Remaining shots indicator never right (D300/D700)

[loplyg]

Hi folks,

Anybody know why the remaining shot counter is never remotely accurate?

On my D700, shooting in compressed 12-bit RAW, it tells me there is room for 100 shots on a 2gb card. In reality, it takes about 180 shots.

This gets a bit annoying when you start to fill the card up and have to do maths in your head to figure out how many shots are left.

Anybody know any tricks to fix it?

Rich

 

[aligibbs]

It is only an estimate, it depends on the lighting conditions and the ISO that you use

 

[Hairyduck]

it's the same on the D3, the compression being used means that some images take up a lot less space than others especially where there are large areas of solid colours (eg sky). As above it's just an estimate

 

[neil_g]

file size will vary depending on content such as ISO/noise. more noise = more info = bigger files.

as said, the counter is an estimate.

 

[SparkUK]

If you take a look at the file sizes once you download them it might suprise you how much they vary, hence the estimates not being accurate.

 

[-Rob-]

It's very similar to the countdown you may have on the trip computer on your car. It estimates the way you'll drive to get an average mpg and tell you how many mile you can drive before you fill up.

 

[Nod]

If you're worried about running out of space, just swap the cards well before they're full. The shots remaining counter is a worst case scenario calculated by the camera,

 

[EdBray]

I thought it showed the very minimum number of shots you can take at the resolution selected for a givrn sized memory card. This will then vary upon the amount of data captured from the sensor in each image and will often allow more images than expected to be taken. But, regardless of subject matter, you should never get less than the original estimate!

Think of extra shots like those you used to get on a roll of film as a bonus, you were guaranteed 36 exposures, but could often get 38 or even more out of a roll.