade that my Mac Pro from Early 2009 proudly protrudes with.
First things first though, improving saving data to the camera and transferring time to the PC/MAC is what this post is about. This will help future workflows in regard to to working with a Raw Converter. Hopefully images should glide more smoothly onto screen. However for this to happen everything must support USB3 with UHS-II built in.
The Fujifilm GFX already supports UHS-II SD card so that’s a great start!
What is UHS-II ?
UHS-II (Ultra High-Speed Phase II) is a successor to UHS-I. The UHS-II bumps up the theoretical bus speed to 312 MB/s marking a 3x increase in comparison to UHS-I. UHS-II was introduced in 2011 as a part of the SD Specifications Version 4.0 (PDF).
So basically it’s an SD card with extra pins which is up to three times faster than current UHS-I cards.
Get a well supported USB 3 Card
Next we need to upgrade to USB 3 at least for the Mac Pro. There are many many USB 3 PCI-e card available out there for desktop. But to ensure compatibility take a chipset which is supported by OSX Yosemite and newer versions of the Mac OS. Of course if your PC or MAC already has USB 3 then you’re set to go and don’t need an upgrade. You can skip this step and move on to the next section.
For Upgrading Mac users: If you’ve got a Apple Mac . What I’ve find is that Fresco Logic chipset is well supported. If you wish to read in more detail check the the link :
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-3-x-pcie-cards-for-classic-mac-pro.1501482/
For Upgrading PC users pretty much any card will do but I’d recommended one which has drivers built into Windows. Any 3rd party driver tend to be buggy and unstable. The Windows drivers are the best to use to get you up and running.
Super Fast USB Reader
Now pay close attention, there are many many USB readers available to buy online but it’s important to 
choose wisely. There are two criteria to consider. One USB 3.0/3.1 depending on your computer’s connectivity whether it supports USB C or the blue USB socket. The another criteria is essential UHS-II support. Currently SanDisk offer the best readers which support UHS-II
Fast cards for Digital UHS-II
I’ve been using 80-90MB/s SD card for quite some time. For Landscape photography where things are slow it doesn’t really matter at all.
However when I wish to photograph my children in burst mode with the Fujifilm GFX then that’s a different matter entirely. The burst mode works great for the first few images. But I must wait painfully until the camera is finally finished saving all the images. So I’ve a really need for speed. This will also help big time when improving images into your computer. You see UHS-II SD cards operate at approx 300MB/s. Certainly the ticket to solve large files with shorter transfer times.
Finally
To recap, these three things will improve not only capturing the moment but also transferring the moments into your computer too. Think USB3, UHS-II and suitable USB reader and you’ll get more time shooting and editing your images.