CF and SD Cards for Nikon D800

[jwrupley]

To date I have stuck with the Nikon recommended CF and SD cards, but shooting raw chews up a lot of memory when traveling. Has anyone tried CF cards larger than 64 gb and SD cards with more than 128 gb? If so, what size did you use and did they have acceptable performance levels?

Thanks
John

[Mike Buckley]

I wouldn't want memory cards that large. If one becomes corrupted, you might lose all of the images on the card. If one becomes lost or stolen, you will definitely lose all of the images on the card. That explains why my largest cards are 16 GB.

[Manfred M]

I tend to shoot 64GB CF cards most of the time on my D800 and only use the SD slot as a backup. I generally have 6 or 7 CF cards with me while traveling. I also back up my cards nightly on dual 2TB HDDs that I carry separately from the camera cards. I also carry some older 32GB cards as backup. I buy only Lexar or SanDisk cards and have never had a card failure. I can't say the same is true for other brands.

I haven't tried anything larger just because of the price premium (I prefer 800x CF or faster, otherwise it just takes too long to download, even using USB 3.0)

[jwrupley]

Mike
Thanks. I use a 32 gb CF and a 64 gb SD. Like GrumpyDiver, I have been shooting digital for ten years and have never had a failure using Sandisk or Lexar. I guess you roll the dice. I don't shoot video, but if I did, I would definitely have to go to larger cards. My SD is strictly overflow. Thanks for the info.

[Manfred M]

I don't shoot video, but if I did, I would definitely have to go to larger cards.

Surprisingly HD video (1920 x 1080) at any frame rate takes surprisingly little space. I can fit 6 hours of video on a single 64GB card. The compression algorithms (all video is compressed) take a single frame and then only record the changes on subsequent frames. The base frame is taken every 0.5 seconds.

[NorthernFocus]

I've been shooting D800/810 since they came out but can't offer any advice on the original question. 32GB seems to be a sweet spot for me for usability, security, and cost/benefit ratio.

[Black Pearl]

Which 'flavour' of NEF are you using?

[jwrupley]

Robin
Not sure what you mean by Flavour. I do not use an compression, if that is what you mean. I like to keep my NEF's pure in case I want to blow them up to much larger images. Let me know if that was not your question.

Best regards,
John

[Black Pearl]

Yep - thats what I was getting at.

You won't see any difference in quality regardless of how large you print between a NEF (RAW), Lossless compressed, 14-bit - 41.3 MB file and a NEF (RAW), Uncompressed, 14-bit- 74.4 MB file. Google it and you will see this is common advice pretty much everywhere you look. Honestly there is no need to leave it at the uncompressed setting and you will instantly gain more capacity (kind of) on your cards.

[Andrew1]

John, when you are looking for more memory cards stick to brick and mortar shops or with very well known suppliers from the US. Stay away from the internet shops that offer you a deal too good to be true. It is. Lots of counterfeit crap from China out there and plain low quality no-name brands from everyplace else.

[James G]

I have had a card fail on me, an 8Gb Sandisk SD Ultra. From memory I think it had been in service for a couple of years. Seemed to happen when the card filled.

Rather stupid really, because I have the Canon 7DMk2 which has 2 card slots and there was the corresponding CF card in the other slot. I had the camera set to fill a card first and then write to the second.

I was satisfied that it was a card failure and not the camera.

I now write dual copies to 16Gb SD and CF cards.

I don't have any cards larger than 16Gb, but always carry a pair of backup cards. At present it is very unlikely I would exhaust 32 Gb in any single shoot.

Like others, when away from home I backup shoots daily to 2x portable offline drives.

Of yes, I generally favour Sandisk and Lexar cards, but just recently have been using Calumet own brand which I was given as XMAS gifts.

[jwrupley]

once in a while I will use a supplier that is not well known because I have a reference from someone who has used them. However, 98% of my business is with B&H in New York. I have never had a problem with them in over 20 years on any item, big or small. Thanks for the post.
John