Nikon D800 SD and CF

Quick question

 

I want to shoot just Basic Jpgs on my SD card and Just Raw on my CF card a the same time

 

Can I do this, if so how ?

 

I'm going around in circles on this and it's driving me bonkers

 

thanks for any help

 

Neil

This link from Nikon ought to help. While it is for the d850 the same settings should be available for the d800.

 

Using Two Memory Cards

 

The trick is to make sure that one card (CF in my case) is set to take RAW as Primary and the second card (SD in my case) is set to Backup JPEG.

 

Then you need to make sure that your Image Quality is set to both RAW and to JPEG and Image size is set to Basic for Jpeg.

 

Joe

I do the same thing, although save to the SD card as "Jpeg Fine."

 

In any case, do as mentioned above and designate the CF card as primary for RAW, and the SD card as secondary for JPEG.

 

Then, hold down the "Qual" button and spin the command wheel until RAW+Basic pops up on the top LCD. You should be good to go from there.

+1 to above. I default my D810 to the settings Ben suggests.

Just adding to the crowd - I also (on my D810, and D800 when I had it) send fine jpeg to the SD and raw to CF (which is slightly faster and better able to absorb the larger file size - I usually shoot 14-bit lossless compressed).

 

Apart from backup, the SD version is an easy way to get images into other computers in a hurry, since a lot of laptops have SD card slots. If I have my machine that I do raw processing on with me, I'll have the CF reader - if I need fast access to something I'm not usually going to put it through my raw workflow. The exception was a friend's wedding where I was primary shooter, and shot raw to both cards (and sometimes filled the buffer).

 

On my D850 I essentially do the same but faster - jpeg to UHS-II and raw to XQD. I did some experiments for 9fps shooting, and I don't think writing a supplementary jpeg to SD had a performance hit over just writing the raw file to XQD; I wouldn't guarantee that conclusion was correct, though.

Sorry but I have never understood the the rational for a CF card and SD card on the D800/e. It's not exactly a speed demon so for practical purposes twin SD or CF cards would have been just as good a choice. It came out in 2012 as SD card were taking a firm hold so maybe Nikon was just trying to give us an option. I think the D500 and D850 are different animals because of their speed.

I do the same thing, although save to the SD card as "Jpeg Fine."

 

In any case, do as mentioned above and designate the CF card as primary for RAW, and the SD card as secondary for JPEG.

 

Then, hold down the "Qual" button and spin the command wheel until RAW+Basic pops up on the top LCD. You should be good to go from there.

 

Hmmmm I'm still struggling here. Because the image quality is set as Raw and Jpg, my D800 still shoots both Raw and Jpg for Primary and secondary. I've set the menu as follows... Primary to CF and Secondary SD Back up, but as far as I can see, in backup, there is no way of choosing the secondary slot as jpg only.

 

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick, has anybody got a D800 to double check this ?

 

thanks

 

Neil

Hmmmm I'm still struggling here. Because the image quality is set as Raw and Jpg, my D800 still shoots both Raw and Jpg for Primary and secondary. I've set the menu as follows... Primary to CF and Secondary SD Back up, but as far as I can see, in backup, there is no way of choosing the secondary slot as jpg only.

 

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick, has anybody got a D800 to double check this ?

 

thanks

 

Neil

Guys, don't worry, I think I've sorted it, I actually need to set the SD card (secondary) to Raw Basic/ It seems to be working :-)

 

big thanks guys

 

Neil :-)

I do the same thing, although save to the SD card as "Jpeg Fine."

 

In any case, do as mentioned above and designate the CF card as primary for RAW, and the SD card as secondary for JPEG.

 

Then, hold down the "Qual" button and spin the command wheel until RAW+Basic pops up on the top LCD. You should be good to go from there.

 

I'm linking my camera up to a wireless SD card so that the jpgs can immediately upload to my phone . I can then use the low res jpgs to send out to Twitter etc for the client and work on the raw a little later for better quality, print media etc. That is the plan anyway. :-)

 

Neil

a wireless SD card

my experience with such SD card, slow and takes a lot of akkupower

So Neil,

In the shooting menu start by picking your primary slot. If you want the SD slot to have the RAW files as I would then pick it as your primary.

Then go to secondary slot function and pick RAW primary, JPEG secondary.

Then go back and choose Image quality and pick your choice of JPEG with the RAW.

Unless you want a DX crop leave image area alone.

Next pick JPEG compression.

In the RAW recording menu with slower cameras like the D800 I always choose 14 bit uncompressed files.

Your done.

You can check it by pulling out your primary card and reviewing the data on your camera to see that the secondary card has the JPEG.

I hope you enjoy your D800 as much as I do mine. It was/is truly a ground breaking camera that forced lens manufacturers to poney up.

Stay frosty.

Looks like Neil is sorted, but yes, "backup" means "same to both".

 

The D800 and D810 aren't all that fast, but they're shifting a lot of pixels. They predate decent UHS-II support (which are, or were, expensive anyway), and when I've shot backup raw to SD card, I've run out of buffer. I'm a believer in SD for convenience (in that it's easy to find a laptop with a reader) and whatever's fastest for raw. Plus some here aren't fans of the SD format.

 

I have an Eye-Fi card, not that I've ever used it for wireless use. My experience is that "class 10" can still be very slow in comparison with my normal 95MB/s cards - it's not burst friendly, and took the best part of a minute to clear a buffer. (I'd run out of other SD cards, so...) I do have it so that, if I wanted to, I could do live updates - it's nice functionality to have, especially given what Nikon charge for what seems to be a Wi-Fi-capable raspberry pi in a box (the WT-7).

 

Bear in mind that the D800 in live view stops responding once a shot has been taken until it's finished writing to a card (I hope I remember that right); that's a strong motivator in being able to write images quickly. The D810 lets you keep shooting while it writes - but by the time I got a D810, I'd already bought fast cards. :-)

 

And yes, despite niggles and requested improvements, I've been a great fan of all the D8x0 series. Have fun!