Help!- D200 4 Gb Storage Card Capacity too low?

[bob_s__n.e._mass_]

Folks- In reading through Thom Hogan's new e-book on the D200

(really excellent). I have a 4 Gb CF Sandisk Ultra II card. On

Page 197 of his e-book he states (and simple math confirms) that I

should be able to get about 874 Jpeg Large images at Fine (4:1)

compression. Obviously the Jpeg compression set to Size Priority or

Optimal Quality will also impact that.

 

I checked my camera and, with the 4 Gb card formatted with no images

on it, my camera only indicates an "images remaining" capacity of

about 673 in the Size Priority and about 450 in Optimal Quality. Is

there something wrong with my camera or memory card? (If I connect

the camera to my computer it's showing 4 Gb of storage, so I don't

think it's the card.)

 

Help- and thanks! Bob

[Jerry_]

.jpeg files are compressed. The 'exact' number that fit a card may vary, that is something you need not worry over. It can't hurt to have two or three memory cards for your camera (when you are out shooting and the light gets right ___ you have 658 shots on your 'one' card, what is your plan?)

 

 

 

Second 'fun' thing, do you really want to shoot 673 images and then go play with 'em on your computer?

[stephencooper]

What I've noticed is that the count displayed on the camera is only approximate.

 

As the camera approaches capacity, it stops ticking down one picture for every picture you take. I have only a 1 GB card, and although it says I can fit 112 photos on it, I got over 160 photos on it once. (quality priority). Things like large swaths of near uniform color, e.g. sky, get compressed more and the picture takes up less space.

 

/Stephen

[thomas_sullivan]

if nikon is anything like my canon....I shoot RAW, my 2Gb card should, by math, get around 230 images (there is some space allocated to whatever software is already on these things). My cam will say, after a format in the cam, anything from 184 to 221 images. It's a guess. tyrpically when I actually fill up a card I get around 218,,,,but have gotten as high as 240. It depends, at least in RAW, how much information is actually in the image. My 8MEG cam's pics in RAW are anywhere from 6MEG to as high as 11MEG depending on the detail in the shot. Not sure if Jpeg does the same thing, but it is just compressing the RAW data, so I suspect it compresses per centage wise, not TO a certain file size.....a guess, but accurate I believe.

 

See what it does "on the average"....that's the only reall way to figure it all out.

[don_cooper]

You'll get about 60-70% more images than indicated.

[benoit_deshaies]

With film, I used to get 26 or 40 shots with cassettes of 24 or 36 frames.

[bernard_frank]

My D200 saves around 440 files at Large Fine jpeg at "Optimal quality" on a 4 gig Sandisk

Extreme III, and around 670 at "Size priority." So, you're in the same ballpark. And, just in

case, around 250 Raw uncompressed.

[vanessa_bartels___orange_c]

This is related to a question I have had while shooting bigger events. I have the number in my head that the display read at the start of the shoot, but then it seems to change as you go as someone else pointed out.

 

I guess my real question is: If I would get to the end of my memory will it disable the shutter or prevent me from shooting further some other way? My fear is that it will start to record over the first images I took or compress the first images.

 

I always have changed cards before I get to the very end but sometimes as I am shooting I kind of lose my head.

 

I read my camera manual and I know that the shutter is disabled if there is no card inserted but I could not find the answer to my specific question.

[bob_s__n.e._mass_]

Many thanks for all the trouble many of you have taken to respond. I have several questions/comments:

 

Vanessa- I'd like to know that as well- why not take a formatted but otherwise blank card and do a test with 5 fps raw+jpeg large set to fill the card as quickly as possible and see what happens? I'll try to get to that in a day or so but can't get to it tonight or tomorrow.

 

Bernard- is that the indicated capacity of a newly formatted card or the actual files per card? If the latter that would appear to conflict with the posts of Stephen, Thomas, and Don.

 

Gerald- of course I'll be buying more cards, but I wanted to know if I had an issue with the camera, which is only 1 week old and still in diapers and keeping me awake through the night. ;^)

 

Thank you all again- this is the best photog-nut forum I've found so far on the web and you're all a tribute to it! Cheers- Bob

[bernard_frank]

Bob, these figures are the actual numbers shown on the top LCD for an emtpy 4 gig card

at the start. I have yet to fill my 4 gb card, but I think these numbers are pretty accurate.

The D200 manual (p. 196) states that a 1 gb card takes 167 Large Fine fixed size

compression jpeg files. So, 4 gb gives roughly 668 files. Which is our ballpark.

And the manual states that "Optimal quality" will yield a bit less, of course.

[bob_s__n.e._mass_]

Bernard- thanks- your answer (display) is not inconsistent with several of the others (actual experience) and is what I'm experiencing, so there's no camera issue to worry about. Phew. I've shot only maybe 100 images trying out the camera (been flat out this week on the other parts of my life) in different circumstances in Jpeg Large Normal (Nikon needs non-geeks to name their menu options!) and the file sizes were very close to Thom Hogan's 2400 Kbtes (the Jpeg Large Fine file size typical in his book is twice that, leading to the 874/4GB card number). I wonder why Nikon is so extraordinarily conservative in the estimate displayed on the camera. I understand file size dependency based on image content (I was a digital signal processing geek in an earlier professional life) but this goes way beyond that. Of course it's always better to be on the pessimistic side, but the 60-70% that Don states seems beyond pessimistic, beyond conservative, and even beyond CYA. Of course, this is my first Nikon DSLR (D-anything actually). I guess I have a lot to learn since my days with my old FA body and Kodachrome 64.

Cheers- Bob

[timberwulf]

Vanessa - yes, when the card is dry, FULL flashes in the the top LCD display and the camera stops taking pictures. This can be a little confusing the first few times you run into it. I recently encountered it while burst shooting a performer at a Blues Festival, and for a moment or two thought I wasn't getting AF Lock. It was pretty bright out and I was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn't see the in-viewfinder display well enough to see I was running out of exposures. ;)

 

The images remaining display is off by a bit. With an empty 1gb card shooting Large JPG Fine, I get somewhere around 126 images remaining displayed on the LCD. As I shoot, it will decrement, and then increment upwards a tick or two depending on how many I just shot. I've found I can get somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-180 images on a 1gb card. That's not shabby IMO. :)

 

You can experiment yourself by turning on continuous shooting mode, and just holding down the shutter release. You'll get a very rough idea of how many you can fit on a card, but with 4gb it will take a while. ;)