I recently bought a Nikon Z8 mirrorless camera. Some of the key features and advantages of this and similar cameras is the ability to shoot and incredible # of frames per second and shoot extremely high-quality video. These features require extremely fast memory cards.
Enter the CFExpress memory card format. While not exactly new - my D850 added support via a firmware update years ago, this is the first time I was incentivized to acquire a CFExpress card. I currently use a mix of XQD and SDcards. I found that the really fast CFExpress cards are ridiculously expensive. Much more expensive than XQD or SDCards of similar capacity. With a little research I also found that these cards are essentially just a standard nvme SSD storage drive commonly used in Laptops.
I put together two 512GB CFExpress cards using a Sintech adapter and Samsung PM991a nvme SSDs. These are pcie 4.0 nvme drives with a write speed of 1,800 mb/s.
The adapters + ssd and some thermal paste cost about $90 for 512GB of fast storage.
Lexar Silver 512GB cards are about $150, but are far slower and not suitable for high end video on the Z8.
Lexar Diamond 512GB cards are $530 and are about equivalent to what I put together.
Now I would probably have been just fine with the slower Lexar cards as I don't do video. But if you need a high-end card in your Z cameras, this is an excellent way to go. I've used them on my Z8 a few times this week shooting birds at x5 and x30 speeds to test them out. They seem to work great and don't get more than warm during heavy use. I also copied a few 6GB windows ISO images back and forth in my (new) CFExpress card reader and were fine.
The Sintech adapters are great and fit perfectly when you pair them with one of the recommended SSD parts. It seems like a fantastic solution without the ridiculous "Photographer" markup being charged for what are commodity PC parts.
(while double checking the prices for this post, I noticed the SSD's dropped in price by $5 since I ordered them a week ago)
Links:
Sintech adapter:
Samsung SSD:
Amazon.com: Samsung 512GB SSD M.2 2230 30mm PM991a NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 MZ9LQ512HBLU Solid State Drive for Surface Pro Steam Deck Dell HP Lenovo Ultrabook Tablet : Electronics
Enter the CFExpress memory card format. While not exactly new - my D850 added support via a firmware update years ago, this is the first time I was incentivized to acquire a CFExpress card. I currently use a mix of XQD and SDcards. I found that the really fast CFExpress cards are ridiculously expensive. Much more expensive than XQD or SDCards of similar capacity. With a little research I also found that these cards are essentially just a standard nvme SSD storage drive commonly used in Laptops.
I put together two 512GB CFExpress cards using a Sintech adapter and Samsung PM991a nvme SSDs. These are pcie 4.0 nvme drives with a write speed of 1,800 mb/s.
The adapters + ssd and some thermal paste cost about $90 for 512GB of fast storage.
Lexar Silver 512GB cards are about $150, but are far slower and not suitable for high end video on the Z8.
Lexar Diamond 512GB cards are $530 and are about equivalent to what I put together.
Now I would probably have been just fine with the slower Lexar cards as I don't do video. But if you need a high-end card in your Z cameras, this is an excellent way to go. I've used them on my Z8 a few times this week shooting birds at x5 and x30 speeds to test them out. They seem to work great and don't get more than warm during heavy use. I also copied a few 6GB windows ISO images back and forth in my (new) CFExpress card reader and were fine.
The Sintech adapters are great and fit perfectly when you pair them with one of the recommended SSD parts. It seems like a fantastic solution without the ridiculous "Photographer" markup being charged for what are commodity PC parts.
(while double checking the prices for this post, I noticed the SSD's dropped in price by $5 since I ordered them a week ago)
Links:
Sintech adapter:
Samsung SSD:
Amazon.com: Samsung 512GB SSD M.2 2230 30mm PM991a NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 MZ9LQ512HBLU Solid State Drive for Surface Pro Steam Deck Dell HP Lenovo Ultrabook Tablet : Electronics
