Best Memory Cards For Nikon Z8 – Benchmarks

After running benchmarks for most memory cards in the Nikon Z8, here is a quick guide to get you started on finding the best memory cards for the Nikon Z8.

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Nikon Z8 – Amazon / Adorama / B&H

Fastest Memory Cards For Nikon Z8

Here is a quick list of the fastest CFexpress Type B memory cards for the Nikon Z8. The benchmarks in the Z8/Z9 column were taken by testing the cards in-camera. All these cards scored well and will support 8k RAW video as well as clear the buffer very quickly.

You can see the full list further down in the article.

Quick Warning: The tolerances for CFx cards in the Nikon cameras can sometimes be very tight (it varies from copy to copy). If you get a body that has a tight slot and pair that with a card that’s slightly on the larger size of its tolerances, the cards can get stuck. I’ve always been able to get the cards out when they are tight, but you may just want to try a different card or brand of card if they are too tight. Angelbird and OWC cards are a little tight for my camera, but they still work great. Just be careful and use common sense, don’t force a tight card. This is more of a Nikon problem than it is a card problem.

Recommended Memory Cards For The Nikon Z8 – Based on Use Case

If you want the most out of your Nikon Z8, this includes, fast bursting, ProRes HQ, and Raw video you’ll need the fastest cards. The above list covers that, but here are a few brands I’ve been liking lately.

My top two brands here would be Lexar and Delkin. Lexar is without a doubt the best brand for Nikon shooters right now with CFxB cards. The Prograde Cobalt is also a popular card. Sandisk cards have been a no-go as they don’t use fast sustain speeds.

Best High Capacity Cards & Best Cards For 8k Video

Video shooters will want high-capacity cards and depending on the bitrate, they might need fast cards. Alternatively or if you’re shooting 10-bit h.265, UHS-II cards are a better deal and you only need v60 cards with these H.265 video codecs.

If you’re just shooting 4k N-RAW Normal at 24p, even though the bitrate is low enough to record with UHS-II V90 cards, they will not work, only CFexpress cards will work in the RAW recording. However, the camera will let you record to v90 cards with ProRes depending on your settings.

For ProRes or RAW with higher encodings, you will need CFexpress cards. But keep in mind, H.265 is superior to ProRes unless you shoot RAW.

Also, with 8kRAW 60 at the highest setting, you’ll get about 46 minutes of record time on a 2TB card, and 23 minutes on a 1TB card.

Heat Warning And Shooting With CFexpress Cards

Both CFexpress and UHS-II memory cards get hot in the Nikon Z8 when recording video. However, UHS-II cards don’t seem to get as hot, so it might be a good idea when recording long takes with 10-bit H.265, to just record to UHS-II cards instead of CFexpress Type B cards. This might help keep the camera cooler for longer.

When you’re recording to UHS-II cards, the CFexpress card will still heat up if left in the camera. So it’s best to just remove the CFexpress card from the camera when recording to UHS-II cards, otherwise, you will still get hot card warnings from the CFexpress card heating up, and then you have two cards heating up the camera instead of just one.

For Casual Shooters

If you just want something to get started and you don’t need crazy burst performance but plan on mostly recording in H.265 or H.264 video, then you don’t need some ultra-fast huge capacity card.

Depending on what you plan on doing here, you could go really budget, with something like the Pergear Lite card, but I would recommend still getting something like a Pergear Pro card which will give you a sustained speed of around 300MB/s which is as fast as a UHS-II card.

Here is what I recommend for great cards that are very cost-effective. (Angelbird and OWC cards would be good here as well, but again, they have that thickness issue, only buy them if you can test them in the store to make sure the tolerances are fine).

Nikon Z8 Memory Card In-Camera Speed Test

To test the camera I ran each card in the Nikon Z8 until its 2GB buffer was filled. I then calculated the time it took to clear the buffer against how much data was written.

USB-C read and write speeds were taken on a PC with a USB 3.2 2×2 Angelbird card reader using an AJA system test with 4GB file sizes.

An important spec to look out for is the sustained speeds. Cards often have a fast SLC cache, but on some cards, it’s not very big, Once this cache is exhausted the cards can run very slow. I test sustain speeds which you can see in my Guide To The Best CFexpress Type B Memory Cards.

Shooting 8k Video What You Need To Know

The Nikon Z8 has a lot of very high-end video recording options. You can record full RAW video, ProRes, or very compressed H.265 or H.264.

If you go 12-bit RAW or Prores you will need very fast cards. There is no point in recording ProRes unless you need to go immediately to editing as H.264 is a much better codec since ProRes is still limited to 10-bit 4:2:2 – same as H.265. H.265 should look better, holds more information, and makes much smaller files. But just make sure your editing hardware is up to date with the latest H.265 encoders and decoders. A lot of encoders or decoders might not have the specs for 4:2:2 and especially 8k unless you’re running the latest processors and GPUs. Even then, they might only do 4:2:0 and not 4:2:2.

When ordering a CFx or UHS-II card, you can match the Sustained write speed with the MB/s to see what speed card you need for what recording format you like to shoot in.

UHS-II V60 cards have a sustained write speed of 60MB/s and UHS-II V90 cards have a sustained write speed of 90MB/s.

BitRate For N-RAW Nikon Z8

BitRate For H.265 10-Bit Nikon Z8

From these specs, any UHS-II V60 card is going to be fast enough for H.265 recording, which will be superior to ProRes.

The Nikon Z8 max bitrate when shooting H.265 is 400Mbps or 50MB/s. This means a v60 UHS-II card is sufficient for these recording modes.

CFexpress Memory Card Readers – What You Need To Know

There are a few specs with the USB-C port. There is USB3, USB4, Thunderbolt 3, and Thunderbolt 4.

If you’re on a PC, you need to make sure your motherboard supports USB-C 3.2 2×2 if you want 20Gbps to read and write speeds from your reader, if your reader supports 2×2 20Gbps.

No Apple computer supports USB-C 3.2 2×2, so you will never be able to get the rated speed of CFexpress memory card readers on an Apple computer unless you use a Thunderbolt 3 reader. There are only a few brands that make them. I use the OWC Thunderbolt Reader for my benchmarks.

If you buy a USB-C 3.2 2×2 20Gbps reader, most likely you will be limited to 10Gbps unless you’re on a PC with the proper motherboard.

New Apple computers now have USB4, and they are backward compatible with USB 3.2, but not 2×2 and you will still only get 10Gbps on a USB4 Mac. So you will need to buy one of the new USB4 memory card readers to take advantage of these faster speeds.

XQD AND CFexpress

While CFexpress cards are backward compatible with XQD cameras, I have not found an XQD reader that will take CFexpress cards even though the cards are XQD backward compatible. This means if you’re coming from a Nikon DSLR and have all these XQD readers and cards, you will need to upgrade your readers for the new CFexpress cards.

Best Memory Cards For Nikon Z8 Conclusion

Since the Nikon Z8 is now my primary camera, I will continue to report on any issues with memory cards as well as benchmark all the cards in the camera.