Beginner Nikon D810 (Memory Card ADVICE required please)

Coho-Blue

Coho-Blue

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Hi Guys

I have recently purchased a Used mint condition Nikon D810 (its in the post) and would like to ask, especially those of you who have used them , Which memory card(s) should I buy in order to get maximum performance ? .. I am not a Pro shooter , Landscape and some family shots will be the order of the day for this camera

I`ve read a little bit about SD cards or CF cards however I`m still a little unsure as to which ones are the best and/or most reliable for the D810 ..

I`m sort of familiar with the SD type as I have an SD EXTREME PRO 64gb 300mb`s in my D500 which was fairly expensive , I am not however, up to spec on CF cards , what is the difference ? are they better ? and what should I buy .........

thanks in advance for any help/advice


Coho-Blue

PS - just remembered ,my laptop does not have any in built card reader so with the D500 I usually transfer the files from the card still in the camera using the camera cable , can I do the same with the D810 or will I need to purchase a card reader ...
 
Coho-Blue said:
Hi Guys

I have recently purchased a Used mint condition Nikon D810 (its in the post) and would like to ask, especially those of you who have used them , Which memory card(s) should I buy in order to get maximum performance ? .. I am not a Pro shooter , Landscape and some family shots will be the order of the day for this camera

I`ve read a little bit about SD cards or CF cards however I`m still a little unsure as to which ones are the best and/or most reliable for the D810 ..

I`m sort of familiar with the SD type as I have an SD EXTREME PRO 64gb 300mb`s in my D500 which was fairly expensive , I am not however, up to spec on CF cards , what is the difference ? are they better ? and what should I buy .........

thanks in advance for any help/advice


Coho-Blue

PS - just remembered ,my laptop does not have any in built card reader so with the D500 I usually transfer the files from the card still in the camera using the camera cable , can I do the same with the D810 or will I need to purchase a card reader ...
Click to expand...

Card readers are cheap and much easier so I'd recommend grabbing one of those. SD cards are much smaller than CF cards but also more fragile and smaller to grab with your fingers. I much prefer using CF cards personally but either of them will record your images. For your usage you won't need mega fast cards either so don't worry too much about write speeds. 60mbs plus will do the job well. Then just look at how many photos you're likely to shoot in a day and whether in RAW or jpeg to figure out how large memory you need. A couple of 32 or 64GB cards will do most people and you can usually find some for sale cheap in the classifieds section here. In fact, if you remind me later, I still have a lightly used 32GB CF card I don't need anymore.
 
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Sandisk cards are what I use in my 810’s. Bought from Amazon so I know they aren’t fakes. I record images onto both cards in mirror, belt and braces.....
 
Coho-Blue said:
Hi Guys

I have recently purchased a Used mint condition Nikon D810 (its in the post) and would like to ask, especially those of you who have used them , Which memory card(s) should I buy in order to get maximum performance ? .. I am not a Pro shooter , Landscape and some family shots will be the order of the day for this camera

I`ve read a little bit about SD cards or CF cards however I`m still a little unsure as to which ones are the best and/or most reliable for the D810 ..

I`m sort of familiar with the SD type as I have an SD EXTREME PRO 64gb 300mb`s in my D500 which was fairly expensive , I am not however, up to spec on CF cards , what is the difference ? are they better ? and what should I buy .........

thanks in advance for any help/advice


Coho-Blue

PS - just remembered ,my laptop does not have any in built card reader so with the D500 I usually transfer the files from the card still in the camera using the camera cable , can I do the same with the D810 or will I need to purchase a card reader ...
Click to expand...

I’ve been using a D810 for about 5 years now and I’ve used SanDisk Extreme cards which have always been absolutely fine. Not sure what you mean by maximum performance, but for the usage you’re describing you’re unlikely to need blazing fast write speeds (and the camera itself isn’t really built for speed in the way the D500 is).
 
Here's a comparison from a few years ago:

Nikon D810 SD CF Card Speed Tests - Fastest memory cards for D810 - Camera Memory Speed Comparison & Performance tests for SD and CF cards

Nikon D810 memory card tests. Fastest CF and SD cards for the D810.
www.cameramemoryspeed.com www.cameramemoryspeed.com

At the time, the fastest CF cards were outperforming the fastest SD cards they tried in the D810 - I don't know if this would still be true. But for landscape and family shots it hardly matters. It's really only a big deal if you need to take a series of shots in rapid succession. Card read (rather than write) speed can also help when copying a lot of image files to your computer, provided you have a card reader that can make use of the card's performance (a good card reader will generally be faster than copying directly from the camera).

For the D800, I tend to buy SD these days, because cards of the same capacity that are fast enough for my use are cheaper in this format and more readily available.
 
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I always used Lexar Pro CF cards in mine with SD as back up. The CF cards were faster and better for video, buffering when taking multiple shots and much faster for importing - I always shoot RAW.

As I've sold 810 now, some of the cards are in the classifieds. ;)
 
Thanks Guys for all the info thus far ..

To answer one or two questions about which card I should buy ..

I may occasionally decide to do a little family video so my reasons for wanting the right advice on which card is simply because if I need to spend a bit extra on a certain card over another then I’ll do that rather than be caught out ..

“I get it now” that read speed would be more important for copying images from the card to PC .. I suppose I’d be better off with a couple of cards in the camera ..

Coho-Blue
 
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The D810 doesn’t shoot 4K video so you don’t need anything high end. My personal preference is for SanDisk cards as I’ve used them since I first went digital in 2003 and haven’t had a single problem in that time - I’m sure others are just as good though.
 
have a look at the camera memory speed link that’s already been posted as that has all the info.

The simple answer is SanDisk 95MB/s Extreme Pro for SD cards, and SanDisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s for CF cards.

I don’t think pricesfor SD or CF cards are that bad as they are older technology now compared to the newer memory card types that run into a few hundred pounds.

Transferring via USB cable is said to be the safest option as the chance of memory card failure is increased by taking it in and out many times over.
 
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