If you've set aside a cool $5,999.95 for a Nikon D4 DSLR, we suppose you will want to set aside at least a few hundred more to pick up some of the just-announced XQD memory cards from Sony. The cards will come in two sizes to start, 16GB and 32GB, costing $129 and $229.99 respectively. Sony will also happily sell you a USB card reader or ExpressCard adapter for $44.99. Basically, you're going to be paying a lot for the improved write speeds, durability, and size that XQD brings.

Along with the D4 and in line with the original announcement for the XQD spec, the new cards should be shipping in February. Sony claims that its cards are able to handle storing up to 100 frames of RAW images from continuous shooting mode and deliver 125MB/s read and write speeds when hooked up to a PCIe port — exactly the speed that the CompactFlash Association was targeting.