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Essentials

The Perfect Memory Card for a New Sony Camera

Chris Gampat
No Comments
03/28/2022
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer ProGrade Digital CFExpress A Card product images 4.51-125s400

I’ll be honest, it’s hard to get excited about memory cards sometimes. But the ProGrade Digital CFExpress Type A card is one you seriously can be excited about if you’re a passionate photographer. And even if you’re not receiving gainful financial compensation from photography, this could be the card for you. We’ve tested a bunch of the new Sony cameras that take the new format. And each and every time, we noticed the same thing.

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The Essentials of the ProGrade Digital CFExpress Type A

  • $328.49
  • Smaller than an SD card
  • Fits into the same slot as an SD card
  • Writes at 700 megabytes a second
  • Reads at 800 megabytes a second
  • You’re going to be impressed at how fast your computer will read it with the right card reader.
  • Incredibly durable
  • 160 GB capacity is perfect for the sports shooter, the wildlife photographer, or the portrait photographer who sprays and prays.

Sony’s History of Changing Things

Sony has a long history of randomly changing things. If you’ve been shooting for a long time, then you probably remember the memory stick duo. There were other card formats too. XQD and CFExpress Type B can be found in a few options from other camera manufacturers. But Sony is the only one to use CFExpress Type A right now. Make no mistake, the SDCard is sticking around to be the standard for most photographers. But don’t be surprised if more cameras start using cards like the ProGrade Digital CFExpress Type-A. 

The CFExpress Type A Advantage

Look through all the specs of comparably priced SDXC cards. It’s probably not going to be fast in either writing or reading. At least, we couldn’t find one in our research when writing this article. To be clear, we’d recommend you not use dual CFExpress cards: stick to one. In one card slot, you should have an SD card of some sort. I say this because experience has taught me not to get two of the same card type. Typically, you’ll have more variety of what you can connect to when exporting photos from the card. I’m not a huge fan of connecting my camera directly to my iMac to extract the images, as a lot can go wrong. And, quite honestly, I can be a bit paranoid. 

If anything, shoot your RAWs to the ProGrade Digital CFExpress Type A and JPEGs to an SD card of some sort. I to do this because I shoot in a way that doesn’t require me to edit all the time. 

Would I be fine using only SD cards? Theoretically, yes! But if I’m photographing wildlife for a review, I can potentially give myself fewer issues with things like buffering. Typically I’d shoot in the AF-C mode with animal or bird autofocus detection activated. In a situation like that, I’d shoot in burst mode. When shooting portraits, I tend to be more conservative and shoot one photo at a time. If you’re a slower shooter, I don’t think the ProGrade Digital CFExpress Type A will make a lot of sense for you. But if you shoot a lot of frames very fast, and very often, then this is one of the best cards you can get.

Essentials is a series featuring products we’re currently lusting over in quick, easy-to-digest posts.

card digital prograde prograde digital CFexpress Type A sony sony camera type a
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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