CF Express B Cards: Need Modest Recommendations

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JamesFarrell

JamesFarrell

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I’ve dreaded posting this inquiry about CF Express B since I’ll likely get a lot of ‘personal preference” responses (Coke vs Pepsi - Ford or Chevy) that miss the mark as to what kind of information I am looking for. Hopefully, after reading the rest of this post you’ll better understand what I’m looking for.

Background, after a year-plus hiatus from photography (for personal reasons) and having disposed of two Z9’s (and the crazy expensive large capacity CFb cards) that I didn’t come even remotely close to using to their abilities, I’ve re-entered the Nikon Z world now with two Z6-III bodies and modest expectations. The Z6-III attributes are right up my alley, albeit NOT planning on thousands of captures daily. Not addressing pros-cons of the camera in this thread. So please refrain from doing so.

Bottom Line > I am in the market for “middle-of-the-road”, “medium-performance”, “smallish capacity” (e.g., 150gb or so) CF Express B cards for the Z6-III. I don’t have a lot of money to spend on cards, but, at the same time, I don’t want to experiment with cheap, knock-offs of the major brands. My shooting style is wildlife/nature on a casual basis. In my late 70’s, I’m NOT one to spend all day, leaning hard on a shutter at 20 fps. I don’t shoot video with my Nikon gear.

As the CF Express B published comparisons are a blizzard of confusing numbers, what do you who understand my stated modest needs here (not XQD) for cards that will suffice for my humble needs? Thanks in advance for your feedback. Best Regards, Jim
 
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Anton said:
I use the Prograde Gold card in the Z6III and it works perfectly fine.
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Anton: Thanks for your response. Two follow up questions: 1.) are the Prograde gold cards you’re using in the Z6-III the Version 4.0 cards? And 2.) What reader works best? It would connect to a MacBook Pro M1 via a Thunderbolt 4 cable. When I had a Prograde card before with the first gen. prograde reader, it would ’hang’ on my Mac, meaning it would sometimes not mount or unmount. Prograde did not offer a firmware update for it.
 
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JamesFarrell said:
2.) What reader works best? It would connect to a MacBook Pro M1 via a Thunderbolt 4 cable.
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most cfe-b readers that are connected via usb are largely the same and you can just get what appeals to you.

i've tried a variety of readers and my preference is this one based on the fact i like the rubber housing and i like the push-in-push-out feature:


there are thunderbolt (and or usb4) options which give more performance, but if you're looking for a value solution, they probably aren't worth the increase in price or the increased likelyhood you might have hiccups
 
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The key here is to look at the minimum and/or sustained write speed. This is the lowest speed the image file will be written to the card (assuming the camera hardware is that fast). I have 3 of the Delkin Power cards (green) (2 @128GB; 1 G4 @ 1TB) and they all perform well and without issue. The tipping point on the Delkin Power cards is at 650GB. Cards below that have minimum sustained at 820 or 805 MB/s. At 650GB and above, sustained write is at 1570 MB/s. Another thing to be aware of there are different versions of the Delkin Power cards. The original, the G4 and the latest in the larger sizes (512 and above) the "4.0." The 4.0 indicator is the PCIE version. It is faster than PCIE 3.0. However, no camera on the market that I am aware of takes advantage of the PCIE 4.0 spec and this is a hardware spec so a firmware update cannot upgrade to it. Therefore, the only place you might see a difference would be transferring files to your computer and even then, only if your computer and card reader are capable. Thus, I would ignore it.

Pricing is designed to get you to spend a little more for a lot more GB

Delkin Power 4.0 512GB $200; Delkin Power G4 512GB $175. Sustained write speeds are virtually the same.
Delkin Power G4 325GB $160.
Delkin Power G4 256GB $135.
Delkin Power G4 165GB $125.
Delkin Power G4 128GB $110.


You would probably be well served with whatever combination of 2 cards that fit your budget. If you need a card reader, Delkin sells a card reader-128GB G4 combo that saves a couple of bucks. Add a second card to that (maybe a 256GB which is double the GB for $25) and you should be good to go.
 
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JamesFarrell said:
Anton: Thanks for your response. Two follow up questions: 1.) are the Prograde gold cards you’re using in the Z6-III the Version 4.0 cards? And 2.) What reader works best? It would connect to a MacBook Pro M1 via a Thunderbolt 4 cable. When I had a Prograde card before with the first gen. prograde reader, it would ’hang’ on my Mac, meaning it would sometimes not mount or unmount. Prograde did not offer a firmware update for it.
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FWIW, I've switched to the Prograde Gold cards for their value and their performance is excellent especially for video. On my Z8's it buffers slightly more quickly than the Cobalt or the Delkin Blacks, but they run cool and are reliable. In terms of which version, the Z6-III uses v 2.0, though you'll gain a bit of read performance when transferring to a computer with a 4.0 card and reader providing you have TB4. I don't recommend a particular v4.0 reader and there were some good prices recently on the Prograde sale and the Amazon Prime days.
 
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