Best Memory Cards Nikon Z6 III – Real Benchmarks

Unlike the previous generation of Nikon Z6 cameras, the Nikon Z6 III has some pretty beefy video specs that require fast memory cards with good sustain speeds.

Like the memory cards for the Nikon Z6 II and Nikon Z8, the Z6 III has a CFexpress type-B slot and an SD UHS-II slot with no limit to capacity.

Nikon Z6 III – Amazon / B&H

Best CFExpress Type B Memory Cards – Nikon Z6 III

If you’re not doing anything too extreme with video, the Nikon Z6 III won’t require the absolute best memory cards; I recommend you start with a good mid-range card or look at some of the good lower-end cards.

My favorite brands are Lexar and Delkin. Hoodman has some good cards, and Prograde also has some nice cards.

I’ve also tested many of these cards recommended cards here in the Nikon Z6 III, which all perform flawlessly. And when tested with the higher-end Nikon Z8, they even ran 8k60p NRAW without any issues. (note: there are some upgraded CF4.0 cards I have not been able to test yet).

The Nikon Z6 III, when shooting photos, has a bottomless buffer. I did some ultra-high burst JPG tests, which allowed me to fill the buffer, and the speeds always came out to around 145MB/s. The camera can’t really output enough data on the photo side to tax the capabilities of CFxB cards.

For a general photographer, I would recommend mid-range cards like Delkin Power, Lexar Gold, or mid-range cards from any other brand.

It gets a little tricky for videographers as the sustained speeds you need vary wildly depending on the video format you require.

The cards here will allow you to do everything the camera offers.

You won’t need CF4.0 cards for this camera, but I’ve posted the latest here since that is where everything is going.

See all the CFexpress Type-B benchmarks to compare other cards.

Recommended SD Cards Nikon Z6 III

For the SD Memory Card, you’ll have to decide what you plan to use this second slot for. I generally keep an older V90 or V60 card as a backup in the SD card slot, which I rarely use for anything unless I forget my CFexpress card.

However, if you’re just shooting H.265 video, you can use a v60 card, and these do run considerably cooler, which might be useful in long takes in hot environments.

If you’re a wedding or event photographer, you’ll likely want to shoot backup JPGs to the SD cards; in this case, you’ll need V90 cards not to bottleneck the camera’s performance too much. Keep in mind that for most of the Tough style cards, the write protection switch is removed.

Here are some of my favorite SD cards for the Nikon Z6 III. I have the benchmarks for SD memory cards further below.

If, for some reason, an SD card is not running properly in the Nikon Z6 III, try taking out the battery and card, inserting the card, and then the battery to see if the camera correctly identifies the card. Sometimes, that can help if the camera redirects the card as UHS-II.

Also, as a reminder, keep your UHS-II card pins clean. Having dirt or lint can affect their performance and cause them to only run at UHS-I speeds. This happens occasionally when I test these cards.

Best Memory Card For Video With Nikon Z6 III

The Nikon Z6 III can shoot 6K RAW and ProRes RAW, requiring CFexpress Cards. However, if you’re shooting H.265, you can use SD memory cards or mid to low-range CFexpress Cards.

6k60p N-RAW 12-bit runs at 3730 Mbps. This is 466.25MB/s. So you’ll need to get a good CFexpress Card to sustain that. Not a lot of the cheaper cards can, which is why I recommend the top brands only or the higher-end cards from the budget brands.

5.3k 60p H.265 runs at 400Mbps which is 50MB/s. This means you could shoot H.265 at the max bitrate with only a v60 UHS-II SD memory card.

Also, if you’re only going to use H.265, you can save a lot of money with V60 cards; they run much cooler than CFexpress Cards. So I recommend them if you’re not a serious videographer or are doing very long takes where the heat built up of CFexpress Type-B cards would be causing problems.

Should you shoot ProRes 422 HQ or H.265?

When the Nikon Z6III was first announced, I saw a lot of people saying it does 4:2:2 10-bit H.265. But now I’m reading the reference manual, which says that H.265 or H.264 is 4:2:0 only, so it’s the same as the Nikon Z8.

So, if you’re doing a lot of color grading, you might want to shoot ProRes for the 4:2:2 subsampling.

The Bitrate of Apple ProRes 422 HQ at 6k60p is 1909Mbps, which is 238.62MB/s. According to Apple’s ProRes White Paper. You need a decent CFexpress Type-B memory card to run 6k60p ProRes HQ with the Nikon Z6III.

Nikon Z6 III SD Memory Card Benchmarks

As mentioned, the Z6 III has a bottomless buffer with CFexpress Type-B cards. Still, I got proper benchmarks for SD Memory Cards by filling the buffer with a continuous burst shooting RAW and then calculating the time it took to clear the buffer against the total data written.