Not so deep fakes? Identifying SD cards with a hidden secret.

 

So I needed some SD cards to use with my original BMPCC, a camera which is incredibly picky about what brands and types of card it will accept.  This is literally the Goldilocks of cameras… not too fast… not too slow… just the right brand…

My search led inevitably to eBay, which is where the fun begins.  Obviously there are plenty of SD cards available on eBay, literally thousands of listings, all manner of brands, speeds and sizes.  The BMPCC needs an SD card from a very small selection https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/faq/43083.  In fact it’s almost exclusively Sandisk cards that will work with this camera, and in particular the Extreme Pro range of 95MB/s class 10 cards from approximately 2012-2014.

I wanted to get a few cards so I could capture some RAW footage, so I was looking for at least 128GB cards and there weren’t many of those available.  After a few days of auction watching I was able to score a few job lots of old cards and ended up with a good selection of cards including a load of 32gb & 64gb versions, plus some 128gb’s and even a 256gb.

I also picked up a few fakes along the way.  I thought it would be useful to look at a couple of them and see the differences.

Obviously the first difference is that a fake card is not going to work in the camera, so you will get the dreaded ‘no card’ message like this:

Firstly the thing to know about Sandisk cards is that they all look the same, they have the same plastic finish, same label style and all of them have a ‘made in China’ message on the back with a small serial number written in grey.

If your card doesn’t have those features then it’s a fake.  If it says made in Korea then it’s not a Sandisk card. If it has a different font on the front then it’s a fake, and if the label is not crisp and perfectly legible then it’s a fake.

Here are a couple of examples.

This first one is pretty good.  The label has the correct font and looks correct at first glance.  However on closer inspection the printing is fizzy round the edges, especially around the 128gb font.  The back has no serial number or Made In China message, and the sliding erase lock button is black instead of dark grey.

This next one is a more obvious fake.

The label has the wrong colour of foil printing and the wrong font, the black line is fuzzy and the sliding lock button is white instead of grey.  On the back it has a ‘Made In Korea’ message and a much larger and more complicated printing that a genuine Sandisk card would have.  I suspect this is a rebadged Lexar card.  Either way it doesn’t work in the BMPCC so it’s no use.

Here is a side by side comparison with a genuine card:

So that’s a couple of examples of fake SD cards.  Hopefully these images will help you if you are looking to buy some used Sandisk cards.  

I’m still searching for that elusive 512gb and hopeful I will find one at a decent price, but at least I’ve got some RAW ready cards to get me started.  The hunt continues.