In this post I want to discuss my views and experiences with the CFexpress Type B card functionality of the Nikon Z6 II.
Let me start with a health warning: I do not pretend to be an expert in this area, so this post contains my personal view and experiences.
The Nikon Z series
About 4 years ago Nikon introduced their first mirrorless cameras, the Z6 and the Z7.
One of the first things that caught many people’s attention was that these cameras had a only one card slot, and this was not for SD cards, but one for XQD cards.
I and many people never heard about these cards before, but the advantages that were communicated included a higher writing speed for demanding video formats, and that, compared to SD cards, these cards were less prone to errors or crashes.
We also quickly learned these cards were also extremely expensive…
Because the autofocus on the Z6 and Z7 received a lot of complaints at the time these cameras were introduced, and because I had a couple of bad experiences with the poorly organized, incompetent and hyper-expensive after-sales service of Nikon in both the Netherlands and Switzerland, I decided not to invest in this system.
Instead, I bought a Panasonic Lumix S5. A great camera, especially for video. This camera had a dual SD slot and did not use the exotic XQD cards, or its successor, the CFexpress Type B cards.
Fast forward to two months ago…
For a specific series of projects I needed lenses that were either not available, or very expensive, in the Lumix world. Since I still have a lot of F mount glass, and I really like the versatility of the 24-200 lens, I bought a Z6 II.
In the meantime, the Z6 (and Z7 series) were upgraded to version II, and were also equipped with a dual card slot. One for the successor of XQD cards, the CFexpress Type B cards, and one for SD cards.
Despite the fact that I never had an SD card failure on any of my many cameras, I like the additional security a second card slot offers, so I decided to purchase a CFexpress Type B card as well.
That purchasing process proved to be quite a journey…
Given the fact that CFexpress Type B cards are extremely expensive per GB, I decided to do some extensive web research. After checking out all kind of reviews on Photoblogs, YouTube and Amazon, I went for the safest option: A Sandisk 128 GB card, which set me back around CHF 130. I would have preferred a card with a higher capacity, but the pricing of 256 GB cards from well-known brands like Sandisk is just prohibitive.
I also needed a reader. That also provided to be quite complex as well. Prices differ tremendously, and it was hard for me to see which advantages which readers offered. In the end, I settled for a Sabrent reader. I never heard about the brand before, but it got good reviews and the price seemed reasonable.
So, what is like to work with the card?
The first occasion I used the CFexpress B card for was the yearly festival in our local church. The first thing that alarmed me, was that the camera already displayed the warning ‘hot card’ after only 5 minutes. And I was only shooting 1080 / 60p, not even in 4k. I had never seen these type of warnings when using my S5, so I was quite concerned.
When I got home I wanted to load the pictures in Lightroom and the video footage in iMovie.
That turned out to be not so simple. Both Lightroom and iMovie indicated they recognized the files, at least I could see the previews, but when I wanted to process the pictures, I got the message that the original files were missing…
After my initial panic, I solved this by copying the content of my CFexpress B card directly on my hard disk, and imported the media in Lightroom and iMovie from there. Finally, I got everything to work, but it did exactly instill confidence in this new storage medium…
Having said that, I have used the camera and CFexpress B card quite intensively in the last couple of weeks, and never encountered this problem again.
So, after using this camera-card combination for a couple of weeks, what are my thoughts?
Back-up functionality limitations
What I had not realized is that the security / back-up functionality offered by the dual card system of the Z6ii can only be used for pictures, not for video.
I do not have this limitation on any other camera, not on my Olympus OMD EM1 mark 2, my Lumix S5 or my Fujifilm X-T2. I can understand why it would have to back-up on my SD on a slower write speed, but no back-up at all? Also not if I used my SC card as the primary card and the CF Express B card as. aback-up only? I do not get it. The fact that it is not possible to back-up video in the camera is apparently not widely spread. I could not find this in my Nikon user manual (which only described how to use the dual card slot functionality for pictures, and did not mention the word video in this context at all). I had to discover it, after buying the camera, on a forum in DPReview. Apparently, more people were unaware of this limitation as well. Nikon buyer beware…
Recording limitations
I do not understand why a camera in this price range has a 30 minutes recording limit for every video format, due to potential overheating. This limitation is a real issue if you want to record interviews or concerts. The Lumix S5 has no recording limits for more than half of the video formats it supports.
Overheating
I decided to do a series of tests with overheating and discovered something weird. For all tests, I put my Z6ii on a tripod in my room (room temperature) and let it continuously record.
If I tried to record 30 minutes 4k/60p with only an SD card in the camera, the camera recorded the full 30 minutes
If I tried to record 30’ 4k/60p with a CFexpress B card, the camera first came up with a hot card warning, then a warning that the camera would be shut off with a countdown timer of 30 seconds. I could not record more than 28 minutes and 55 seconds.
What was really weird was that If I tried to record 30 minutes 4k/60p only on my SD card, with the CFexpress Card B card just inserted in the camera, the camera also gave a hot card and later a hot camera warning, and I was unable to record the full 30 minutes.
Read-out speed
For me the read-out speed of my cards is not very important. I am happy to wait a couple of minutes.
Personally, I do not notice a lot of difference if I read out my pictures from a CFexpress Type B card in Lightroom, however, I do notice my videos load a lot faster in iMovie.
Quality differences between video recording on a CF express B versus an SD card?
Interestingly enough, and I cannot prove it, I have the idea that the video footage I recorded on the CFexpress B card is smoother, especially the panning shots. However, I need to do some more comparisons to see if this makes a difference…
So, what are my take-aways?
First of all, I am not sure how mature CFexpress B card technology is for the use in prosumer cameras.
All the warnings about hot cards, and card readers that become really hot, do not instill much confidence. Also, what I have not mentioned before – the card reader becomes ridiculously hot as well. It stays hot even if all the data has already been transferred, and the reader and card have simply stayed connected to the computer.
Secondly, for professional use, unpredictable and short recording times do not make much sense.
Finally, the reason that the Panasonic S5 Mark II X, which arguably is a much better specced hybrid camera as far as video capabilities are concerned than the Z6 ii, comes equipped with two SD cardslots, instead of the GH6, an older Panasic camera which did have CFexpress B card and one SD card slot, also make me doubt the necessity of CF Express B card.
Perhaps CF Express B cards do make sense for professionals who do need a maximum performance for 4k, 6k or 8k footage, but then again, you would expect most of them would record externally.
So, if you are a Z6ii user like me, by all means buy the CFexpress B card as a back-up for your pictures. I am very happy with my Sabrent card reader, and am not sure other cards would perform better as far as overheating is concerned, so the Sandisk 128GB might also be sensible choice for you.
However, as I said, I am the first to admit that I am definitely not an expert in this area, so I am very curious what your perspectives are. Do you have the same experiences, do my statements make sense? Let me know, I would love to learn from you guys!
I hope you found this video helpful. Please feel feel to like this post and leave your comments.
Dutch Aperture 
Interesting observations, thanks for posting your experiences. Having just upgraded from a Z5 to the Z6ii I am looking at getting a CF Express Type B to sit beside the SD card mostly for backup. The Z5 had the more practical dual SD slot setup and I found it reassuring knowing my photos were backed up. So I kind of want to get back to that place. Like you I have never had a card actually fail, but have broken a card so it became risky to insert and use in case it jammed despite being functional. Also, as I usually remove the card to read the data into lightroom the amount of times I forgot to replace it back in the camera I couldn’t count and went then to use it .. duh!…at least the back up card was present. I have already done the same once with the Z6ii and ..no card. Fortunately I was close to home. So I will likely use the CF card as a backup that isn’t removed. I don’t film much video and when I do I tend to keep it short. Wasn’t aware it didn’t backup between cards. Even if it can’t write the data in real time to the SD you would think it would have some options to copy the data between cards after having recorded . Anyway, thanks again.
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