CFexpress choice confusion- Z8

[sharang1904]

I will be receiving my Z8 in a few days and I need a good CFexpress B card. From what I have read and understood from the forums- Delkin black, Prograde cobalt=good and Sandisk=bad with some other brands like Lexar (diamond) that stand in between.
I was using a Sandisk Extreme Pro on my D850 and I understand it would just not be suited for my style of shooting (with the Z8) because of the overheating and slow write speeds.

My style of shooting would be long bursts, bird in flight action. I plan to shoot in the HE* format in RAW. I definitely require a long burst duration at 20fps, but I wouldn't mind if the fps drops just a few frames after a bit-- as long as it doesn't come to a choking halt. I would also dabble in some video- short clips of 30 seconds to a minute. Mainly 4K, including 120p. I have no idea about 8K; might give it a try.
I'm a little restricted in budget- around 220 USD with shipping. The problem is I am severely limited in options when buying online here in India. So I wouldn't mind ordering from B&H.

I have managed to narrow it down to these choices:

Delkin Power 512 GB G4 version:
https://gppro.in/product/delkin-devices-512gb-power-cfexpress-type-b-memory-card/

versus the non-G4 version from B&H:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...ices_dcfx4p512_512gb_power_4_0_cfexpress.html

What's the difference between the G4/non-G4 versions and would they be a good option for my shooting style? Is the sustained write speed of 805/820 MB/s good enough? Why is the G4 version discontinued at B&H? The non-G4 seems to have much higher max read and write speeds. Does that make a difference?

Prograde options which I’ve considered:

Prograde Cobalt 165GB:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...l_pgcfx165gcpbh_165gb_cfexpress_2_0_type.html

Where the sustained write speed is much, much higher (1400 MB/s) but the storage capacity is quite low.

Prograde Gold 512 GB:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...prograde_digital_512gb_cfexpress.html/reviews

The Prograde Gold 512 GB card is the same price as its Delkin Power G4 counterpart. But max read and write speeds are higher and the sustained write speed marginally higher at 850 MB/s.

Two more options- Lexar Gold 512GB (sus. write 1000 MB/s) and Angelbird Pro 1TB (sus. write 1300 MB/s) :
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...512g_rneng_professional_cfexpress_type_b.html
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1774785-REG/angelbird_avp1t0cfxbse_1tb_av_pro_cfexpress.html

In a nutshell, if the sustained write speeds of any of these brands are enough for my usage and buffer requirements, I would think the 512GB cards are a better deal overall.
Looking forward to your recommendations.

Thank you

 

[abc123brian]

I shoot in HE* on Z8 and Z9 and have them set to 20FPS. I have the older Delkin Black, Delkin Power, and Angelbird SX cards and haven’t hit the buffer with any of them. For video, I shoot a lot in 4k 120 H.265 10-bit for short clips and 4k 30 for long times without issue. I think the older Delkin Power cards are a great bargain. I haven’t tried the gen 4 cards to compare.

I think given the use you mentioned you would be good with the cards you listed, just note the ProGrade Gold cards would need to be the newer ones as the old ones are slow.

 

[SoCalRick]

I use both Prograde Cobalt and Delkin Black branded cards in my Z8 and Z9. As your forum research revealed, these are popular brands of CFE cards on this site (along with a handful of others).

These cards are certainly fast enough to keep up with your Z8 (as long as you don't mirror to the CF card slot). These cards have easily kept up when I'm shooting 20 fps (full RAW, not HE*) for BIF, and I have never hit the buffer limit (although it's possible to do so eventually). You will easily be able to have sustained LONG bursts at 20 fps.

There are lots of tests of various CFE cards out on the web, but you will be very happy with either of these brands.

I don't have much experience with shooting video, but again you should have no problem shooting 30 second clips at 4k 120p.

 

[Nasos Kosmas]

The same as above I use 512 Delkin Power no G4 with no issues!
Z8 20 fps HE* long bursts and 4k H265 with no issues, lucky to get it from B&H instant shavings for 130$
my only non real issue is that it gets some time to upload from camera to Studio NX if you fill it with 17-18K HE* files

 

[wotan1]

I have stuck with Delkin Black and Prograde Cobalt and have never had any problems.

I think as I recall Delkin will agree to replace any. card within two days or something like that if something went wrong. I think they only do that for the black.

I think the newer cards have some advances that our cameras are not able to utilize. The older version of these cards are more than adequate. I understand you can get card readers that take advantage of the enhanced speed but realistically the speed at which crds are imported is plenty fast enough for me with the standard Delking reader into a Mac 2 studio.

As far as size is concerned if you are going to have a heavy trigger finger you can go through 165 gb in a normal day of shooting. I have done that. I don
t think however that you need anything bigger than 325 gb for stills so long as you can import the files and reformat your card after a day of shooting. Video however takes a lot more space.

Be aware the Z8 has limitations with video compared to the Z9. For really long videos I understand the heat sinking is less robust than the Z9 and there is a tendency to overheat for long stuff. Not a problem for short videos and not an issue with stills.

 

[John Navitsky]

Delkin Power 512 GB G4 version:
https://gppro.in/product/delkin-devices-512gb-power-cfexpress-type-b-memory-card/

note you get a performance bump when you go up to the 650GB card (or larger)

based on your comments, if you can afford the 650GB version of this card, just stop here

Two more options- Lexar Gold 512GB (sus. write 1000 MB/s) and Angelbird Pro 1TB (sus. write 1300 MB/s) :

no, hot card

REG/angelbird_avp1t0cfxbse_1tb_av_pro_cfexpress.html

some people like them, but i don’t trust them due to a variety of issues they had early on.