D5, D850, and D500 CFe Firmware Finally Coming!

The promised CFExpress memory cards firmware update for the Nikon D5, D850, and D500 DSLR cameras will be release by the end of 2020 - Nikon Rumors

Please excuse my ignorance but, does it mean we can use CFE instead of XQD in the D850 (and others) from then on?

XQD prices are insane, as are CFExpress too. Any advantage on using one instead of the other?

The advantage is that if you buy CFexpress cards for use with new cameras that take some advantage of the higher speeds (or if you use mixed brands such as Canon equipment that supports CFexpress but not XQD), then you will also be able to use the new cards in the older DSLRs (D500, D850 and D5). However, given the way the CFexpress perform on the Z6/Z7 after firmware update it seems unlikely that the firmware would give a significant speed benefit when using CFexpress over XQD in these older cameras. The speed benefit is reported to exist for D6, however.

 

I have so many XQD cards that I can't foresee a situation where I would buy CFexpress cards in the next 10 years or so, but it is of course possible that eventually the older cards fail to function. It's also possible that there might be a future 100 MP Nikon that would be sluggish with XQD cards. :-/ Even though I have no immediate need for CFexpress, I still appreciate that Nikon are making the older and newer cameras cross-compatible. This is very important.

 

All fast cards are expensive. The cards that are cheap tend to be quite slow, but fast enough for most casual users who don't push the cameras to shoot fast.

 

I really like the XQD format for its rugged housing, enclosed contacts, and speed. CFexpress should be similar or even better.

Edited October 9, 2020 by ilkka_nissila

Thanks Ilkka.

A few days ago I ran across a CFExpress sale - might have bought one had I known about the long-promised firmware update for the D500.

Any chance Nikon might include the d9 AF area mode option this time around?

A few days ago I ran across a CFExpress sale - might have bought one had I known about the long-promised firmware update for the D500.

Any chance Nikon might include the d9 AF area mode option this time around?

 

Who knows? A d9 option would be nice though! An update I'd really like for the D500 would be touch screen menus. Whenever I use the D500 after recently using my D850, it always takes a second for me to remember why nothing is happening when I touch a menu item on the screen!

Whenever I use the D500 after recently using my D850, it always takes a second for me to remember why nothing is happening when I touch a menu item on the screen!

Frustrating for sure if one uses both cameras. I have no need to set anything in the menu of my D500 (after the initial setup), so the touch screen functionality there would be lost on me. Where it does exist, I don't use it either - I have turned it off.

 

I can't recall ever having two different Nikon DSLRs that acted exactly alike - there were always some small differences caused by "Nikon moving the cheese".

then you will also be able to use the new cards in the older DSLRs (D500, D850 and D5).......when using CFexpress over XQD in these older cameras.

Older cameras!?

 

It only seems like 5 minutes since they were released. Do we have to now travel into the future in the hope of buying a Nikon camera that's not out-of-date as soon as it falls off the production line?

 

No such worries with the archaic - yet somehow still relevant (and cheap) - SD card.

....so the touch screen functionality there would be lost on me.

Even the ability to move the focus point about the frame area?

Edited October 11, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

Even the ability to move the focus point about the frame area?

That can be done on the D500 - the fact that I had to look that up in the manual shows that I have never used it. About the only time I have used live view on my D500 was during the AF fine tune calibration procedure. FPapp and I were talking about the ability to navigate the menu system via touch screen - which the D850 does provide but the D500 does not.

yet somehow still relevant (and cheap) - SD card

All fast cards are expensive. The cards that are cheap tend to be quite slow, but fast enough for most casual users who don't push the cameras to shoot fast.

When I purchased the D500, a "fast" UHS-II SD card cost more than an equally sized XQD card while not providing the same performance (not fast enough to continuously clear the buffer). CFExpress is essentially the next revision of XQD - the D500 and D5 were released about 1 1/2 years before the first CFExpress card hit the market; the D850 a couple of months after; the D4 came out some 4 years before the D5. When Lexar stopped production, IIRC for a while Sony was the only manufacturer offering XQD - with CFExpress there are now at least a few companies to choose from. CFExpress is fully backward compatible with XQD - all what's needed is the now finally available firmware upgrade for the cameras that mostly pre-date the appearance of CFExpress cards on the market. Why Sony doesn't use XQD/CFExpress in the A7 and A9 Series is a mystery to me - the camera should could benefit from their superior performance. I don't push my A7R3 as hard as I do my D500 - and hence so far have avoided the purchase of an UHS-II SD card. Ever since I was forced to purchase SD cards (D7100, D7200, 2nd slot on the D810, A7/A7II/A7RII and A7RIII) I purchased the fastest UHS-I version available - certainly always cheaper than an XQD card but also at best about 4 times slower.

Older cameras!?

 

What I meant with that is that these cameras came to the market before any CFexpress cards, not that they are old in an absolute sense.

Nowadays, on my D500, I only use one XQD card. While I do have a couple of SanDisk UHS-II SD cards (300 MB/sec at around $100 for 64G), the SD card is still the weak link and slows down the entire camera. Since after 4 years, I find XQD cards quite reliable, I think I am better off with just an XQD card so that I won't miss shots. On the D850, however, I use one XQD and one SD card in the backup mode, as I rarely use the D850 for action photography

 

By now, I have a bunch of XQD cards since 2016 and two CFexpress cards, one ProGrade and one Lexar. Since ProGrade was formed by former Lexar executives, somehow they also use the same black and gold color scheme. The end result is that ProGrade cards look very similar to Lexar cards. On my CFexpress cards, I used a marker to clearly mark CFx so that I wouldn't mistakenly put one into my D500 or D850. They fit perfectly but until we get a firmware upgrade from Nikon, those cards are useless inside a D4, D5, D500, and D850. My Z6 is the only body that can use any one of my XQD and CFx cards.

 

Nowadays, on my D500, I only use one XQD card.

I have so many of those "fast" UHS-I SD cards that I have one in each D500 set for overflow and one in each D810 set to backup. Speed doesn't matter in the latter and overflow might come in handy should my primary XQD card fill up. Or I can switch from overflow to backup should I not mind the performance loss associated with that setting.

Dieter, I shoot my D500 at 10 fps on a regular basis. Even though I have a "fast" SD card inside in the backup mode, i.e. writing the same RAW file onto both cards, the D500 slows down pretty quickly.

 

I have one of those 128G XQD card inside the D500 so that it essentially never fills up. And I have learned my lesson to always have spare XQD cards in each one of my camera bags. It'll be even better when I can use XQD and CFx completely interchangeably, not for speed but for compatibility.

 

Concerning SD cards, I just try to avoid them as much as possible. Occasionally I pick up my D750 or D7200 so that I have no choice.

Even though I have a "fast" SD card inside in the backup mode

I assume that's a fast UHS-II card. I checked some online card speed tests and even the fastest UHS-II SD card only writes a bit over 2x as fast as the fastest UHS-I SD card that I use - it makes very little difference in how fast the D500 buffer fills up when the camera is forced to anything but the XQD card.

 

And I have learned my lesson to always have spare XQD cards in each one of my camera bags. It'll be even better when I can use XQD and CFx completely interchangeably, not for speed but for compatibility.

Thanks to Lexar going under, adorama could not fulfill my last XQD order and I am thus a bit short on backup XQD cards but have managed so far. Once the firmware update is available, I at last have more options now and won't have to purchase now "outdated" XQD cards.

both CFexrpess and XQD cards are still too expensive if you do not need 10 fps,wish i could put an adapter of some kind in my D500 XQD slot..

If you don't need 10 fps, Nikon make or have made a number of cameras that take two SD card slots (D750, D780, Z5, D7200 etc.) and have a bit lesser specifications.

Once the firmware update is available, I at last have more options now and won't have to purchase now "outdated" XQD cards.

 

"Outdated" XQD could still be faster in the D500 than CFe. Here is a test of the Z6/7 with some CFe and XQD cards:

 

Best XQD / CFexpress Memory Cards Nikon Z6 / Z7 | Alik Griffin

 

Of course, the D500 after the firmware update could turn out differently. So far, to my knowledge, the only Nikon camera which actually reaches faster average write speeds on CFexpress than XQD is the D6. But even there the difference isn't as large as the specs might lead one to hope (though it has to said the camera has a nice burst performance on XQD as well). I am sure the Z6 II and Z7 II will take better advantage of CF express. Still, my 2016-2017 XQD cards do very well in my DSLR cameras for something supposedly "outdated". They also give the peace of mind of aformat that doesn't have any quirks.

 

Hmm. It seems possible that the Sandisk CFe card tested by the above site may have been prior to Sandisk changing the cards to work better in the Nikons(?). Photographylife found identical performance on the Z7 with the Lexar CFexpress and Sony XQD cards. Ali's site does show better performance on the Delkin XQD than Sony XQD so I'm not sure if we can deduce from this whether CFe can give top speed on the Z6/7. I guess the difference is quite small.

Edited October 12, 2020 by ilkka_nissila

Thanks to Lexar going under, adorama could not fulfill my last XQD order and I am thus a bit short on backup XQD cards but have managed so far. Once the firmware update is available, I at last have more options now and won't have to purchase now "outdated" XQD cards.

As soon as I heard the news that Micron was dropping Lexar in 2017, which was a year after Nikon had introduced the D5 and D500, I immediately bought a couple more Lexar XQD cards, 128G and 64G just to make sure that I have plenty of XQD cards on hand to last the lifetime for those two cameras, which I still use today.

 

B&H now carries a new Angelbird brand (somehow I keep on reading it as Angry Bird :rolleyes: ) CFx cards. They are cheaper than the other establish brands such as Sony, SanDisk, Lexar and ProGrade, but their smallest capacity is 256G. I hadn't heard of this brand until very recently, and they are Austrian from Europe (not Australian). I know some people have used them on the Z6 and it is compatible. I haven't tried Angelbird myself, but hopefully they can help pushing other CFx prices downward:

 

Angelbird 256GB AV Pro CFexpress 2.0 Type B Memory Card

 

256G is a lot for still photography, even at 46MP, but at about 4G per minute of 4K video, that merely holds about an hours of 4K30P video.

Thanks for the link Ilkka. I am not expecting a CFExpress card to be faster in the D500 than an XQD card (limitation imposed by the hardware in the camera) and unless I am missing something, Alik's test don't show that CFExpress is actually slower (I share your concerns about the SanDisk card which is the only one data are given for). Sony M XQD cards are known to be slow - I would never consider them; for the other cards I consider their speed differences insignificant. My comment was simply referring to more cards being available - there's been a time when the Sony G XQD was the only choice. I put "outdated" in quotation marks because the XQD format will rapidly disappear once CFExpress can be used in every camera that previously was restricted to XQD only. Personally, I would now only purchase an XQD card if it was available at a substantial discount.

to make sure that I have plenty of XQD cards on hand to last the lifetime for those two cameras,

Well, that's what I wanted to do - now I will just buy another if/when one of mine fails. Quite certain it won't be a 256G one though:D

If you don't need 10 fps, Nikon make or have made a number of cameras that take two SD card slots (D750, D780, Z5, D7200 etc.) and have a bit lesser specifications.

Agree, but at the time i thought a D500 was a good choice for me to upgrade from D300 and D300s camera's, i did not realize that XQD would become so difficult to obtain and so expensive, but that happened within months after i , stupitly, traded my older camara's for this one...

So now i am stuck with the D500, or sell it at a hefty loss ....

there's been a time when the Sony G XQD was the only choice

I just don't see how this was a serious problem. If you need a spare part for a Nikon camera, Nikon is usually the only source for the part, so having temporarily to purchase Sony memory shouldn't be a too big hurdle. When I was buying XQD cards, I bought Sony because they were what the camera manufacturer listed in the manual so I thought they were the most likely to work (as with the early experiences with CFexpress cards shows, working correctly shouldn't be treated as self-evident). At the time I bought them, they were also reduced in price substantially compared to how they had been in the past, so there was no clear problem as far as I could see (granted, the price has increased slightly since). I didn't have affinity towards Lexar as I had had only one of their cards (admittedly SD) and it developed reading errors so they kind of went on my black list. I never had any problem with Sony XQD cards in four + years of use and a total of 220000 images. Now there are Delkin, Sony and Nikon branded XQD cards available.

I put "outdated" in quotation marks because the XQD format will rapidly disappear once CFExpress can be used in every camera that previously was restricted to XQD only.

 

The D4, D4s and some of Sony's video cameras (and recorders made by third parties) might not get CFe compatibility updates at all. Some users might stick to XQD if they don't need high capacities.

 

i did not realize that XQD would become so difficult to obtain and so expensive

 

If you live in Europe, I would recommend researching online stores in the US. I've noticed that even after taxes and customs fees, the price amounts to less than the retail prices in Europe, though how much less varies from time to time. How much capacity do you need? I have two 64 GB and four 32 GB XQD cards and those will likely suffice for all my needs in the next 10 years or perhaps longer. When I got the D70 in 2004, I actually spent as much money on a single 1 GB card as I spent on 256 GB of XQD in 2016-7 and back then card space was indeed a big issue for me. Now I greatly regret spending that money on such small cards, but at the time I was not aware of how much money I could have saved by ordering from the US. I understand money doesn't grow in trees, but if you shop around, you can probably find some affordable cards.

 

I've always felt it annoying to have a mix of card-incompatible cameras in the bag (I've had four different card types; CF, SD, Memory Stick and XQD) and anything that Nikon can do to give more compatibility is a good thing. I think in the future Nikon are more likely to offer a mixture of the high-speed XQD/CFexpress and SD card slots in advanced models because of the rather slow transition to the newer card types. Ideally I would prefer two slots with XQD/CFexpress compatibility but I understand that Nikon need to consider markets where XQD/CFexpress is either too expensive or hard to find.

Edited October 13, 2020 by ilkka_nissila

I'll have to make a correction as my information seems to be out of date. The Sony 64 GB XQD card is $125 at B&H, which is about 106 EUR. Adding taxes and customs fees my recollection is that they amount to a 1.25 x increase in price, so we would be at 133€. In Finland the card costs 149€, so the savings are quite small. For CFexpress, the cheapest I could find at B&H was Lexar 64 GB for $100, so that would amount to 106€. Shipping is $14 so the total would be 121€ for one 64 GB CFexpress card. In Finland the cheapest 64 GB CFexpress card costs 169€. So the savings for CFexpress from buying from overseas is currently greater than for XQD. In this way CFexpress compatibility would seem to help Nikon users compared to not having this update available. However, the result might be different for different card sizes. For 128 GB the price in Finland would actually be cheaper than ordering from B&H. :-/ So one has to carefully consider what is the optimum size of card to buy for one's needs and budget. At the time I was buying my XQD cards, the price favoured the 64 GB size, and buying from B&H amounted to about 50% less than the local price here.

In the few months after the D5 and D500 announcement in January 2016, XQD prices went through a very dramatic drop. By December 2016, one could buy a Lexar 64G XQD card for about US$90. Sony cards were around $10 more. I have screen shots of B&H prices from various months in 2016 and then later. By 2017, XQD prices had stabilized with occasional further discounts by $10 or so, until after Lexar departed the scene.

 

At the time I wasn't aware of the issue that everybody who made XQD cards had to pay royalty to Sony. Hence I was quite puzzled why SanDisk never got into that market. Fortunately, CFexpress is an open standard.

 

Currently, on B&H's web site, there are these brands of CFx cards:

• Angelbird
  
• Delkin
  
• Hoodman
  
• Lexar
  
• ProGrade
  
• SanDisk
  
• Sony
  
• Transcend
  
• Wise
  

There is plenty of competition. As CFx gradually becomes mainstream for pro video cams (that's why their capacity tends to be high), I am sure prices will come down.

 

Incidentally, my first Nikon DSLR that uses SD cards was the D7000 I bought in late 2010, with two SD slots. At the time (2010/2011) I was paying around $100 for each 32G SD card. Needless to say those card are very slow in today's standards. That was why I found XQD prices was quite reasonable by the end of 2016.

 

 

Currently, on B&H's web site, there are these brands of CFx cards:

Forget it, I will stick with XQD. I feel no need to add this complication - dealing with probable camera and card-reader incompatibilities etc. - to the already multiple/confusing choices of cameras and lenses.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Mary Doo

dealing with probable camera and card-reader incompatibilities etc

What worries me is that..

 

Either my current Lexar XQD cards will not be readable in future CFx readers

 

or

 

New CFx cards will not be readable in my current XQD reader.

 

Sure they're 'only' £40 each, but such non-format-duplication is just a disaster waiting to happen.

 

I'm foolishly hoping there will be a new driver for my Lexar XQD reader to read CFx. I won't lose sleep whilst waiting!