Best Memory Cards Nikon Z8

After running benchmarks for most memory cards in the Nikon Z9, here is a quick guide to get you started on finding the best memory cards for the Nikon Z8.

Best High-End Cards

If you want the most out of your Nikon Z8, this includes, fast bursting, Prores, and Raw video you’ll need the fastest cards. The Nikon Z8 doesn’t have a significant buffer so this is important.

My top two brands here would be Lexar and Delkin. Lexar is without a doubt the best brand for Nikon shooters right now. The Prograde Cobalt is also a popular card, but from my testing, they get hot, I’ll update to the latest before testing the Z8. Sandisk cards have been a no-go. They have a new Cine card, but their regular CFexpress and even UHS-II cards have not been great these last few years.

Best High Capacity Cards Or Best Cards For Video

Video shooters want high-capacity cards and depending on the bitrate, they might need fast cards, or if you’re shooting 10-bit h.265, UHS-II cards are a better deal.

Alternatively, if you’re just shooting 4k N-RAW Normal at 24p, you could also use a v90 UHS-II card, however, CFexpress cards are often a similar price and have more features.

You will only need a UHS-II V60 card if you only plan on shooting H.265 since its max bit rate equals about 50MB/s. You do not need to buy CFx Card for H.265 video.

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.

The 1TB Angelbird CFxB cards can be good here as well, however, sometimes in some Nikon cameras, Angelbird cards can be too thick and difficult to get out, so only buy Angelbird if you have an easy way of returning it in case it doesn’t work out. Also, there are a lot of different types of Angelbird cards, you only want the PRO XT. Some of their cards get crazy hot so you can’t even touch them. But the Pro XT is a great card. The regular 1TB Pro XT MK II gets too hot. But I haven’t tested the larger capacities.

Extra

If you want to run lower bitrates to a massive UHS-II card, your best option is the Angel Bird 1TB v60 card. Like with Prograde, Angelbird also updates its cards by generation. Make sure you grab the MK II cards here or newer. While the AngelBird and OWC CFxB cards are a little too thick for Nikon cameras, the UHS-II is fine.

Angel Bird UHS-II V60 MKII 1TB – B&H

Best Cards For Casual Shooters

If you just want something to get started or say 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 crazy 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.

Just be careful because a lot of the budget cards get very hot, to the point where I can’t hold them after doing my benchmarks. You don’t want that kind of heat in your camera all the time.

You could even go with UHS-I cards, although doing so sort of defeats the purpose of owning a Z8 since you’ll be seriously limiting the capabilities of the camera.

Here is what I recommend for just mid-performance cards. 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.

Memory Cards And 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.

For RAW video here are the specs we have from intoPix RAW.

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.

Consider that some memory cards can get very hot which will not only heat up the card, but your camera too.

I post the high heat sustain speeds in the CFexpress Type B memory card guide.

This information was pulled from the Nikon Online manual. You’ll want to choose a memory card that has a guaranteed minimum sustain speed that can handle the bitrate you want to record in.

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.