D700 and 16gb card how many shots confused.

surfg1mp

surfg1mp

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Ok this has me really confused. My d700 says it will shoot 605 images with a 16gb cf card according to the top screen. So why do I have over 900 on the card with space for more. I'm really confused....:thinking:
 
Because the card and camera make a guess at the size of each file that the camera takes. Some shots will be 12 mb some will only be 7mb,hence the disparity.

Example.....a landscape shot full of detail could be 12mb whilst a bird in flight may only be 7mb.
 
The ISO setting affects the prediction of a number of shots a lot. If you have the ISO set to Auto then the camera will assume a lot of shots will be taken at high ISO which take up more memory than low ISO shots.

Give it a try. Format a card, put the camera on ISO100 and it might say 700 shots. Raise the ISO to 500 and the number of predicted shots could reduce to 500.
 
It's much safer for the camera to predict on the low side - that way, you are less likely to be in trouble in a situation where it counts.

It's a well documented feature on all Canikon DSLRs.
 
surfg1mp said:
I see, seems odd that it would predict such a low estimate....predicts 605 look at the picture count and have over 900 images on the card, and the camera saying I have 100 left. :thinking:
Click to expand...

Yes, it's usually out by 100s. Don't forget that the D700 came out in 2008, which means it was developed in 2006-2007 - when 16GB cards are unlikely to have been the choice of most photographers, but smaller cards, where the shot guesstimate of the camera was likely to have a smaller gap between prediction and actual number of shots on a card. However, when the same algorithm is applied to bigger capacity cards, that's when you start seeing these large discrepancies between predicted/actual numbers - imagine putting a 128GB CF card in!

Using 32GB cards on my D7k, it's sometimes out by 300-500 shots. No problem for me.
 
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Are you shooting in the largest RAW format available?
 
Far better to have a report of 500 shots but actual space for 750 than the other way round. AFAIK, most cameras underestimate the number of shots available on a card so we don't get caught out. On the rare occasions I get down to 50 shots worth of space, I swap out so I don't get the dreaded "card full" message at a critical moment.
 
Always got plenty of spare cards with me,when one full just put in another one always worked for me :)
 
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