Fujifilm X-E4 Memory Card Recommendations

Fujifilm X-E4 Memory Card Quick Recommendations

If you just want some quick recommendations, here you go. Any of these will work well in the Fujifilm X-E4. These SD cards meet the needs of the X-E4’s features, have a strong track record of reliability, are readily available, and are usually cost-effective.

Any of these makes for a good choice for the X-E4. If you’re after more detail or more options, you can more information below.

Fujifilm X-E4 Memory Cards

A memory card is an essential accessory for the Fujifilm X-E4. Without it, you’re not going to be able to take many photos or shoot much video. But the X-E4 doesn’t come with one by default. There are some bundles that retailers put together that might include a memory card, but chances are it’s something you’re going to have to pick up separately. Or maybe you want something bigger with a larger storage capacity—the cards that are included in bundles are often on the small side and might fill up quickly, especially if you’re on a trip. So which card should you get?

That’s where this post comes in—hopefully, to help you get out shooting sooner and taking full advantage of all the features of your new camera rather than spending your time searching the web and trying to make sense of cryptic technical codes. I’ve been buying and testing numerous SD cards for several years and have put many of the most popular SD cards on the market through their paces. You can find my main SD card tests here.

Fujifilm X-E4 SD Card Requirements

The Fujifilm X-E4 is a small interchangeable mirrorless lens camera with a 26-megapixel APS-C sensor. It has a single UHS-I SD card slot. It’s compatible with SDXC, SDHC, and SD cards.

The XE-4 has a continuous photo mode of up to 30 frames per second (that’s with the electronic shutter–it’s up to 8 frames per second with the mechanical shutter) and can handle large sequences of lossless compressed RAW files. It also shoots 4K video with a maximum video bitrate of 200Mbps. And it’s these two features in particular–the rapid burst mode photos and the high-bitrate video recording–that make the X-E4 quite demanding of the memory card.

So which SD card should you get for your Fujifilm X-E4?

The X-E4’s instruction manual is pretty unhelpful on the topic of which SD card to get. If you go looking, this is what you’ll find on page 32:

And, to their credit, Fujifilm has put together a compatibility chart for their cameras, including the X-E4. But unfortunately, it’s not that helpful either.

So what I’m aiming to do here is provide some practical recommendations on which SD cards to get for the Fujifilm X-E4 so you can spend less time searching online and more time out shooting. I’m not trying to list every SD card that works in the X-E4–there are others that will work just fine as well. I’m focusing here on ones that offer a good combination of meeting the requirements of all of the X-E4’s features, are readily available at major retailers, are cost-effective, and come from major manufacturers with track records for good-quality cards. I’m also basing this on my own SD speed tests.

Making Sense of SD Card Specifications

You’ll find a range of different acronyms and codes on SD cards. Here’s a quick overview of which ones to look for.

SDHC vs. SDXC

Most of the cards you’ll see available now have either SDHC or SDXC printed on them. The Fujifilm X-E4 will work with both SDHC and SDXC cards (and, for that matter, just plain SD cards, but they’re hard to find these days and have impractically small storage capacities).

These aren’t performance categories, as such. An SDXC card isn’t necessarily any faster than an SDHC card, and vice versa. But they’re important for compatibility with the camera and also in terms of storage capacity.

They’re categories assigned by the SD Association, which is the organization that oversees and develops the standards for SD and microSD cards. The difference between those two specifications is in the filesystem they’re formatted with–the SDHC specification uses FAT32 formatting, while the SDXC specification uses exFAT–but when it comes to buying memory cards, the practical difference is that cards 32GB and smaller will be labeled SDHC and cards 64GB and larger will be labeled SDXC.

UHS-I vs. UHS-II

The current generations of SD cards also have UHS-I or UHS-II on them (or often just an I or II). This refers to the type of interface that’s used to connect to the cards. It stands for ultra-high-speed bus.

Aside from whatever is printed on the card or packaging, you can tell UHS-I and UHS-II cards apart just by looking at them. UHS-I cards have a single row of contacts on the back. UHS-II cards have a second row of contacts.

UHS-I is the older, simpler bus interface. UHS-II is newer and potentially faster. The catch is that you only get the extra benefit of UHS-II if the device is also UHS-II. But the spec is designed to be backward compatible, so you can use UHS-II cards in UHS-I devices, but you will only get the speed of UHS-I.

The Fujifilm X-E4 doesn’t have a UHS-II interface, so, as a practical matter, there’s no benefit to using UHS-II cards in it (but it’s perfectly fine to do so if you already have a UHS-II card on hand).

Video Speed Classes

The SD Association has come out with various rating systems over the years to help buyers choose a card that’s suitable for use in cameras. Because recording high-resolution video (or, more specifically, high-bitrate video) is often the most demanding operation in terms of a camera and its memory card, it’s known as a video speed class rating system.

As a technical matter, the first system was known Speed Classes (these were Class 2, 4, 6, and 10). The second system was known as UHS Speed Classes (U1 and U3). The third system is known as Video Speed Classes (V6, V10, V30, V60, and V90).

Most cards available now have a mix of old and new speed class codes printed on them. And while it’s helpful, it’s still an imperfect system for judging the speed of an SD card.

As a practical matter in the Fujifilm X-E4, cards that have any of these on them should be fast enough:

• V30
• V60
• U3
  

V90 is also fine, but it’s overkill for the X-E4.

There’s a separate rating system that you might also see on some cards. They might have an A1 or A2 on them. You can ignore that when choosing an SD card for a camera. It’s designed for the kinds of operations that gaming devices and smartphones do.

What Size SD Card to Use in the Fujifilm X-E4

The X-E4 is compatible with SDHC and SDXC cards. That means you can use cards from 4GB all the way to the largest cards currently available, which are 512GB and 1TB cards.

There’s really no right answer when it comes to what size, or storage capacity, to get–it’s mostly a matter of convenience so that you don’t keep running out of space. As is probably obvious, you can fit twice as many photos on a 64GB card as on a 32GB card. And with a 128GB card, you can fit four times as many photos as on a 32GB. And so on. And that’s especially handy when you’re traveling, even more so if you’re shooting any video. The most logical sizes for this camera in terms of convenience and price are probably the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB sizes. But if you want to use a larger or smaller one, say 64GB or even 1TB, go right ahead–they’ll work just fine because of the way that the SDXC spec is designed.

Fujifilm has put together some estimates on how many photos and how long video recordings you can fit on 16GB and 32GB cards. The numbers vary based on the shooting settings you’re using, but they estimate that on a 32GB SD card you can fit:

• approx. 550 uncompressed RAW files
• approx. 1400 compressed (lossy) RAW files
• 40 minutes of 4K video (at default bitrate)

You can find their tables here.

So Why Get a Good Memory Card?

A better memory card is not going to help you take better photos or improve image quality. But it can let you take advantage of all of the camera’s features. A card that’s not fast enough to keep up with the camera can cause issues like locking up, dropped frames, and overheating.

There’s also the issue of reliability. There are plenty of junk memory cards on the market. Not only do they have flaky performance, but they’re also more likely to fail. And that means the risk of losing your photos and videos.

At the same time, you don’t want to pay extra for a high-performance SD card that’s overkill for the camera.

How to Format SD Cards

When you buy a new SD card, you should format it before use and then regularly after that. If you’re formatting a card that you’ve already been using, make sure that you’ve downloaded any photos and videos you want to keep, because formatting deletes everything on the card.

Here’s some information on how to format the memory card.

How to Format SD Cards in the Fujifilm X-E4

It is best practice to always format memory cards in the camera that you’ll be using them in. That sets the card up with the filesystem, folder hierarchy, and, in some cameras, a database file, so that the card is just how the camera expects. That greatly reduces the risk of unexpected errors and unpleasant surprises.

Always be sure you’ve backed up everything you want from the card, because formatting it will wipe everything. (If you’ve formatted accidentally, it still might be possible to recover data from the memory card, but it’s not always guaranteed, and it can incur the expense of buying recovery software; more on that below.)

On the Fujifilm X-E4, you can find the format function under:

Setup (wrench icon) > User Setting (wrench icon) > Format

How to Format SD Cards with a Computer

Having said that, it is still possible to format memory cards using a card reader and computer. You get a lot more flexibility that way, but also some extra risk if things aren’t set up just how the camera wants them. It’s also sometimes a good troubleshooting step if you’re having issues with a memory card.

There are some things to watch out for, particularly when it comes to choosing which filesystem to use. So I’ve put together guides on how to format SD cards on Mac and how to use the free SD Card Formatter app for Windows or Mac.

macOS Compatibility Bug

There is currently a bug in some Fujifilm X and GFX series cameras–including the X-E4–that shows up in a pretty specific set of circumstances: if you’re saving more than 4,000 files in the camera to a single folder on an SDXC card and then directly accessing the card using macOS. In that case, the extra files (i.e., after the first 4,000) might be inaccessible. You can find more information here.

As a workaround, Fujifilm is working on a firmware patch that will limit the number of files that can be written to an individual folder.

You can find the latest X-E4 firmware here.

Backing Up Images & Videos

While memory cards are remarkably resilient, just like any electronic product, they can and do fail. So regular backups are highly recommended. Ideally, that should include a mix of local backups and off-site or cloud backups.

Notes:

1. Depending on your computer and memory card reader setup, you might get some speed benefits when putting a faster memory card into your card reader and downloading images to your computer.

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