Manfrotto Professional CFexpress Type B

£190-£380/$250-$400

Manfrotto only makes its Professional CFexpress Type B card in two capacities: 128GB and 256GB. They both have quoted max read and write speeds of 1730MB/s and 1540MB/s, and use a PCIe 3.0 interface. Those rates put the cards within the recommended requirement of at least 250MB/s for recording and playing back 3840 x 2160 60p or 3840 x 2160 50p movies with our Nikon Z 7II.

With the Manfrotto CFexpress card in the Nikon Z 7II with the ISO set to 100, we were able to capture 42 14-bit uncompressed raw files or 126 Fine-quality jpegs at 10fps. That’s more or less in line with Nikon’s stated max figures, missing out by a few raw files, but exceeding the claimed jpeg numbers. 4K recording at 60p for 30 minutes also proved unproblematic.

We measured a read speed of 906MB/s and a write speed of 917MB/s. Again, these numbers are down on the claimed figures, but still perfectly satisfactory for recording 4K video at 60p and more.

This translates to waiting less than 29 seconds to transfer 200 files from the Nikon Z 7II. While the measured speeds don’t match those claimed, the Manfrotto CFexpress cards let you capture long sequences of images, and you’re not kept waiting around when it comes to transferring 45.7MP images.

The fact that Manfrotto isn’t a brand you associate with memory cards, and the close physical similarity of the cards to those from Delkin Devices, suggests that Manfrotto isn’t the manufacturer. However, the price and performance make these cards worthy of attention.

Digital Camera verdict

It would be good to see a wider range of capacities, but Manfrotto’s two CFexpress cards are keenly priced. Although the 14-bit raw files burst depth can come up a bit short, the cards enable a 45.7MP Nikon Z 7II to deliver the performance we expect for jpeg shooting and

4K 60p video recording.

PROS Well-priced; good read/write speeds; robust construction. CONS Limited capacity range; not Manfrotto’s expert area.