XQD availability?

If you check B&H, pretty much all capacities of Sony cards are in stock. Delkin is still in the "coming soon" stage. Of course we have heard that before from the new Lexar. However, I do believe Delkin XQD cards will be available in the coming weeks.

 

BTW Photo + Expo is in progress in New York City. I am sure we'll have new information about many things photo equipment very soon.

Latest from Lexar themselves...

 

“While Lexar is eager to pursue the XQD technology, the product availability of XQD has been held up by multiple parties including Sony (who owns the IP) which is preventing us from moving forward. In addition, we are diligently working on future standard of CFexpress through our efforts in the Compact Flash Association and partnerships with key camera manufacturers.”

 

Almost sounds like 'someone' was being very difficult, akin to monopolising the market......... and the prices have gone up, well I never....:(

 

...and I wonder who the 'other parties' were/are?

 

Hopefully CFexpress all around will calm things down, including prices.......:)

 

__________________

 

PS. Who owns the IP on CFExpress?

I doubt that any one company owns all the IP necessary to produce memory cards without cross-licensing agreements of various technologies included. Sony own the XQD trademark, however, and apparently they want to restrict competition and make money from license fees. Nevertheless Micron/Lexar earlier and Delkin recently have managed to get the rights to produce XQD cards so it is a bit confusing that the new Lexar was not.

 

This kind of anti-competitive practices are obviously not good for consumers. Sony already have a stronghold over the sensor market.

 

I am wondering why CF express cards are not yet available.

For me it feels like the "Memory Stick Monopoly" by Sonny all over again .. Buit this time Nikon has stepped into the trap by building XQD only camera's .

I guess Sony also owns large packages of Nikon Stock giving them leverage at Nikon CO. …

Nikon are also having sensors made by Sony and I'm pretty sure if a sensor fries out and if there are no spare parts, there is no third party manufacturer that will be able to replace the sensor in the camera. I don't see where the problem is with the memory cards. There are a whole lot of parts in the camera where there is only one manufacturer. For XQD there used to be two (Sony and Lexar) and soon it will be Sony and Delkin. That's more choice than in many other parts of the camera that are needed.

 

Nikon could use SD in all their cameras, making them a bit slower and the files a bit less safe. But they've chosen to run at the forefront of offering support of fast, rugged cards with shielded contacts in their cameras. I think it is a good thing and I've thoroughly enjoyed using XQD so far, and expect to continue to do so for 5-10 years.

Edited October 25, 2018 by ilkka_nissila

I guess it depends on the alternative, c.p.m. There's UHS-II, but it's not actually cheaper. I assume CFast has similar licence issues (Canon allegedly going that route just to be contrary), but it's also dead-end tech. I assume Nikon wanted better performance than sticking with CF would provide - and I've got to say the D850's image review is impressively brisk compared with the D810. Canon at least don't have as many pixels to worry about (with the Z7 - worse than the Z6).

 

As for Sony being involved in a format war that hurts consumers... yes, that's kind of a given. Betamax (Sony lost out), Minidisc (lost to integrated storage), Memory Stick variants (lost mostly to SD), Firewire (with Apple, lost to USB and Thunderbolt), Blu-Ray (won over Toshiba/Microsoft, but only once TDK had a hard coating)... and Sony wins from both sides of the HDMI/DisplayPort fight. I don't know how much of Sony's profits come from licensing, but they certainly like to squeeze people for it.

I don't quite understand what the problem is again, Sony do not charge exorbitant prices for XQD cards (compared to CFast or even UHS-II). If they increased the prices to double of what they are now, I could see a cause for complaint. I would really be upset if Nikon had gone with CFast for their cameras, bigger size, much higher cost, and slower write speeds. I am sure the cameras contain many components which involve licensing fees, just like XQD.

 

What I can't quite understand is why all kinds of memory cards are much more expensive in the EU region than in the US. This has been true of high speed SD, CF, XQD and CFast. They are typically twice the cost of US prices sometimes even approaching triple, so in the end I just order internationally instead of paying the extra locally.

 

I mentioned this to a large camera store and they said they want to make a good profit and that's the reason. He didn't make any kind of excuse about taxes etc.

Edited October 25, 2018 by ilkka_nissila

On a quick look around the US stores, it appears to be at least the £:$ parity rubbish and a bit more...:mad:

 

____________________

 

Don't get me going of European pricing..!

 

The MB-D17 grip for the D500 costs $370 or £459 from the respective countries OFFICIAL NIKON store.... WTF?

Edited October 25, 2018 by mike_halliwell

The MB-D17 grip for the D500 costs $370 or £459 from the respective countries OFFICIAL NIKON store.... WTF?

 

Yes. Fortunately Park had a special offer on the MB-D18 bought with the D850 which made it more reasonable, otherwise £370 is a bit steep for something that still needs a battery and charger to do anything.

 

The one that always hurt for me is the WT-7a wireless adaptor. B&H says $750 (although out of stock). In the UK, WEx and Park both claim it's £1099.

 

I generally assume high street stores afford their rent by putting a mark-up on impulse buys that go alongside the actual cameras (which kind of have to be semi-competitive with online stores, or people won't go in). That explains a lot of over-priced filters and so on. A double-the-going-rate SD card, given that it takes up disproportionate shelf space, vaguely doesn't surprise me - it's only truly painful when the sizes get big. I usually did make a point of trying to buy a few overpriced items from the high street stores I went into, to compensate them for their time; if I bought an actual camera, their mark up would probably be limited, and it would still cost me a lot more than online.

 

Camera stores (the few who are left) aren't exactly alone. PC World, which actually isn't all that unreasonable for laptops, is famous for its £50 HDMI cables, for example. I've seen plenty of overpriced dual-link DVI cables that hadn't got all the pins wired up, and my favourite remains a colleague who managed to buy a gold-plated optical audio cable (allegedly because the gold plating was somehow going to make the connection better despite having nothing to do with it). This is our price for having stores we can actually walk into, otherwise we'd only be able to try cameras by buying them and returning them a lot.

For the Z6/Z7 you probably don't need the WT-7 as there is built in wifi transfer to computer available, and reports so far describe Snapbridge (which is the bluetooth/wifi mobile app) to work much faster on the Z7 than it does on a D500. This is fair progress on Nikon's part and I'm happy for it. Though for remote control, you may still need an accessory (either from Nikon or a third party one).

Indeed, I was glad to hear that about the Z7. Now if they could just back-port the functionality to the current dSLRs...

otherwise £370 is a bit steep for something that still needs a battery and charger to do anything.

Indeed for 370 pounds, but that's the dollar price!! it's 459 POUNDS.. crazy! I picked up a mint 2nd hand one for £200

 

MB-D17 Multi-Power Battery Pack Battery Packs Power DSLR Accessories

Indeed for 370 pounds, but that's the dollar price!! it's 459 POUNDS.. crazy! I picked up a mint 2nd hand one for £200

 

MB-D17 Multi-Power Battery Pack Battery Packs Power DSLR Accessories

 

Sorry, should have been clearer. The MB-D18 is listed as £479 on Nikon UK's page (which, coincidentally, is the going rate for a D3500 with a lens kit...), but Park will sell you one stand-alone for £369, which was the figure I was quoting. B&H will sell you one for under $400, of course. All of these are quite a lot of money for a lump of plastic with a couple of dials on it, especially since it doesn't actually sit flush with the bottom of the camera, which is why the ~£200 premium over a plain D850 that I paid (I've forgotten the exact figure - their current bundle nets you an MB-D18 for about £270 and may be what I was charged) was a bit closer to reasonable. At least the MB-D18 does something useful on the D850 - I was never really convinced that 1fps in DX mode was much justification for the D800/D810, though I miss the D700's AA battery frame rate boost.

But the price of a single EnEl-18A battery for the D850 grip!

 

$220 or £220..now there's a surprise. For 4 x 18650 batteries and a chip....:mad:

But the price of a single EnEl-18A battery for the D850 grip!

 

$220 or £220..now there's a surprise. For 4 x 18650 batteries and a chip....:mad:

 

Four 18650s? I wouldn't mind if it was four 18650s. It's three, I believe. (At least, 11.1V is suspiciously 3x the standard 18650 3.7V figure.)

 

If you buy the Nikon one, yes, it's stupid - probably why WEx and Park don't stock them. Don't forget £35 for the BL-5 battery cover. Meanwhile, to charge them Nikon wants you to spend £349 on the MH-26a kit.

 

I did get a couple of real BL-5s, but I went with Ex-Pro and got the charger plus two knock-off EN-EL18s (which have so far been fine and let me hit 9fps with the D850) for £116. So, half Nikon's price for twice as many batteries, plus the charger thrown in. And I'm sure other options are even cheaper, I just picked one I can get in the UK with decent Amazon reviews. I'm tempted to pick up the Kastar or Batmax charger just because it's so much smaller, which is handy for travel, though apparently they're a bit delicate. (Their deals in the US are substantially less than even what I paid for Ex-Pro).

 

So in the US it's $155 for the EN-EL18c, or $149 for the EN-EL18b? (Although the 10.8V confuses me.) I know there's no tax in that, but unless the exchange rate has tanked even more than I thought over the last few days, that's fairly ridiculous. Maybe Nikon are anticipating Brexit happening. At least the charger costs more in $ than in £.

 

I feel we've got off XQDs, but I'm certainly beginning to get a "buy stuff next time I'm in San Diego" vibe. Shame it's not quite enough to make the 400mm f/2.8 affordable!

Someone has to pay for all the drugs that Nikon's European distributers are obviously on!

 

It's a vicious circle.

Nah, I reckon it's more 'Spin the Bottle' to decide European pain...it has the price multiplier x $s numbers in a ring.

 

A very vicious circle...:(

Nah, I reckon it's more 'Spin the Bottle' to decide European pain...it has the price multiplier x $s numbers in a ring.

 

A very vicious circle...:(

 

Not that I ever got invited to that kind of party (I suspect thank goodness), but my understanding of "spin the bottle" doesn't seem to match yours?

It can be used as a 'random decision maker' akin to Russian Roulette, but you're not limited to the number of chambers in your revolver.....;)

 

Maybe the random throw of the dice?

 

It's gotta be random, 'cos it seems to have no logic or sense what-so-ever.

 

Bit like trying to determine the tie-in between Sony and Nikon. Direct market competitors but Nikon use their sensors and sell their re-badged XQD cards.

 

Although maybe it's not so crazy afterall.. maybe the total number of MILC cameras sold between the 2 of them is greater? Some people buy BOTH!

B&H finally has the 120G Delkin XQD cards in stock:

DEXQD120GB | B&H Photo Video

 

The other sizes are currently not available.

 

Adorama has none of the sizes in stock:

https://www.adorama.com/l/?searchinfo=delkin+xqd

 

Humm, so very approximately, a dollar price of twice the capacity. Not too bad.

 

I think WEX are the only suppliers so-far in the UK and quite a bit more expensive at £289....that's $375 or 60% more if you like. (I don't!)

 

That's about £65 more than than the equivalent Sony G.....so much for competition lowering the price.!:mad:

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by mike_halliwell

At B&H, currently the Delkin 120G XQD is $229.95, while the new Sony 120G (not the old 128G) is $221.99. Both of those are in stock; IMO pricing for something not available is kind of meaningless. There is a difference of a few dollars. With the popularity of the Nikon D500, D850 and probably the Z6, which will be available in the coming days, plus the up-coming Panasonic FX mirrorless cameras, there should be some demand on XQD cards. We'll probably need to wait for all sizes of the Delkin to be available before we see some price competition.

 

I have four 128G XQD cards, a Sony and three Lexar. I paid around $160 or so for each one of them, back in 2016 and 2017.

 

CFx cards will be a bit further down the road.