How to Choose the Right Memory Card for the Sony HX99

The Sony HX99 compact camera might not seem like the type of camera that would need a fast memory card.

But Sony has put in some surprisingly high-end features, and if you want to be able to use all of the camera’s features, you’ll need to make sure you get a card that’s fast enough to keep up.

The primary feature that places demands on the SD card’s speed is when shooting video using the camera’s high-end video modes. These throw a lot of data very quickly at the memory card to write and store. If the card is too slow, you can end up with the recording stopping or other errors.

If you don’t plan to use the high-end video modes, you can get away with a slower card in the HX99 — the other features will still work fine. But if you’ve just picked up a new camera, it seems to me sensible to get a card that isn’t going to hobble its features right off the bat and get a card that allows you to use all of the camera’s features.

So here are my recommendations on which SD cards to get for the HX99.

Top picks

You can find more detailed information below, but here are some quick recommendations on good memory cards for the Sony HX99 camera. These are all microSD cards that are fast enough to work with all of the camera’s features.

You can see some of the photos I’ve taken with my HX99 here (general), here (high ISO), and here (macro). And I also have a hands-on review.

Which SD card to choose for the Sony HX99 & why

For a camera that seems to emphasize stills photography, the HX99 has some surprisingly high-end video modes. In particular, it can shoot 4K30 video and record it with a bitrate of up to 100 Mb/s (you can also choose lower bitrate). For a camera of this type, that’s a remarkably high bitrate — significantly higher than the maximum bitrates of even the top models of the more video-centric GoPro cameras.

What it boils down to is that if you’re willing to forego using some of the top-end features of the HX99, you can get away with a slower card. But it doesn’t make much sense to me to let something like a memory card limit what the camera can do, especially when it’s so easy and relatively inexpensive to get an SD card that is compatible with all of the camera’s features.

Here’s the official advice Sony provides:

This is by no means a comprehensive list of every microSD card that will work well in the HX99. What I’m aiming for is to put together some practical recommendations for cards that work well in the HX99 and are a good combination of performance, value, and availability.

Recommended microSD cards for the Sony HX99: Details

Here are some more detailed recommendations for specific cards.

What size?

The most common sizes available for microSD cards these days are between 32GB and 256GB. The Sony HX99 can work with any of those, and it is compatible with both microSHDC and microSDXC cards (and, for that matter, basic microSD, but using one of those smaller, older cards doesn’t make much sense anymore).

The current sweet spot in terms of storage capacity, convenience, price, and availability is probably in the 128GB or 64GB cards. Of those, I’d be more inclined toward the 128GB size, mainly for the convenience of the extra filming and shooting you can fit on it.

To give you an idea of how much you can fit on a card of a certain size, here are some estimates. These numbers are based on Sony’s own, and they’re by no means absolute. There are variables that come into play that might cause you to get more or less than these, including the results of how JPG compression works (scenes of fewer tones and details compress more than scenes with many tones and a lot of detail), and if you’re shooting in one of the JPG modes and set the aspect ratio to something other than the full 4:3, it’s cropping the image and will result in smaller files so that you can fit more images on the card.

JPG Quality / File Format	16GB	32GB	64GB	128GB	256GB
Standard	3300	6600	13000	26000	52000
Fine	2300	4600	9200	18000	36000
Extra fine	1150	2300	4600	9200	18400
RAW (.arw) & JPG	575	1150	2350	4700	9400
RAW (.arw)	775	1550	3150	6300	12600

And here are some estimates of how much video recording time you can fit on SD cards using the various settings available. These numbers are taken directly from the ones Sony provides, and again there are variables such as compression efficiency that will affect how closely your real-world mileage matches these estimates.¹

Video Settings	32 GB	64 GB	128 GB
XAVC S 4K 30p 100M/25p 100M	35 min	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min
XAVC S 4K 30p 60M/25p 60M	1 h	2 h 5 min	4 h 15 min
XAVC S 4K 24p 100M/–	35 min	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min
XAVC S 4K 24p 60M/–	1 h	2 h 5 min	4 h 15 min
XAVC S HD 120p 100M/100p 100M	35 min	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min
XAVC S HD 120p 60M/100p 60M	1 h	2 h 5 min	4 h 15 min
XAVC S HD 60p 50M/50p 50M	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min	5 h 10 min
XAVC S HD 60p 25M/50p 25M	2 h 25 min	5 h	10 h 05 min
XAVC S HD 30p 50M/25p 50M	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min	5 h 10 min
XAVC S HD 30p 16M/25p 16M	3 h 50 min	7 h 45 min	15 h 40 min
XAVC S HD 24p 50M/–	1 h 15 min	2 h 35 min	5 h 10 min
AVCHD 60i 24M(FX)/50i 24M(FX)	2 h 55 min	6 h	12 h 05 min
AVCHD 60i 17M(FH)/50i 17M(FH)	4 h 5 min	8 h 15 min	16 h 35 min

Things to watch for

One odd thing about the HX99 is that it’s possible to insert the memory card back to front. It seems to click in normally. But when you go to turn the camera on, you’ll get an error message: “Unable to read memory card. Reinsert memory card.” So if you get that error, the first thing to try is flipping the card over.

I’ve had at least one instance of taking a memory card from the HX99, inserting it into a computer’s memory card reader, and getting an error that the card isn’t readable. I solved it by putting the memory card back into the camera, confirming that I can play back the images on that, taking one more photo, powering the camera off, and then trying again. It worked for me. I suspect it might have something to do with the camera powering off before the separate image database that the camera writes had completed doing its thing, but I haven’t confirmed that.

How to format SD cards in the Sony HX99

It’s not complicated to format memory cards in the HX99, but the option is a little buried in the settings menus.

You want to move across to the tab with the toolbox icon. Then you need to scroll through to page 5 of 6. The Format function is on that page.

Once you start that, you get the obligatory warning that you’re about to wipe everything from the card.

When you confirm, it will do its thing and show you a progress bar. It does what’s sometimes known as a quick format, which basically deletes the references to the directories and files but doesn’t drill down to initialize the files at a granular level, so the process should only take a few seconds, even for large-capacity microSD cards.

How to format microSD cards with a computer

It’s always best practice to format memory cards in the camera you’re planning to use them in, but if that’s not practical or not what you want to do, it is possible to format them with a computer. But 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.

Notes & References:

1. These are not continuous recording times. There are some hardwired limits to how much continuous recording you can do. In most modes, the maximum is about 29 minutes in normal conditions. But if you’re shooting XAVC S 4K/XAVC S HD 120p/100p formats, the limit is about 5 minutes. [↩︎]