Need memory card help/advice for D810 please

[Bobby2Shots]

I use Lexar CF 1066X

--
Old Greenlander
"I show the world the way I see it"
35 years of photography and still learning

Thanks Old Greenlander,,,,,, and obviously, those cards are working VERY WELL for you, judging by the spectacular pictures posted in your photo gallery. Your beautiful bird pictures played a large role in getting me re-interested in photography after being away for 40 + years. Thanks again.

Bob

 

[Grahamh67]

Interesting.....you've made me realise I need to do some testing if that is the case.

First my set up:-

- I've always used Sandisk cards (so far, never had a problem....touch wood);

- always have a pair of 64Gb extreme pro cards in the D810, so CF card is160 Mb/s and SD card is 95 Mb/s;

- primary slot set to CF and SD is overflow.

i haven't yet done a great deal of continuous burst shooting so haven't noticed any difference between write speeds to the two card formats.

That said, I do notice a definite difference when scrolling through pictures by holding the multi selector down (whether to tthe left or right doesn't matter) between the two card formats. Point being that the two card formats appear to be working at different speeds when scrolling through images, so would assume that shooting in long enough continuos bursts would verify the same point.

While on the subject of memory cards and thinking further about card capacities.....brings me to one bug bear I have with the D810.

Format a 64 GB CF card in camera and the control panel reports space for 795 large, raw, uncompressed 14 bit images. According to page 489 of the manual a 16 GB card should hold 199 such images.....so a 64 GB should hold 199 * 3 = 597 images. A difference of about 200 images.

Had the manual been more accurate I might have purchased smaller capacity (cheaper) 32GB cards instead!!

Try the same exercise with small, basic jpeg settings and the difference is much bigger. I'll leave you to do the maths.

Maybe I'm over thinking it.......but couldn't resist voicing the above about card capacities.

Yeah I know, stop over thinking it, get out and shoot more with a great camera. Thanks for reading if you've got this far, ha,ha.

 

[theonetruepath]

Format a 64 GB CF card in camera and the control panel reports space for 795 large, raw, uncompressed 14 bit images. According to page 489 of the manual a 16 GB card should hold 199 such images.....so a 64 GB should hold 199 * 3 = 597 images. A difference of about 200 images.

Had the manual been more accurate I might have purchased smaller capacity (cheaper) 32GB cards instead!!

Try the same exercise with small, basic jpeg settings and the difference is much bigger. I'll leave you to do the maths.

You're wasting your time looking at either the manual or the camera display to get an idea of card capacity.

The camera display is conservative to the point of being utterly useless. It might show "800" capacity, then after shooting 800 images it will now show "400" capacity. After shooting a further 400 in now shows "200". Eventually you will fit anything from 1500 to 2000 images on the card.

If you want to know how many images you will fit, every time you empty your card look at how many images are on it and do a calculation with how much free space is still on it.

Assuming you fill a significant proportion of the card, after the third time you empty your card you should have an accurate idea of capacity, after the fifth time a pretty good idea how much it can vary.

 

[Manzur Fahim]

Interesting.....you've made me realise I need to do some testing if that is the case.

First my set up:-

- I've always used Sandisk cards (so far, never had a problem....touch wood);

- always have a pair of 64Gb extreme pro cards in the D810, so CF card is160 Mb/s and SD card is 95 Mb/s;

- primary slot set to CF and SD is overflow.

i haven't yet done a great deal of continuous burst shooting so haven't noticed any difference between write speeds to the two card formats.

That said, I do notice a definite difference when scrolling through pictures by holding the multi selector down (whether to tthe left or right doesn't matter) between the two card formats. Point being that the two card formats appear to be working at different speeds when scrolling through images, so would assume that shooting in long enough continuos bursts would verify the same point.

While on the subject of memory cards and thinking further about card capacities.....brings me to one bug bear I have with the D810.

Format a 64 GB CF card in camera and the control panel reports space for 795 large, raw, uncompressed 14 bit images. According to page 489 of the manual a 16 GB card should hold 199 such images.....so a 64 GB should hold 199 * 3 = 597 images. A difference of about 200 images.

Had the manual been more accurate I might have purchased smaller capacity (cheaper) 32GB cards instead!!

Try the same exercise with small, basic jpeg settings and the difference is much bigger. I'll leave you to do the maths.

Maybe I'm over thinking it.......but couldn't resist voicing the above about card capacities.

Yeah I know, stop over thinking it, get out and shoot more with a great camera. Thanks for reading if you've got this far, ha,ha.

It actually varies. Not all raw files are same size, their sizes vary, and so does the number of files that can be stored in a card. About 400 images can be stored on average on a 32GB cards. My 512GB shows 6.2K images and my 256GB CF shows 3.1K shots, but I'm sure at the end it is just an estimation.

 

[Grahamh67]

Format a 64 GB CF card in camera and the control panel reports space for 795 large, raw, uncompressed 14 bit images. According to page 489 of the manual a 16 GB card should hold 199 such images.....so a 64 GB should hold 199 * 3 = 597 images. A difference of about 200 images.

Had the manual been more accurate I might have purchased smaller capacity (cheaper) 32GB cards instead!!

Try the same exercise with small, basic jpeg settings and the difference is much bigger. I'll leave you to do the maths.

You're wasting your time looking at either the manual or the camera display to get an idea of card capacity.

I know......that's exactly the point I was making. It would make more sense when starting with a blank card, for the camera to work on size of card divided by image size, per the manual, equals number of images to display in the control panel.

The camera display is conservative to the point of being utterly useless. It might show "800" capacity, then after shooting 800 images it will now show "400" capacity. After shooting a further 400 in now shows "200". Eventually you will fit anything from 1500 to 2000 images on the card.

I understand the point you make because it will always depend upon the actual size of each image written to the card and that in itself depends upon the amount of detail recorded within a scene.

If you want to know how many images you will fit, every time you empty your card look at how many images are on it and do a calculation with how much free space is still on it.

Assuming you fill a significant proportion of the card, after the third time you empty your card you should have an accurate idea of capacity, after the fifth time a pretty good idea how much it can vary.

With a camera as sophisticated as the D810 I'd expect it to be better than it is with something like we've discussed here.

 

[theonetruepath]

With a camera as sophisticated as the D810 I'd expect it to be better than it is with something like we've discussed here.

This is universal across all Nikons... and deliberate on their part. Apparently they feel it is absolutely of critical importance that they

1. Use only a trivially simple algorithm to determine number of shots left

2. Never ever, under any circumstances, overstate the number of images left by even one image, especially as the number gets low.

Relax either of these and they could give you a far more useful display. I would simply use the 'commonest' file size when the card is empty, then as it approaches full switch to using the average file size on the card. And if the user once in a blue moon sees '57 images available' and gets only 56... so what for goodness sake!

 

[Rich Rosen]

Sandisk Extreme Pro 160 mb/s CF with Sandisk 95mb/s U3 SD for overflow only.

On another note, wish Nikon had went XQD with the 810

--
A Canon G5 and a bit of Nikon gear.
---------------------------
Nobody paints like that anymore either. But it can't be wrong to try - Bob Dylan

Hi T O Shooter, thanks for the quick response. I'll check out those cards, but I have a question;

From what I've read, the D810's write-speed will match, but not exceed, the write-speed of the slower of the two cards. Therefore, even if you use a 160MB/s card in one slot,and a 95 MB/s card in the second slot, the 160MB/s card can only be written at the 95MB/s speed of the second card. Does that sound right to you?

I agree about the XQD, and that's probably what they'll do with the D810's eventual replacement.(I hope)

Bob

That's why I only use the SD for overflow. It has no effect on the CF speed that way. Once in awhile I'll max out the CF, so the SD is better than nothing. The CF matches up well with the D810 buffer - I've never had it slow down. But the couple of times I've ended up switched over to the SD it's no trouble to tell. I've buffered out running off a series of BIF shots. Usually at the worse time.

--
A Canon G5 and a bit of Nikon gear.
---------------------------
Nobody paints like that anymore either. But it can't be wrong to try - Bob Dylan

OK T O Shooter, but my question is still not precisely addressed here. My understanding is that the supposedly faster cards' speed(160MB/s), would be restrained to match the lower speed(95MB/s) of the slower card, even if you're writing to the faster card alone. Essentially, the 160MB/s card becomes, or acts like, a quasi 95MB/s card. If correct, this should have an impact on card selection (matching speeds would be optimal).

That is incorrect. If you using the slower as overflow (after the fast card is full), then the slower card will not effect the speed of the faster card. However if you use the slower card as backup (writing to both cards at the same time, even if one is designated for raw and one for jpeg), it will the camera will slow down.

 

[Old Greenlander]

I use Lexar CF 1066X