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Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Jemini
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Wildlife/BIF etc
Shooting only stills. Like to get at least 100 HE* RAW+jpg buffer and empty buffer in very fast (30 sec or less)

Looking into 3 cards

Delkin black 150gb 1530 minimum sustained speed $179
Delkin black G4 325gb 1450 minimum sustained speed $279
Prograde Cobalt 165gb 1400 minimum sustained speed 135

Are above cards good enough? Or can I get away with even cheaper cards like this one?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1548486-REG/prograde_digital_pgcfx256gapbh_digital_256gb_cfexpress_2_0.html

Need to decide today because I have a shoot tomorrow. Comments greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Nov 10, 2023 at 08:49 AM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Just buy the Black and be done with it. It has an ENDLESS buffer in HE*, so it will handle RAW + JPEG more than adequately for you.

Nov 10, 2023 at 08:51 AM

Jemini
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

RoamingScott wrote:
Just buy the Black and be done with it. It has an ENDLESS buffer in HE*, so it will handle RAW + JPEG more than adequately for you.

Thank you. I saw many mention about Delkin Black. Is the BLACK way better than BLACK G4? Honestly I don't care about unlimited buffer. 100-150 images would be more than enough. The minimum sustained speed difference between them looks small (1450 vs 1530). Price difference is huge though.

Nov 10, 2023 at 09:03 AM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Jemini wrote:
Thank you. I saw many mention about Delkin Black. Is the BLACK way better than BLACK G4? Honestly I don't care about unlimited buffer. 100-150 images would be more than enough. The minimum sustained speed difference between them looks small (1450 vs 1530). Price difference is huge though.

G4 is the new gen and what you should get. Non-G4 was ever so slightly faster, but not enough to matter.

Nov 10, 2023 at 09:04 AM

Jemini
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

RoamingScott wrote:
G4 is the new gen and what you should get. Non-G4 was ever so slightly faster, but not enough to matter.

Great. Thank you. I will stick with G4 then

Nov 10, 2023 at 09:21 AM

CanadaMark
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Delkin Black (any capacity) or Delkin Power G4 (650GB and above) are essentially the same card from a performance perspective, buy whatever is cheaper.

Buffer emptying is immediate even with 1000 HE* frames, just lift your finger, put it back down and off you go for another 1000. Unlike others, the Z8/Z9 also do not stop when the buffer is full, they will continue to shoot until the card is full at the speed of whatever the weakest link is, so a faster card will benefit you there as well if that's a situation you might run into.

If you only need 100 shots, the slower CFe cards will do that, but at 20fps that can happen quickly depending on your shooting style.

Nov 10, 2023 at 01:16 PM

armd
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

Delkin Black or Prograde Cobalt are the way to go for reliability, performance, and temperature.

Nov 10, 2023 at 01:20 PM

sungphoto
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

I went with Delkin Black for the Z9 and Z8 and have been happy with them

Nov 10, 2023 at 02:04 PM

Jemini
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

CanadaMark wrote:
Delkin Black (any capacity) or Delkin Power G4 (650GB and above) are essentially the same card from a performance perspective, buy whatever is cheaper.

Buffer emptying is immediate even with 1000 HE* frames, just lift your finger, put it back down and off you go for another 1000. Unlike others, the Z8/Z9 also do not stop when the buffer is full, they will continue to shoot until the card is full at the speed of whatever the weakest link is, so a faster card will benefit you there as well if that's a situation you might run into.

If you only need...Show more →

Got it. Thank you

Nov 10, 2023 at 04:25 PM

Jemini
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

armd wrote:
Delkin Black or Prograde Cobalt are the way to go for reliability, performance, and temperature.

I found Cobalt is faster than Delkin Black G4. So keeping that.

Nov 10, 2023 at 04:26 PM

sjms
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

and how did you work that out?

Nov 10, 2023 at 05:29 PM

Jemini
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

sjms wrote:
and how did you work that out?

I bought Delkin Black G4 from a store (not sure if I want expose the store name here) because I thought the price was reasonable and it's the real BLACK. Based on comment above, G4 should be newer version of BLACK. Anyway before opening it I asked the customer support if it's ok to try it and they said it's ok. So tried and found it gives unlimited buffer for HE, but slows down around 80 images with HE*. That's worse than expected. That's when I requested return. I hope they will honor the return.

I also had cobalt ordered from Amazon which is on sale now. Looks like cobalt gives same unlimited HE and at least 150 HE* before slowing down. Both cards empty buffer very fast. But overall cobalt looks better.

Nov 10, 2023 at 06:26 PM

sjms
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

well i'll tell you i just wasted 333 shots on HE* continuous. using the original 150 Black. aperture preferred. interesting but then mine is a Z9

Nov 10, 2023 at 06:48 PM

Jemini
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

I'm little bit confused between original and new G4. Original one has slightly faster minimum sustained speed. But not sure that's enough to show such such a huge difference.

sjms wrote:
well i'll tell you i just wasted 333 shots on HE* continuous. using the original 150 Black. aperture preferred. interesting but then mine is a Z9

Nov 10, 2023 at 08:41 PM

sjms
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Urgent question about CFExpress card for Z8

i've been using these cards since the the Z9 came out

Nov 10, 2023 at 08:48 PM


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