Best Memory Cards Fujifilm X-H2s

Fujifilm’s flagship action and video machine has some very high-end specs with very high-end video features. Now with the option of using CFexpress and UHS-II memory cards, setting up the camera to maximize performance isn’t so simple, and with the high-end video features, higher-end cards will be required.

This guide will help you find the best memory cards for the Fujifilm X-H2s. There is a lot to talk about here and a lot to think about and no perfect configuration for any one person’s setup.

Fujifilm X-H2s – Amazon / Adorama / B&H

Recommended Memory Cards Fujifilm X-H2s

The Fujifilm X-H2s take two different types of memory cards. CFexpress Type-B and UHS-II cards. CFexpress cards are considerably faster than UHS-II cards and with the new 64-bit processing of the X-H2s, the camera will fully take advantage of those improved speeds.

Video shooters can use either CFexpress Type-B or UHS-II v90 cards if they only use H.265 or H.264 since the highest bitrate of H.265 is 720Mbps or 90MB/s.

For shooting ProRes you will have to move up to some good CFexpress Type-B cards since 6.2k with ProResHQ runs at a bitrate up to 2754Mbps or 344MB/s. You’ll also need very large cards.

Keep in mind, H.265 still probably looks nicer on a technical level than ProResHQ at these bitrates, so you may not even need ProResHQ if you have a system for working with H.265. This is assuming everything with the X-H2s hardware is perfectly optimized for H.265 and ProRes.

While you may be tempted to max out the bitrate performance of the camera, for some people it’s just not practical and many Youtubers and Videographers might like the lower bitrate options while still taking advantage of the low rolling shutter. For lower-bitrate shooters, you can save quite a lot by just using UHS-II V60 cards or slower CFexpress cards. V60 cards offer a minimum write speed of 60MB/s which allows a bitrate of 480Mbps, more than enough for Youtube when shooting H.265 in 10-bit – you could probably even get away with the lower bitrate of 360Mbps with H.265 10-bit and still have incredible quality.

For Photographers bursting with a dual memory card setup, you’ll want to buy the fastest UHS-II you can buy, but you won’t need the best CFexpress card, since the system will bottleneck to UHS-II speeds in a dual memory card configuration shooting with redundancy.

Fujifilm X-H2s Memory Card Benchmarks

Benchmarks are taken by running a continuous burst with each card in the camera, then comparing data written to the time it took to clear the buffer. This is done several times and the best time is taken.

*I kept having an issue with this camera where my UHS-II cards were not making firm contact with both rows of pins and they often ran at UHS-I speeds. I’ve seen this before with Fujifilm cameras and think that possibly there was a bent pin or something off inside the X-H2s copy that I had. It’s usually normal for a card to do this from time to time, but I had this happen with several cards in this camera which is very unusual.

Further Compatibility Information

Fujifilm has also officially tested and recommended memory cards. I share the same cards above. Official Fujifilm X-H2s Memory Card Compatibility Chart,

For Lexar cards stick with 2000x for V90 speeds or 1800x v60 speeds for the X-H2s.

VGP 400 Rating – Like the U3, V60, and V90, CFexpress cards are now offering a VGP 400 rating – Look for the little clapper board with the 400 logo.

VGP 400 certification guarantees that the card will no matter what give you 400MB/s as a minimum write speed which is fairly critical when shooting at the maximum bitrate of the X-H2s and don’t want to run into buffer issues.

CFexpress Type B cards throttle their speeds a lot to combat heat build-up, and other factors like fragmentation can also slow down write speeds. If you don’t have a VGP 400 card, just make sure you never delete clips to avoid fragmentation.

Currently, the Lexar Diamond is the only CFexpress B card to have the VGP 400 certificate, I’ve asked other brands about this but am still waiting for a response. 

Fujifilm X-H2s Specs

I’ll benchmark everything when the camera comes out to get a better read on what’s really working with the new hardware.

Fujifilm X-H2s Bitrates & Record Times

Keep in mind, that people are often testing and showing that H.265 with a good compression looks better than Prores.

Fujifilm X-H2s Should You Use ProRes?

Now that the Fujifilm X-H2s has the ability to record internal ProResHQ, Prores or ProresLT, the question is, do you really need it?

The general assumption online is that ProresHQ is one of the best formats. It’s an industry standard for editing and mastering and has been for a long time, it’s a very old codec. But again do you need it? Is Prores better than H.265?

This depends on how good the Fujifilm X-H2s hardware is at encoding H.265 – we don’t know yet, but in a controlled setting with something like Divinci Resolve, H.265 at a much lower bitrate typically outperforms ProresHQ. In other words, H.265 > ProresHQ.

If the X-H2s has good hardware encoders, you can shoot H.265 as your master, then you can save a lot of money on external memory cards by editing in a proxy and this will give you the best results.

The advantage of ProRes is that you can throw it straight into the edit bay and start working right away if you have the hardware to support this bandwidth.

Typically because of how the compression works, H.265 is just not a great format to work in even with hardware encoders like our graphics cards or processors since most are not yet doing 10-bit 4:2:2 decoding and encoding natively. In 2022, 10-bit 4:2:0 is still more commonly seen as a hardware encoder.

Another problem with the 6.2k ProresHQ workflow is you need incredibly fast drives that can stream 344.25MB/s or faster depending on if you’re speeding up footage or stacking footage or using transitions. This just might not be possible in something like an M1 mac or M1 iMac since these consumer machines share the USB-C bus and even on my M1 Mac with the fastest drives, struggle to get speeds faster than 400MB-500MB/s.

You’ll need to test your system and figure out if working in Prores HQ at 6.2k is right for you and this will help you get a clearer picture of the size and speed of the memory cards you will need.

As a final note: I’m a professional Trailer editor that’s been working for 15 years in the industry. I can tell you, we don’t use ProRes anymore to edit with. We use H.264 in our studio to edit as proxies from something like ProresHQ or Prores4444, or some sort of RAW Cinema footage. I’ve also seen other studios work in ProResLT.

If your computer has hardware encoders for H.265 4:2:2 10-bit (I don’t think any do yet, maybe M2 mac or the next Intel) then your computer will rip H.264 out of H.265 very fast. Premiere Pro is very good for this as it’s all automated.

Best Memory Cards For Dual Card Redundancy

Photographers – To run a dual memory card setup with backup, you will have to have both CFexpress and UHS-II cards. Having a slower UHS-II card in slot two will bottleneck the performance down to the speed of the UHS-II SD card.

Shooters that require backup may have to run JPG to the UHS-II cards to not impact performance as much since JPGs are smaller. However, JPGs are often harder on the processor and aren’t that much smaller than Fujifilm RAW files, so you’ll still take a hit in buffer clearing speeds when bursting, especially if you have effects like clarity turned on – so be careful here.

Shooting with a dual memory card configuration won’t require you to buy the fastest CFexpress cards but you should buy the fastest UHS-II sd cards. CFexpress and UHS-II cards are roughly a similar price, so it’s not a huge loss either way.

Videographers – If you want to shoot Prores with very high bitrates, you will not be able to shoot video with any sort of redundancy since the second card slot does not support those speeds. If you absolutely need redundancy with the X-H2s while shooting Prores, you might be able to record internally at the same time as recording externally to a Ninja recorder. This is something to look into, I have not seen the specs on if this will work yet. Some cameras allow you to do this but with limitations.

Or, it’s possible that they will let you record Prores to CFexpress and H.265 to UHS-II. Still waiting on the user manual here.

Best Memory Cards Fujifilm X-H2s Conclusions

There is still a lot to test on my end, but this guide should get you started or at least get you thinking about what you may or may not need for your particular situation.

In Summary, photographers looking to burst with a single card setup should grab the fastest CFexpress cards. Photographers looking to burst with redundancy should grab the fastest UHS-II cards and a CFexpress card that is as fast or faster.

Videographers that want Prores will need the fastest CFexpress Memory cards.

Videographers that shoot H.265 10-bit, will only need speeds of the fastest UHS-II V90 cards or a CFexpress card that matches.