Has anyone done some tests with UHS-II SD cards and the D850 to see what are realistic write speeds?I'm using my D850 with older SD cards which work fine, but I'm thinking about finally getting some new UHS-II cards. Just wanted to figure out if it's worth in terms of write speed.

sharkcookie wrote:Has anyone done some tests with UHS-II SD cards and the D850 to see what are realistic write speeds?I'm using my D850 with older SD cards which work fine, but I'm thinking about finally getting some new UHS-II cards. Just wanted to figure out if it's worth in terms of write speed.I have had my D850 now for over 2 Months and shot 4200+ frames I have used aSony 64Gb XQD G, rated at 400MB.sec - Read and WriteSandisk Extreme Pro SD V30 XC I 64Gb, rated at 95 MB/secDelkin Black SD V30 XC II 64Gb UHS II, no ratings markedSamsung 32Gb EVO SD HC I memory cards, no ratings markedI and have not had and any issue with all of them, Not sure which one is the fastest since I do not test for speed...

Thanks! I would be mostly interested in actual write speed as this would be the main reason to upgrade.

sharkcookie wrote:Thanks! I would be mostly interested in actual write speed as this would be the main reason to upgrade.I tried it with the SanDisk Extreme Pro (95MB/s) SD cards which I used on my D800, and noticed it started choking the buffer a bit sooner than I liked (shooting RAW+JPG fine*). The SD card is clearly the bottleneck and limits the write speed of your XQD card.Upgrading to the UHS-II cards solved the "problem". You could argue that if you don't do a lot of burst shooting you can live without it, but I think it's a cheap insurance to prevent clogging your buffer.I think you should just try it for yourself... specs are not so important if you don't find the slower card gives you any pracitcal limitation. If it does, then you can consider buying UHS-II.

I did a few sessions with burst shooting and I noticed a few files were corrupted when used an older, slower card.I don't shoot a lot of bursts, but here and there that's what I need and that's where I want to have the best speed I can get. Nothing worse than your camera starting to choke when you need to shoot fast.

No problems with Lexar 1000x 150mbs, fast bursts and recording 4k movies.   Don't see a need for XQD at this time.

I just got a XQD card and tested the difference to my older SD card that said 90 mb/s on it. The XQD claims to be 400 mb/s.While I didn't test the data throughput, I shot a burst with the D850 and counted the number of shots before the car would start to slow down.With the XQD card I got 79 shots before it slowed down.With the SD card it only got 18 shots.With the XQD card the camera would still keep shooting at maybe 2-3 fps. With the SD card the frame rate was way slower. A shot maybe every few seconds. In addition, it took only a few seconds to clear the buffer with the XQD card, while it took around 20 seconds with the SD card.In other words, definitely worth having at least one or two fast cards for those moments where you need speed.Of course there are faster SD cards, but they are about as expensive as XQD.

Thought these cards only write at 75MBs and are discontinued????

In camera write speed is around 150 MB/s for a fast Sandisk UHS-II SD card. This is for normal shooting. The cards may be faster under other conditions, but this is the top end for the D500 and D850.The top end UHS-I SD cards are around 75 MB/s.This has a big impact on the buffer since 7fps means you are creating around 385 MB of photos per second. A fast UHS-II card can write 2.7 fps and 4.3 fps goes into the buffer. With a UHS-I card you can only write about 1.4 fps and 5.6 fps goes to the buffer. The buffer only holds around 1.28 GB or 23 images, so maximum burst length - or images in a series of burst - will vary quite a bit.Shootiing RAW + JPEG or Backup to a second card makes a big difference on the speed and the buffer.For perspective, the Sony G XQD card has a write speed in the camer of around 210 MB/s.  The Lexar 2933x XQD is around the same speed.  The Sony M XQD is much slower - around 60 MB/s.

I have recently tested the Sony XQD 440mb/s card on the D850.I captured 5 fps for 256 full size frames without filling the buffer.When the sequence was done writing to the card continued for maybe two seconds.Pretty impressive

There's another thread where people argue that some are using their cameras to shoot just a few frames and will never fill the buffer, and their UHS-I cards are good enough.I kind of question their need for the D850.I'm willing to bet that a person who uses their camera to the fullest potential would have a pretty easy time convincing them on the spot, in the field, why they would need to have a large buffer that clears fast.It means no more missed shots when while photographing a landscape and an animal shows up. Or when you're at an event, and people are being interesting. You don't want to get just a documentary proof that it happened, you want the best possible, most stunning example of it happening; and often that means blasting away and later picking the shot that stands out the most.The problem of course is that people on forums will often read words only so that they can disagree with them. In the field, in person, a photographer is actually there to learn, not argue; so they will experience firsthand and gain understanding why expensive memory cards are worth it.

sharkcookie wrote:Thanks! I would be mostly interested in actual write speed as this would be the main reason to upgrade.The 64GB Sandisk UHS-II SDXC 300mbs r/w speed card I use in my D500 never chokes or slows down when shooting 10fps 14-bit lossless compressed RAW/small jpg.  Not sure if it's using the entire 300mbs write speed, but it is certainly much faster than the 95mbs Sandisk SDHC UHS-I cards I'm using in my other cameras.Drawback is that they are pricey, about as much as XQD cards.

Focus Shift Shooting wrote:There's another thread where people argue that some are using their cameras to shoot just a few frames and will never fill the buffer, and their UHS-I cards are good enough.I kind of question their need for the D850.I'm willing to bet that a person who uses their camera to the fullest potential would have a pretty easy time convincing them on the spot, in the field, why they would need to have a large buffer that clears fast.It means no more missed shots when while photographing a landscape and an animal shows up. Or when you're at an event, and people are being interesting. You don't want to get just a documentary proof that it happened, you want the best possible, most stunning example of it happening; and often that means blasting away and later picking the shot that stands out the most.The problem of course is that people on forums will often read words only so that they can disagree with them. In the field, in person, a photographer is actually there to learn, not argue; so they will experience firsthand and gain understanding why expensive memory cards are worth it.Perhaps the pricing has changed since I purchased my memory cards but when I was shopping for them – I found the XQD were cheaper than the UHS-II cards and were faster as well. Pretty much a no brainer for me to use the XQD as my primary card and an old UHS-I maxed at 95 MB/s as the jpg backup / overflow card.I just didn’t find the UHS-II worth what they wanted for them.I did just buy some UHS-II cards over the weekend but not for my D850 – it was for another camera where I couldn’t use XQDs. I would have loved to use XQD for this other camera but no such luck.

Canadianguy wrote:Perhaps the pricing has changed since I purchased my memory cards but when I was shopping for them – I found the XQD were cheaper than the UHS-II cards and were faster as well.When I purchased my 64GB Sony XQD 440mbs and Sandisk 300mbs SDXC UHS-II for my D500 in mid-May, the XQD was $140 and the SDXC was $119 (USD).I just checked the same retailer, B&H, and while the XQD card price has remained the same, the SDXC has dropped a whole dollar to $118.So yes the pricing has changed. Maybe the XQD was lower when Sony had the short-lived competition from Lexar.

Focus Shift Shooting wrote:There's another thread where people argue that some are using their cameras to shoot just a few frames and will never fill the buffer, and their UHS-I cards are good enough."Good enough" seems to be the mantra here, unfortunately.I kind of question their need for the D850.I would question their need for a D500.I'm willing to bet that a person who uses their camera to the fullest potential would have a pretty easy time convincing them on the spot, in the field, why they would need to have a large buffer that clears fast.It means no more missed shots when while photographing a landscape and an animal shows up. Or when you're at an event, and people are being interesting. You don't want to get just a documentary proof that it happened, you want the best possible, most stunning example of it happening; and often that means blasting away and later picking the shot that stands out the most.The problem of course is that people on forums will often read words only so that they can disagree with them. In the field, in person, a photographer is actually there to learn, not argue; so they will experience firsthand and gain understanding why expensive memory cards are worth it.Good points.  When I bought my D500, I certainly didn't want some pokey 95mbs UHS-1 card writing backup from the 440mbs XQD.  I would do the same if I had a D850.

historianx wrote:Canadianguy wrote:Perhaps the pricing has changed since I purchased my memory cards but when I was shopping for them – I found the XQD were cheaper than the UHS-II cards and were faster as well.When I purchased my 64GB Sony XQD 440mbs and Sandisk 300mbs SDXC UHS-II for my D500 in mid-May, the XQD was $140 and the SDXC was $119 (USD).I just checked the same retailer, B&H, and while the XQD card price has remained the same, the SDXC has dropped a whole dollar to $118.So yes the pricing has changed. Maybe the XQD was lower when Sony had the short-lived competition from Lexar.I use 128 GB. Sony XQD G Series 128 GB is $229.95. SanDisk SDXC UHS-II 300 MB/s 128 GB is $242.37. Lexar SDXC 2000X 128 GB is $198.95,

historianx wrote:Focus Shift Shooting wrote:There's another thread where people argue that some are using their cameras to shoot just a few frames and will never fill the buffer, and their UHS-I cards are good enough."Good enough" seems to be the mantra here, unfortunately.I kind of question their need for the D850.I would question their need for a D500.I'm willing to bet that a person who uses their camera to the fullest potential would have a pretty easy time convincing them on the spot, in the field, why they would need to have a large buffer that clears fast.It means no more missed shots when while photographing a landscape and an animal shows up. Or when you're at an event, and people are being interesting. You don't want to get just a documentary proof that it happened, you want the best possible, most stunning example of it happening; and often that means blasting away and later picking the shot that stands out the most.The problem of course is that people on forums will often read words only so that they can disagree with them. In the field, in person, a photographer is actually there to learn, not argue; so they will experience firsthand and gain understanding why expensive memory cards are worth it.Good points. When I bought my D500, I certainly didn't want some pokey 95mbs UHS-1 card writing backup from the 440mbs XQD. I would do the same if I had a D850.I have one event this year where I filled up two Sony series G 128 GB XQD cards and came close to filling up two SanDisk UHS-II 300 Mb/s 128 GB cards. I did have a couple Lexar SDXC 2000X128  GB cards in reserve. Ended up buying a third Sony 128 GB series G XQD card to use for next year's shoot.