My D80 can't count ! -- Remaining JPEG Frame Counter

[graham_marsden]

I am v. pleased with my D80. But I have a small niggle.

 

If I use a 1GB SDcard, with the camera set to JPEG fine, it always shows that I

can take 134 shots. This morning I wanted to take several flower pictures for

a 'collage' so when the counter reached 121 I decided to see what my 13 pictures

looked like.

 

Amazingly, I had taken 28 shots. It does this all the time. Is it the camera

that can't count, or is it me?

.

[rainer_t]

-- "Is it the camera that can't count, or is it me?."

 

The camera only estimates how much images will eventually fit on the card. That is not even a promise that this number will really fit on it. Don't forget, that the filesize of the imagefile varies due to quite a few things ... iso-setting is one of them ... image content another one. Since the camera cannot foresee what images you're going to shoot, it simply doesn't know how much images will exactly fit on the card.

 

Don't take this number too serious. It's an estimation ... not more, not less.

[Matt Laur]

If you shoot in a format like RAW - which has less lossy compression - the image files will be of a more consistent size... but also MUCH larger. Rainer's right: the nature of the image's content, when compressed into JPG, determines the size - and thus the capacity. Sort of like city vs. highway driving! Your mileage may vary.

[ShunCheung]

Initially, I didn't bother to answer because Rainer's explanation is very accurate. For all JPEGs, the camera can only provide you a conservative, somewhat worst-case estimate so that you are pretty much guaranteed that there is room for, for example, 134 more images. In reality, most of your images will likely be smaller than worst case. Otherwise, if the camera estimates 160 shots and eventually you have only room for 145, you could be stuck.

 

Concerning RAW/NEF files, please keep in mind that the only option available on the D80 is compressed RAW, which also leads to somewhat unpredictable compression ratios. So once again, the camera will provide you a conservative estimate of how many shots are left.

 

If you shoot uncompressed RAW on a D100, D200, or D2X, you will get very accurate remaining shot estimates, usually within 1 to 2%.

[mac_mcanirlin]

I know that with a 2 GB card and the camera shooting Raw that I can take 219 shots, but the camera only says that I can take 163. So the camear with undercount the shots remaining by about 75%. And that is consistant through-out the entire shots remaining on the card. Atleast in undercounts instead of overcounts.

[crabseye]

JPEG is primarily a compression algorithm.

 

If you shoot a photo of a blank white piece of paper, this can be compressed HUGELY.

 

If you shoot a photo of dirt (close-up), this cannot be compressed very much since there is so much non-repeating, non-contiguous variation in texture, color, etc. Most compression looks for repeating patterns and substitutes a value for a range. So the paper photo can be reduced to a formula where every pixel is value x (color) from coordinates a,b to c,d. However, with the dirt photo, each pixel must be recorded separately, color and location.

[gdw]

It can count, it?s just not clairvoyant.

[graham_marsden]

Thanks folks ! I understand it now.

[mark_overend]

I use a 2gb card and noted 264 pic capacity at fine large jpg. I shot 540 this weekend on the card before I ran out of space. As another poster mentioned it depends on the subject matter and jpeg compression - half the shots were surfers and these pics were, in the main, smaller file sizes due to the compression of the seascape dominating the shots.

This post and my recent experience now makes sense of the situation for me.

Regards

Mark