The same can be said about the SD and SDHC cards used in many other digital cameras.
Even if a photographer wasn’t aware of this performance specification at first, they would quickly catch on to the importance of fast writing speeds the first time their camera slowed them down because of a full buffer.Ĭompact Flash cards used in many professional and prosumer cameras have an upper limit to what writing speed can be utilized. Read/write speed is a performance factor some photographers forget to take into account, but the camera and memory card manufacturers haven’t forgotten. Thus, storage size is going to be a prime consideration. Opting for uncompressed 14-bit will easily render single image files of up to 100MB in size. As it is, 12-bit RAW is going to eat up storage space when shooting on a 45.7mp sensor. The Nikon D850, Z7, and other yet to be announced Nikon cameras will produce huge image files when selecting 14-bit RAW as the recording format. Sony has been the major manufacturer of XQD cards for a couple of years, and Nikon is also entering the field as a supplier of XQD cards. Current storage sizes already available are 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. Already announced in a 1TB size, a 2TB size is likely coming to market soon. Storage size capability with XQD is huge. Very reliable prevention from corruptibility and failure.Three things mark the XQD card as significantly different from previous card formats: A Compact Flash card in the same orientation has a horizontal rectangle shape, but appears a bit more square-ish than an XQD. With the contact end of the card pointing down, an XQD card has a vertical rectangle shape, similar in proportions to an SD card, but significantly larger. Compared to a Compact Flash card, the XQD is slightly smaller. XQD cards differ physically from the other card formats in the current market. You’ll find XQD slots in the full-frame format Nikon D4 and D4s, D5, D850, the APS-C format D500, and the new Nikon mirrorless full-frame format cameras, the Nikon Z7. Strong camera industry rumor has other cameras and brands adopting the XQD format of cards in the near future. XQD cards are a relatively new card format found in several professional level still cameras from Nikon and high-end video cameras from Sony.
Now that we have covered the basics of how to compare memory cards, let’s jump into the world of XQD cards. In addition, not all corruption problems have a fix, or a good enough fix.
While software exists that may be able to retrieve damaged files, it’s better to not have the issue in the first place. Corruption may affect only a few files at a time or the entire card. The stability and security of a memory card is important. The same goes for read speeds when it comes time to unload 256GB of images to your computer, you don’t want to be sitting there for an hour waiting for the transfer to complete! Reliability – Corruption Protectionįew things hurt a photographer more than losing shots due to something outside their control. While the camera buffer size has a huge part to play in this, a card that writes slowly will end up causing a backup in your image flow which can cause you to miss that perfect shot. This is a critical consideration for any photographer who shoots a high volume of photos. Modern mirrorless cameras are taking 30-40 megapixel photos, which now forces photographers to seek out cards with 256GB, 512GB, and even 1TB of storage. When image files were moderate in size, a card with 16GB seemed like endless capacity. Especially if you are bracketing, shooting action or events, or creating panoramas, which all require a large number of image files. If the camera is producing RAW files of 30MB to 100MB each, the storage space is going to be taken up quickly. Storage Sizeīesides the card type, this is one of the most important considerations many photographers contemplate. What cards does the camera support? Even if a card physically fits, it may not work properly if the camera or cards are not backward or cross-compatible. What memory card is the camera configured for? If your camera only takes XQD cards, a CF card isn’t going to fit and vice versa.