Nikon COOLPIX B600 Memory Card Recommendations

A memory card is an essential accessory to make the camera work, but the Nikon COOLPIX B600 doesn’t come with a memory card as standard. ¹ Some retailers put together a deal bundle that might include some accessories, including a memory card, but chances are you’ll have to pick up a memory card separately. Or maybe you want something bigger with 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.

But what type of memory card does the Nikon B600 take? 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.

Quick Recommendations on SD Cards for the Nikon COOLPIX B600

If you just want some quick recommendations, here you go. Any of these will work well in the B600. These SD cards meet the needs of the B600’s feature, have a strong track record of reliability, are readily available, and are usually cost-effective.

Nikon COOLPIX B600 SD Card Requirements

The headline feature of the Nikon COOLPIX B600 is its very large optical zoom–up to 60x (extended further with digital zoom). It’s not the longest zoom in Nikon’s COOLPIX range–that’s currently the P1000. But a 60x optical zoom puts it in super-telephoto territory that not many other cameras can match.

The B600 has a 16-megapixel sensor that produces images that measure 4608 x 3456 pixels. It can shoot photos at up to 7 frames per second, and it shoots up to 1080p video.

It has a single memory card slot and is compatible with SDXC, SDHC, and SD cards.

The good news is that none of these features require you to splurge on the fastest SD card that money can buy. There are plenty of good options available that are cost-effective and reliable.

Because of the way that cameras interface with memory cards, once you have a card that meets the requirements of the camera, you don’t get any extra benefit by inserting a card with high specs and performance that exceeds the camera’s capabilities. ² And, naturally, high-performance cards are more expensive. So why pay extra for high performance that your B600 can’t use? By all means, if you already have a fast SD card on hand, you can use it in the B600, but it won’t get you any extra performance in the camera (it might when downloading the photos and videos to a computer).

That said, in the recommendations below, I’m factoring in cost-effectiveness as well. And because memory card manufacturers are coming out with newer, faster models all the time, it’s quite possible that the most cost-effective cards are faster than your camera needs. But that’s a case where it makes sense to go with the cost-effective option even if its performance exceeds the requirements of the camera.

A Deeper Dive

So which SD card should you get for your Nikon B600? Here’s the more detailed version.

Practical Recommendations

You’ll find that the B600’s product manual isn’t particularly helpful in offering guidance on which memory card to buy. Buried in the Technical Notes, on page 181, you’ll come across this:

Nikon does have a webpage of approved memory cards for COOLPIX cameras, but it’s not much more helpful. For starters, it refers only to brands and storage capacities and not to speeds or card model numbers.

So what I’m aiming to do here is provide some practical recommendations on which SD cards to get for the Nikon COOLPIX B600 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 B600–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 B600’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.

So here’s more detailed information on these cards, along with some others.

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 to look for.

SDHC vs SDXC

Most of the cards you’ll see available have either SDHC or SDXC printed on them. The COOLPIX B600 will work with both SDHC and SDXC cards (and, for that matter, just plain SD cards, but they’re hard to find these days).

These are 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.

There’s really no right answer when it comes to what size 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 that’s handy when you’re travelling. 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–the SD Association has designed the SDXC spec so that they’ll work with a camera that supports 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.

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 COOLPIX B600 doesn’t have a UHS-I 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).

SD Card 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.

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 B600, cards that have any of these on them should be fast enough:

• U1
• U3
• V30

V60 and V90 will also work just fine, but they’re overkill for the B600.

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 Nikon COOLPIX B600

The B600 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.

The current sweet spot for a combination of convenience, being readily available, and being cost-effective is probably around the 128GB to 512GB range. But you can use larger or smaller ones if you prefer–it’s mostly a matter of convenience of how much video footage or photo data you can store on the card before it fills up, and you have to download to a computer or some other device.

So Why Get a Good Memory Card?

A better memory card isn’t 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 been using, be sure that you’ve downloaded the photos and videos first–formatting deletes everything on the card.

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

How to Format Memory Cards in the Nikon COOLPIX B600

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.

On the Nikon COOLPIX B600, you can find the format function under:

MENU > Setup (the wrench or spanner icon) >~ Format Card

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.

Things Worth Knowing About the Nikon COOLPIX B600

Is the Nikon COOLPIX B600 a DSLR?

While it does look a bit like a DSLR, the B600 isn’t one. Nikon categorizes it as a point-and-shoot.

Most importantly, it has a fixed lens. DSLRs have interchangeable lenses. The closest DSLR models to the B500 would be something like the Nikon D3500 or Nikon D5600. Neither of those comes with a kit lens that has zoom anywhere close to the 60x optical zoom of the B600, but with the DSLRs you can attach a wide range of compatible F-mount lenses for flexibility.

Can You Add Lenses to the Nikon COOLPIX B600

The B500 has a fixed lens that doesn’t remove. So you can’t put different lenses on it in the way that you can with a DSLR.

How to Update the Nikon COOLPIX B600 Firmware

You can find the latest firmware for the B600 here. That page includes a step-by-step guide to updating the firmware.

What is the Highest Video Resolution the Nikon COOLPIX B600 can Shoot?

The maximum video resolution available on the B600 is 1080p (dimensions 1920×1080) at framerates of up to 30p or 60i.

What is the Physical Size of the Sensor of the Nikon COOLPIX B500?

The B600’s sensor measures 1/2.3 inches. Which is approximately 6.16 x 4.62 mm. This is much smaller than the sensor in a basic APS-C cropped-sensor DSLR like the D3500 (23.5 x 15.6 mm) or a full-frame sensor DSLR like the D850 (35.9 x 23.9 mm).

1. The Nikon COOLPIX B600 does have an internal memory, so technically the camera will work without a memory card. But it’s small–about 83MB–and therefore isn’t really a viable replacement for using a memory card with a much larger storage. The internal memory is best used as a safety net but not relied on as the main storage media.[↩]
2. Depending on your computer and memory card reader setup, you might get some speed benefit when putting a faster memory card into your card reader and downloading images to your computer.[↩]

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