At NAB 2023, we saw some amazing innovations. From a 160-bit film scanner to lens adapters that tune your everyday lens, this year's show had us feeling like kids in a candy store.
But Lexar, a company known for storage media, also came to impress. With a whole list of new CFexpress cards, Lexar showed that they aren’t just keeping up, but pushing the limits of what storage can do.
Check our booth visit first before we dive in a bit more:
Lexar’s New CF Express Cards
At the booth, Lexar invited some amazing speakers and creatives to discuss how they make their content. But for us tech nerds, we wanted to know all about the new storage media they brought to the show.
First, we had the Lexar Professional CFexpress Type B Cards, which came in two versions: GOLD and DIAMOND.
The DIAMOND series was all about speed and offers creatives super fast read and write speeds. Up to 1900MB/s read and up to 1700MB/s write in three different capacities — 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. With those kinds of speeds, there isn’t a file format out there that these cards won’t be able to tackle. 8K RAW? No problem.
Professional CFexpress Type B Card DIAMOND SeriesCredit: Lexar
But if you want capacity, that’s where the GOLD series comes in.
The Lexar Professional CFexpress Type B GOLD cards will still have read speeds of up to 1900MB/s. The write speeds go up to 1500MB/s, which is still fast for most applications. However, this trade-off was made to give filmmakers more capacity.
How much? How about 1TB and 2TB for worth storage over the usual offering? With that kind of capacity, documentary filmmakers can record for longer without having to swap cards.
Professional CFexpress Type B Card GOLD SeriesCredit: Lexar
For shooters using Type A cards, the Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A Card GOLD series offers up to 900MB/s read and up to 800MB/s write with capacities from 80GB to 320GB.
Do you still shoot on an SD card? Then you’re in luck. Lexar also released the Professional 2000x SDXC UHS-II Card GOLD series, with up to 300MB/s read and up to 260MB/s write, and up to 256GB in capacity.
Whatever your shooting needs, be it speed or capacity, Lexar arrived at NAB 2023 to deliver.
Reading and Storage
So you have your cards? They’re all filled up? What do you do now? Thankfully, Lexar also brought some much-needed tools to fill out the image pipeline.
The Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A / SD USB 3.2 Gen 2 Reader, as well as the Professional CFexpress Type B USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Reader, tackles not only your CFexpress cards but also your SD Cards.
Professional CFexpress Type A _SD USB 3.2 Gen 2 ReaderCredit: Lexar
We used the Type A/SD USB 3.2 Gen 2 Reader during the show to get our media downloaded, and it took us about three seconds to get 7GBs off the card. So much for a coffee break, right?
And while we didn’t use the Lexar SL200 Portable SSD, with a max capacity of 2TB and up to 550MB/s read and 400MB/s write, you’ll always have a place to offload your footage when you’re done. It’s also compact enough to keep you editing on the go.
Worry About Creating, Not Workflow
As creatives, the tools we use to create will always be the foundation of our work. However, we can sometimes be bogged down by gear that can’t keep up with the growing resolution and high-end codecs that modern cameras come with.
Lexar hopes to change that by giving you options to fit the needs you have.
So what are your needs? Let us know in the comments!
No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2023 is brought to you by Blackmagic Design and Lexar.
