CFexpress Type A vs Type B (2026): Which Memory Card Does Your Camera Actually Take?

The short answer: if it is a Sony Alpha or FX body, you need Type A. If it is anything else, you need Type B. They are physically different sizes and will not fit each other’s slots, so buying the wrong one means a return, not a workaround.

Type A vs Type B at a glance

Note that Type B is the faster format despite Type A being newer in most people’s minds. Type A trades speed for physical size, which is how Sony fits a CFexpress slot and an SD slot into the same opening.

Which card does your camera take?

The Sony trap: you may not need CFexpress at all

This is the part worth reading before you spend anything. On Sony bodies the Type A slot is a combo slot — it accepts a CFexpress Type A card or an SD UHS-II card, in the same opening.

CFexpress Type A costs substantially more per gigabyte than UHS-II SD. It is genuinely necessary if you shoot long uncompressed-raw bursts or high-bitrate video, because it clears the buffer faster. For stills photography at normal burst lengths, a good V90 UHS-II card keeps up with far more than most people expect. A lot of a7 IV owners buy Type A because the slot exists, not because their shooting needs it.

Work out which you are before you buy: browse Type A cards or browse V90 SD cards.

The XQD question

CFexpress Type B is the same physical size as XQD, which was deliberate. Several older bodies with XQD slots — the Nikon D850, D500, D5 and D6 among them — can read CFexpress Type B cards after a firmware update from the manufacturer.

Apply the firmware update first. The card fits the slot either way, so a body on old firmware will accept the card physically and then fail to recognise it, which reads like a dead card when it is not.

What to actually buy

• CFexpress Type B, 256GB or 512GB — the working size for wildlife bursts and 4K. Two mid-size cards beat one large one, because a card failure then costs you half a trip rather than all of it.
• CFexpress Type A — Sony bodies only, and only if your buffer actually demands it.
• SD UHS-II V90 — the value option in any Sony combo slot, and the second slot on most Canon and Nikon bodies.
• A CFexpress card reader — the card is only as fast as what you offload it with, and most bundled readers throttle it badly.
• A rugged card case — cheap, and the only thing standing between a full shoot and a pocket.

Compatibility verified against manufacturer specifications and the CFexpress standard as of August 2026. Camera bodies added after that date are not listed. If your camera is not here, check the slot label in the manual — the two formats are visibly different sizes.

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