XQD card with D500

Rocket

Rocket

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Anyone using the XQD card with there D500, seems to be a hit and miss when talking to fellow photographers.
Any feed personal back please.
 
Never had the XQD card, or SD card, miss a beat with the D500. :)

I have the Lexar 32GB XQD card, and also a Lexar 32GB SD card (which were, and I think still are, the fastest cards for the D500) that I use most of the time, but when travelling once these are full, I have various other SD cards. Don't think I have had any problems with any cards since 2016 with the D500.

What problems are you having? :thinking:
 
For quite a few years XQD was the only option for the D500, and only after the Z7 was introduced that firmware allowed CF Express to be used.

Not aware that the were issues with the XQD on the D500, I still use one in mine; and I have UHS-II SD in the other slot.
 
Thanks all for the replies. My first thoughts were that the XQD was more for 4K video rather than Photos. Although as i understand a decent sd card will handle 4K.
Not quite sure what the advantages are with an XQD card ?
 
Rocket said:
Thanks all for the replies. My first thoughts were that the XQD was more for 4K video rather than Photos. Although as i understand a decent sd card will handle 4K.
Not quite sure what the advantages are with an XQD card ?
Click to expand...
I use XQD cards in a D4, they are blisteringly fast at image uploads compared to CF and SD cards.
 
As Barney says - it's to do with speed. Basically having to manage 10+FPS sustainably was too much for CF and SD (as I found with my D3 and D7100), the XQD compatibility was an answer to my prayers, shooting bursts with wildlife/motorsport/airshows etc was a frustration (and I shoot RAW+ JPEG) and I found myself going back to my Pentax K-3 because I was missing shots while the Nikon buffers were clearing - not an issue with a D500 + Lexar 32/64Gb XQD cards (only limited by the SD cards in slot 2).

XQD was a godsend, CF Express is however another level..
 
Rocket said:
Thanks all for the replies. My first thoughts were that the XQD was more for 4K video rather than Photos. Although as i understand a decent sd card will handle 4K.
Not quite sure what the advantages are with an XQD card ?
Click to expand...
File transfer speed.
 
welshwizard645 said:
As Barney says - it's to do with speed. Basically having to manage 10+FPS sustainably was too much for CF and SD (as I found with my D3 and D7100), the XQD compatibility was an answer to my prayers, shooting bursts with wildlife/motorsport/airshows etc was a frustration (and I shoot RAW+ JPEG) and I found myself going back to my Pentax K-3 because I was missing shots while the Nikon buffers were clearing - not an issue with a D500 + Lexar 32/64Gb XQD cards (only limited by the SD cards in slot 2).

XQD was a godsend, CF Express is however another level..
Click to expand...
As Peter states using XQD allows the camera to write to the card faster, so it clears the buffer faster and maintains a higher frame rate for longer. If you use XQD with a slow SD card in the 2nd slot some this speed is lost.
 
In theory, with the D500 doing 10fps, you could shoot to fill the 200 shot limit, and apparently just lifting the the finger off the shutter button and pressing again, will immediately allow another 200 shots, because the XQD card is quick enough to write that amount of data to the card. Not something I would inflict on my camera just to test. ;) There were people showing that off when the camera was released.

Now that is a niche situation needing 200+ shots at a time, but not being limited by the technology takes that limit out of the options when taking images.

Downloading images to the computer is also blisteringly fast with the right card reader, which to some could be important.

Putting the XQD card into the D500, and to have it all as capable as the D5, was a brave move by Nikon, but after such a long time on from the D400S, they threw everything at it, and I'm glad they did.
 
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Same here great read write speeds , most noticeable when downloading raw files to the computer a couple of hundred shots in just over a minute
 
I have another question which i am trying to get my head around.
The XQD card, is this compatible in a CF or SD size, or is it a separate card from the for mentioned ?
 
if you look at the XQD slot you will see that it is a totally different size, I have not seen an adapter type thing available, but then again I have not looked.

XQD.jpg

XQD on right for size comparison.
 
CF, SD and XQD are all physically different sizes and different technologies.

XQD and CFexpress (type B) are physically the same, but not interchangeable unless the device has been designed for both, or has been able to be updated to use CFexpress (as XQD cards came first). The D500 has a firmware update available that allows it to use CFexpress cards, but not able to use the full speed of the fastest CFexpress cards, as far as know.
 
Many thanks for the latest update. All makes sense now and i understand the variations., its an age thing.
 
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