chemdoc Loc: West Coast

I really liked the fact that my D750 had two SD slots. When I got my D850 I was disappointed to find one SD slot and one XQD slot. My concern is that the XQD cards are several times as expensive as SD cards.

I was wondering if there is an option to get an XQD sleeve in which an SD card can be inserted, much as we do with micro SD cards? I would like to keep a backup card in my second slot, but $130 for a 64 MB card seems overly expensive.

Phil

Barney006

Hi Phil -- I wondered the same thing considering the cost of the XQD cards. Then one time I didn't have a spare card and put a different SD card in... if you're shooting in RAW, you absolutely have to have the higher speed card or your camera will bog down almost as quickly as you start shooting. I ended up losing a lot of bison photos because the camera was still writing to the card long after I finished the shoot (and I didn't think about that and turned off the camera). It's worth the extra expense to be able to shoot and save your photos quickly. You've already spent the money for the 850 -- make sure you get the cards that go with it.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

The XQD cards are great. Go with it.

chemdoc Loc: West Coast

I do shoot in RAW, but mostly landscapes, so perhaps I haven't noticed the delay you observed. Being the anal guy I am, I always save all of my full SD cards in my fireproof safe along with two backup hard drives with all of my photos as well. Perhaps I should get an XQD card and just reuse it, counting on my three external hard drives to save me from disaster. That would make it actually cheaper than buying new SD cards every time I fill one up. And the D850 with bracketing can fill a card pretty fast.

chemdoc Loc: West Coast

As a followup to my previous post, do those of you using XQD cards simply erase and reuse them when they fill up? If so, any idea how many cycles one can do so?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

No. XQDs are expensive because of their admittedly limited market penetration, and greater transfer speeds plus reliability. Also, if you can afford a $3600 camera, a $200 128 Gb XQD should not be an issue.

Largobob

Me thinkist he protests too much!

Bill_de Loc: US

I use CF, SD, and XQD cards. I never put a card back in the camera without formatting it. When I take a card out I replace it with the last used card and format it, even if it only has 2 pictures on it. That gives me some time (at least a day) to make sure I had no download errors. I have never heard of a card wearing out, although I guess it could happen.

CF Express cards should be out soon. Nikon says a firmware update will allow their use in the D850 and Z bodies. They are supposed to be cheaper than XQD, but even if they aren't their increased capacity and speed should drive XQD prices down.

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Rongnongno Loc: FL

For those who think it is a great card to have because of the writing speed...

Since this format is used in the D5, D850 and D500 almost exclusively you might pay attention these camera buffers...

In this case, unless you plan to just keep the camera shooting for minutes at the time w/o interruption, one just does not care about the SD supposedly slowness.

Comparison:


Lack of two slots? Really? You did not know that when your purchased the camera?

Photocraig

The advantage of flash memory--as in SD Cards is it is reusable. Sure, you could use them as archiving media, but that creates an excessive cost by applying SD (or any other) card for an unintended, and therefore uneconomical purpose.

1. With the higher MPIXEL cameras, the files are bigger and the buffering and write speeds of the cameras must be faster, and thus the destination storage media needs to be faster and BIGGER. And expensive.

2. As a photographer for over 60 years, starting with and returning to 12 exposure 120 rolls, I NEVER had 100% of my photos as keepers. Certainly no 20, 24 or 36 exposure rolls were all keepers, either. With bracketed shots only 1 or 2 of 3 or 5 are keepers and worth extra work. Yes, i kept the negatives or transparencies, but in a separate filing system.

In the digital realm, with 100's of exposures on a Flash device (you pick), I venture to say, NOBODY has 100% keepers. And after importing them into PP, NOBODY keeps 100% in their catalogs either. They do, however keep many less than perfect exposures in their catalog for future revisiting and PP work. But that's after culling ruthlessly!

The beauty of Digital technology is the exposures are recorded on re-usable media. They can be re-formatted many, many times. THAT's what the SD and XCD is for--primary reusable storage for recorded digital files. Processing storage (also re-usable) is higher in volume and less expensive in the computer hosting the Post Processing software and managing the catalog data and storage devices. Archive storage is a contingency facility offering large volume storage at the lowest cost per byte, and the least convenient and lowest speed access.

If it works for you, great! The XCD cards do not fit the criteria for archiving, nor do, even, the less expensive SD cards. It is your choice and your "workflow" option to do it this way, BUT when using a medium designed for high capacity (in the camera body) and high write bandwidth, it is not going to be cost effective for archiving.

I have a much less expensive APS-C camera with a mere 24MP sensor and I'm upgrading my cards. If you realign your workflow to use the most cost effective storage media for each intended purpose where they're optimal you will find that the few expensive high performance cards needed will offset the expense of your many (sounds like many many) flash cards in your archive. If you combine an aggressive culling edit to your work, you will even have fewer files that are worth archiving, thus making that process more economical and effective over the long term.

Hope this helps a little. There are VOLUMES published on archiving digital photography files. Plenty of devices and programs, including recovery software.
C

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I too wish of a cheaper alternative to the XQD card. I'm going on a 12 day photo trip this May and I'm in the process of acquiring 3 additional XQD cards to keep as back ups until I return home from the photo trip. I don't have a laptop to take along to keep my files backed up. The extra $600 is a bit of a hit, but until I find a better and cheaper solution I'll fork over the money.........You Pay to Play......

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Get yourself a LaCIe DJI Boss drive to instantly back up images to a ruggedized HD.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I've been looking at an WD back up drive as alternative about the same cost.

Bill_de Loc: US

Also used in Z6 and Z7

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DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

Panasonic and Sony are also beginning to use them as well.