Hi,I have just purchased my first D500 and I have a question about the Buffer and the SD card to use.For slot n. 1, I have the fasted XQD Lexar make. No problem. 200 RAW images.But, I don't like shooting on just one card and I like to have a back up. So I put inside a UHS-I 95 MB/s card (Lexar Bronze) I had and set RAW+JPG Fine*. I do a first test and I was shocked at first, merely 25 image. I mean I was expecting less, but not that much. I have an X-Pro2 that has both RAW and JPG bigger in file size, slot n.2 it is just UHS-I and I can take around 50 picture at 8 FPS, and the limit it is probably still the RAW, not the JPG. How can it perform better than a D500?I took a breath and decided that maybe was the card. So I take a UHS-II V60 (Lexar gold, the same used in my X-Pro) and put it in the D500. Repeated the test and...27 images. It was barely an improved, honestly, I am not sure if it is just a normal variance error.So I did one last test. I turned off all camera correction for JPG, dropped the quality from FINE* to FINE and I got.... 30. Sure, at least it is a sure improvement this time but, is it normal? It almost feels like my D500 write at UHS-I. The card should be twice as first, if not more (tested), why I am getting such a small improvement? If on UHS-I it take 25 images, I would expect something around 50 on UHS-II. Am I doing something wrong?Reading online, I found out that the D500 haven't worked nicely with Lexar SD, and unfortunately I just have those lying around as far as UHS-II goes. But I also read that Nikon should have fixed it with a firmware update (I have the latest) and Lexar should have also tried to fix it by their part on newer SDs (I bought them 2 months ago, the issue was reported on D500 release, so...).It may be worth try to buy another brand? Maybe try a V90 card this time? Or it would just be a waste of money and what I am seeing are the performance I should be getting for some reason?Just for further information, I leavethis link, it is a Review I found about the Nikon D500 SD card performance. Not that updated but it's something. Simply based on that site numbers, it seems that the D500 internal SD connection top up at around 160+ MB/s, considering a JPG it is around 11-14 MB, at 10FPS it should be around 110/140MB/s hence less than what the Buffer to SD connection should be. So may be my SD card?If anyone has any further information it would be appreciated. I don't need a buffer of 200 images, but on the other hand, 25 it is really small, especially for what this camera was designed for. I would be more than happy if I could land in something in between.Thanks in advance.

I shoot with a Delkin Green CF Express Type B 128GB card in slot one and a San Disk Ultra Plus 128GB UHS-1 card in the 2nd slot. I've never ever had the buffer being an issue, shooting at the highest FPS the D500 does, and almost always with the F-Mount 200-500mm.I've played around with this but I prefer RAW on the CFE card and JPEGs n the UHS card.The only thing I would say is that just invest wisely in your cards. I tend to go with what has always worked in the past, even if that means a bit of a premium price and not the cheapest cards I can find on Amazon. I've NEVER had a Delkin or San Disk card fail me. NEVER.

fotosean wrote:I shoot with a Delkin Green CF Express Type B 128GB card in slot one and a San Disk Ultra Plus 128GB UHS-1 card in the 2nd slot. I've never ever had the buffer being an issue, shooting at the highest FPS the D500 does, and almost always with the F-Mount 200-500mm.Could you elaborate more? How many pictures, at least roughly, are you taking in order to consider it a non issue? Something more objective that I can compare with. Maybe you are getting the same 25-30 picture but that's fine because you never shoot for more than 3 second maybe. You should give a bit more context.I've played around with this but I prefer RAW on the CFE card and JPEGs n the UHS card.Could you write what are your settings for RAW and JPG please?The only thing I would say is that just invest wisely in your cards. I tend to go with what has always worked in the past, even if that means a bit of a premium price and not the cheapest cards I can find on Amazon.I have 2 Lexar gold V60 paid something like €60 each, I would not consider them cheap nor a cheap brand.

It is the card, not the buffer.The magic of the "endlesss buffer" in the D500 resides in the write speed of XQD (or CF Express). The naturel size of the buffer is what you see when you half press the shutter button. It appears in the "Number of shots remaining" section of the "Control Panel". In my case, set to RAW only, Number of shots remaining show 350 with a Lexar 2933 32 GB XQD card, When I half-press the shutter button, it shows "r29". But because th D500 can write to the card at breakneck speed, the buffer never fills, it empties before topping out. The D500 stops after reaching 200 shots by design, not because the buffer is full.Not so with an SD card, those do not accept the maximum speed of the D500, so the buffer fills, and the D500 slows its pace.As for the firmware upgrade issued by Nikon, it was because there was a problem with the early SD cards, UHS II being in their infancy then, they would throw an error in fast machines, and the D500 would jam. So Nikon issued a "fix" to reset the D500 to a slower pace when it tried to write to SD. Simultaneously, Lexar redesigned their UHS II cards to not throw an error. But the 200 shot magic number cannot be reached.If you write simultaneously to both slots, your maximum will be limited by he slower card. If you set SD to Overflow, since The D500 only writes there after the XQD card is full, you will not be as impacted.I never use the SD slot, it is empty. Having lived before with single card Compact Flash cameras, I was not worried with living with one XQD slot. I had a Garmin GPS with an accessory SD slot, and the card there laminated on me, so I did not have any slow SD card to use, and never bothered to buy any.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers

n057 wrote:It is the card, not the buffer.The magic of the "endlesss buffer" in the D500 resides in the write speed of XQD (or CF Express). The naturel size of the buffer is what you see when you half press the shutter button. It appears in the "Number of shots remaining" section of the "Control Panel". In my case, set to RAW only, Number of shots remaining show 350 with a Lexar 2933 32 GB XQD card, When I half-press the shutter button, it shows "r29". But because th D500 can write to the card at breakneck speed, the buffer never fills, it empties before topping out. The D500 stops after reaching 200 shots by design, not because the buffer is full.Not so with an SD card, those do not accept the maximum speed of the D500, so the buffer fills, and the D500 slows its pace.As for the firmware upgrade issued by Nikon, it was because there was a problem with the early SD cards, UHS II being in their infancy then, they would throw an error in fast machines, and the D500 would jam. So Nikon issued a "fix" to reset the D500 to a slower pace when it tried to write to SD. Simultaneously, Lexar redesigned their UHS II cards to not throw an error. But the 200 shot magic number cannot be reached.If you write simultaneously to both slots, your maximum will be limited by he slower card. If you set SD to Overflow, since The D500 only writes there after the XQD card is full, you will not be as impacted.I never use the SD slot, it is empty. Having lived before with single card Compact Flash cameras, I was not worried with living with one XQD slot. I had a Garmin GPS with an accessory SD slot, and the card there laminated on me, so I did not have any slow SD card to use, and never bothered to buy any.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers+1 here. Exactly correct. This is why I went JPEG only on the 2nd slot and stopped using the 2nd slot as the backup slot. With JPEG only as the 2nd slot, I never have a buffer issue, and I shoot maybe 2-3 second bursts for BIF/wildlife with the D500 and 200-500mm. Probably should put a UHS-II card in the 2nd slot, but never did as it's never been a problem.

LtColDavenport wrote:fotosean wrote:I shoot with a Delkin Green CF Express Type B 128GB card in slot one and a San Disk Ultra Plus 128GB UHS-1 card in the 2nd slot. I've never ever had the buffer being an issue, shooting at the highest FPS the D500 does, and almost always with the F-Mount 200-500mm.Could you elaborate more? How many pictures, at least roughly, are you taking in order to consider it a non issue? Something more objective that I can compare with. Maybe you are getting the same 25-30 picture but that's fine because you never shoot for more than 3 second maybe. You should give a bit more context.Apologies. See above, and yes you are correct, I almost never lean on the camera for more than 3 seconds, mostly less than that. Some may need to hammer that button for longer, I've never felt the need toin my use case. Of course, yours and others may be different.I've played around with this but I prefer RAW on the CFE card and JPEGs n the UHS card.Could you write what are your settings for RAW and JPG please?Sure...what exactly are u looking for?I have 2 Lexar gold V60 paid something like €60 each, I would not consider them cheap nor a cheap brand.I've not had the best of luck with Lexar and I won't ever buy another one. That's just my experience; maybe I just got a couple of bad cards, there are lots of folks that say Lexar cards work great for them. But, once a card fails me in this day and age, I will look elsewhere.The bottom line, the D500 is gonna be the best DSLR out there for BIF/wildlife, and even sports with the F mount DX 16-80mm and the excellent F mount 70-200mm f/2.8 (which I see u have; don't ever part with that one!) I've transitioned to mirrorless now, and unless something like the F mount 105mm f/1.4, the aforementioned 70-200mm or the 500mm PF falls into my lap at a screaming deal, I'm probably never going to buy another F mount lens ever. But the D500, well, for me that's just a special beast, and I'm seriously thinking of picking up another one just to have around when this one eventually fails.

n057 wrote:It is the card, not the buffer.The magic of the "endlesss buffer" in the D500 resides in the write speed of XQD (or CF Express). The naturel size of the buffer is what you see when you half press the shutter button. It appears in the "Number of shots remaining" section of the "Control Panel". In my case, set to RAW only, Number of shots remaining show 350 with a Lexar 2933 32 GB XQD card, When I half-press the shutter button, it shows "r29". But because th D500 can write to the card at breakneck speed, the buffer never fills, it empties before topping out. The D500 stops after reaching 200 shots by design, not because the buffer is full.Yes, I knew this.Not so with an SD card, those do not accept the maximum speed of the D500, so the buffer fills, and the D500 slows its pace.I know also this and I won't expect 200 shots on an SD, but what I am seeing I find it strange.How can I see almost identical performance with a UHS-I vs UHS-II v60 card? (25 vs 27 shoots)?Moreover, even considering a UHS-I card, it write at about 80MB/s ish, a JPG it is around 10MB. At 10 FPS it is roughly 100 MB/s. Again, roughly, 20MB/s build up in the buffer, in 3 seconds (time to shoot 25-30 images) would be +/- 60MB/s 'left' in the buffer due to SD slow speed, that's not enough to fill the buffer.And if we talk UHS-II speed, it would have no problem writing JPG size images, it should have more than enough bandwidth to not fill the buffer.TO furthermore stress this:If I just leave the SD card in, and set QUAL to JPG FIne*, the buffer reads: 55If the XQD can write faster than the buffer, and the buffer could hold 55 JPG fine* (without accounting for the fact it will write them off the SD), how is it possible, again, to just shoot 25 in RAW+JPG FINE*?As for the firmware upgrade issued by Nikon, it was because there was a problem with the early SD cards, UHS II being in their infancy then, they would throw an error in fast machines, and the D500 would jam. So Nikon issued a "fix" to reset the D500 to a slower pace when it tried to write to SD.To EVERY SD card or just Lexar ones?Simultaneously, Lexar redesigned their UHS II cards to not throw an error. But the 200 shot magic number cannot be reached.In which circumstances?If you write simultaneously to both slots, your maximum will be limited by he slower card.In the sense that, the XQD will write as the same speed as the SD?If you set SD to Overflow, since The D500 only writes there after the XQD card is full, you will not be as impacted.Basically like if I would have no SD inside until the XQD fills up?I never use the SD slot, it is empty. Having lived before with single card Compact Flash cameras, I was not worried with living with one XQD slot. I had a Garmin GPS with an accessory SD slot, and the card there laminated on me, so I did not have any slow SD card to use, and never bothered to buy any.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers

fotosean wrote:n057 wrote:It is the card, not the buffer.The magic of the "endlesss buffer" in the D500 resides in the write speed of XQD (or CF Express). The naturel size of the buffer is what you see when you half press the shutter button. It appears in the "Number of shots remaining" section of the "Control Panel". In my case, set to RAW only, Number of shots remaining show 350 with a Lexar 2933 32 GB XQD card, When I half-press the shutter button, it shows "r29". But because th D500 can write to the card at breakneck speed, the buffer never fills, it empties before topping out. The D500 stops after reaching 200 shots by design, not because the buffer is full.Not so with an SD card, those do not accept the maximum speed of the D500, so the buffer fills, and the D500 slows its pace.As for the firmware upgrade issued by Nikon, it was because there was a problem with the early SD cards, UHS II being in their infancy then, they would throw an error in fast machines, and the D500 would jam. So Nikon issued a "fix" to reset the D500 to a slower pace when it tried to write to SD. Simultaneously, Lexar redesigned their UHS II cards to not throw an error. But the 200 shot magic number cannot be reached.If you write simultaneously to both slots, your maximum will be limited by he slower card. If you set SD to Overflow, since The D500 only writes there after the XQD card is full, you will not be as impacted.I never use the SD slot, it is empty. Having lived before with single card Compact Flash cameras, I was not worried with living with one XQD slot. I had a Garmin GPS with an accessory SD slot, and the card there laminated on me, so I did not have any slow SD card to use, and never bothered to buy any.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers+1 here. Exactly correct. This is why I went JPEG only on the 2nd slot and stopped using the 2nd slot as the backup slot. With JPEG only as the 2nd slot, I never have a buffer issue, and I shoot maybe 2-3 second bursts for BIF/wildlife with the D500 and 200-500mm. Probably should put a UHS-II card in the 2nd slot, but never did as it's never been a problem.But...I am also not in backup mode.I set my camera in RAW-Primary and JPG-Secondary.I am not writing both RAW and JPG in both cards.When I unload pictures from the XQD there are only .nef on there. And when I take the SD I see only .jpg files.Hence all my doubts. An UHS-II should be more than capable of writing JPGs onto it, at least more than 25 for sure IMO, so I am trying to understand if I am doing something wrong, if it may be card or whatever, it just feels strange.

fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:fotosean wrote:I shoot with a Delkin Green CF Express Type B 128GB card in slot one and a San Disk Ultra Plus 128GB UHS-1 card in the 2nd slot. I've never ever had the buffer being an issue, shooting at the highest FPS the D500 does, and almost always with the F-Mount 200-500mm.Could you elaborate more? How many pictures, at least roughly, are you taking in order to consider it a non issue? Something more objective that I can compare with. Maybe you are getting the same 25-30 picture but that's fine because you never shoot for more than 3 second maybe. You should give a bit more context.Apologies. See above, and yes you are correct, I almost never lean on the camera for more than 3 seconds, mostly less than that. Some may need to hammer that button for longer, I've never felt the need toin my use case. Of course, yours and others may be different.I've played around with this but I prefer RAW on the CFE card and JPEGs n the UHS card.Could you write what are your settings for RAW and JPG please?Sure...what exactly are u looking for?Raw setting, like 12 or 14 it, and the compression (lossless, lossy or not at all)JPG qualityAnd if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.I have 2 Lexar gold V60 paid something like €60 each, I would not consider them cheap nor a cheap brand.I've not had the best of luck with Lexar and I won't ever buy another one. That's just my experience; maybe I just got a couple of bad cards, there are lots of folks that say Lexar cards work great for them. But, once a card fails me in this day and age, I will look elsewhere.Got it.The bottom line, the D500 is gonna be the best DSLR out there for BIF/wildlife, and even sports with the F mount DX 16-80mm and the excellent F mount 70-200mm f/2.8 (which I see u have; don't ever part with that one!) I've transitioned to mirrorless now, and unless something like the F mount 105mm f/1.4, the aforementioned 70-200mm or the 500mm PF falls into my lap at a screaming deal, I'm probably never going to buy another F mount lens ever. But the D500, well, for me that's just a special beast, and I'm seriously thinking of picking up another one just to have around when this one eventually fails.

I don't know anything more about SD. I just looked at the numbers reachable with XQD and SD, felt comfortable with RAW only and with only the XQD card, felt that using SD in a D500 would be like using bicycle wheels in a Ferrari, and went with XQD Only.If Nikon came out with a D500 II with two XQD slots, (there is enough space inside to do it), I would go for that. SD I can live withoutJC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers

LtColDavenport wrote:fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:fotosean wrote:I shoot with a Delkin Green CF Express Type B 128GB card in slot one and a San Disk Ultra Plus 128GB UHS-1 card in the 2nd slot. I've never ever had the buffer being an issue, shooting at the highest FPS the D500 does, and almost always with the F-Mount 200-500mm.Could you elaborate more? How many pictures, at least roughly, are you taking in order to consider it a non issue? Something more objective that I can compare with. Maybe you are getting the same 25-30 picture but that's fine because you never shoot for more than 3 second maybe. You should give a bit more context.Apologies. See above, and yes you are correct, I almost never lean on the camera for more than 3 seconds, mostly less than that. Some may need to hammer that button for longer, I've never felt the need toin my use case. Of course, yours and others may be different.I've played around with this but I prefer RAW on the CFE card and JPEGs n the UHS card.Could you write what are your settings for RAW and JPG please?Sure...what exactly are u looking for?Raw setting, like 12 or 14 it, and the compression (lossless, lossy or not at all)JPG quality14-bit lossless and highest JPG quality.

n057 wrote:I don't know anything more about SD. I just looked at the numbers reachable with XQD and SD, felt comfortable with RAW only and with only the XQD card, felt that using SD in a D500 would be like using bicycle wheels in a Ferrari, and went with XQD Only.If Nikon came out with a D500 II with two XQD slots, (there is enough space inside to do it), I would go for that. SD I can live withoutJC Some cameras, some lenses, some computersThat argument is certainly understandable. I use the 2nd slot for JPGs because the D500 works very well with Snapbridge and getting the occasional 'wow! shot on IG, FB, Vero, etc. has some worth to me. Not much, but some.If it didn't, I would probably leave the 2nd slot cardless, as u do.

When I need Snapbridge, I just shoot RAW + JPG on the same 32 GB XQD card. One side benefit is that I need a single card model inventoryI carry a few cards with me, as well as two batteries.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers

LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.

fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.If you are after the most shots in one burst while writing to both the XQD card ant the SD card, forget about it. Any SD card will always slow you down before you hit 200 shots. If you want 200 shots, use just one XQD card and write both RAW and JPG to that one card.Yes, XQD is expensive, but so is a D500.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computers

on Lexar SD card 300mb/s, 33 raw + fine* JPEG, . 56 raw only.On Lexar XQD 400mb/s, 33 raw + fine* Jpeg, 200 Raw only.On OWC SDXC ii V90, 33 raw + fine* JPEG, 80 raw only.

n057 wrote:fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.If you are after the most shots in one burst while writing to both the XQD card ant the SD card, forget about it. Any SD card will always slow you down before you hit 200 shots. If you want 200 shots, use just one XQD card and write both RAW and JPG to that one card.with the last firmware update, not sure why you would still be using an XQD card. Even the cheapest and crappiest CFE Type B card runs rings around XQD at this point.I still think if I invest in a decent UHS-II card the camera will write to the slower slot 2 faster than my current setup. The camera is that capable; to your point, the buffer kicks in due to the cards in place.Yes, XQD is expensive, but so is a D500.Again, why XQD? Delkin Green and Delkin Black CF-E type B nowadays are affordable and MUCH faster. The D500 writes to cards at a blazing speed, provided the cards are capable of handling it.

fotosean wrote:n057 wrote:fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.If you are after the most shots in one burst while writing to both the XQD card ant the SD card, forget about it. Any SD card will always slow you down before you hit 200 shots. If you want 200 shots, use just one XQD card and write both RAW and JPG to that one card.with the last firmware update, not sure why you would still be using an XQD card. Even the cheapest and crappiest CFE Type B card runs rings around XQD at this point.I still think if I invest in a decent UHS-II card the camera will write to the slower slot 2 faster than my current setup. The camera is that capable; to your point, the buffer kicks in due to the cards in place.Yes, XQD is expensive, but so is a D500.Again, why XQD? Delkin Green and Delkin Black CF-E type B nowadays are affordable and MUCH faster. The D500 writes to cards at a blazing speed, provided the cards are capable of handling it.My understanding on the cf cards is that the firmware update in the D500 allows the use of these cards. But it does not give more speed - the speed benefits of cf cards are limited by the hardware inside the D500 which is now quite old. The main reason people might want to use cf over xqd nowadays is that xqd may become harder to get as cf cards become more commonplace. This hardware limitation also applies to D850 l believe for the same reason. But by doing the firmware update Nikon are making sure owners can use D500 without worrying about finding xqd.I continue to use xqd cards - Sony g 440 mbs l think and as l have enough of these for the Nikon's that use them for now I've no need of cf cards - but l may buy cf in future if l need to replace any of my xqd cards - nice to know Nikon provided the firmware update. I also use only Sony g xqd cards and the sd card slot is left empty so as not to slow buffer - been using for sport without any problems since 2016. D500 = fantastic camera.

fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.Thank you very much, I appreciated you dedicated your time to a strangerWell, at the point, at least I know it is not me but it would be something with the D500 jpg processing.So I tried in backup mode, only RAW (on XQD and SD), and funny enough, both the buffer read more picture (like 29 VS 12) and the slow downs started after 40+ ish pictures, that’s more manage. 4+ second of shooting it may be alright.What I can think of it is that the Nikon JPG processing it is really intensive and the smaller JPG file size cannot compensate for the time spent creating it, maybe.And again, maybe, with RAW Backup mode, I may see an advance using a V90 card while with JPG I barely noticed any difference from even UHS-I vs UHS-II.

n057 wrote:fotosean wrote:LtColDavenport wrote:And if you would like just to try, see how many image you can write. Format both CFe and SD, set your normal setting that you just wrote and shoot until it start to slow see and see how many picture it got. If it will be around 25-30 than that's not me, but if it may be more, there may be something strange with mine.Ok, I tried this:My Delkin card I'm using in the D500 is not exactly their top o' the line speed merchant; I now wonder if getting a Delkin Black is now worth the investment, thanks for helping me to spend more $$$I am now also curious what a decent UHS-II V90 card will do in the 2nd slot if I still want to continue doing RAW + JPEG.If you are after the most shots in one burst while writing to both the XQD card ant the SD card, forget about it. Any SD card will always slow you down before you hit 200 shots. If you want 200 shots, use just one XQD card and write both RAW and JPG to that one card.Yes, XQD is expensive, but so is a D500.JC Some cameras, some lenses, some computersNo, it won’t help him that much. Nikon processing JPG seems incredibly slow.RAW+JPG both in the XQD won’t still give you 10FPS “unlimited”. It will be better than SD, but not by that much.