Sandisk extreme III has 8 more pix's than a Leaxr 300x UDMA - Why??

Trig's

Trig's

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Steve
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Curious to know why....

I have a Lexar 300x professional 4gb UDMA CF card which enables me to shoot 366 pic's & the Sandisk Extreme III 4gb 30mb/s lets me shoot 374 pictures...

They've both been formatted completetly & all images have been removed & then formatted in my D700....

Why does the Sandisk hold/let me shoot 8 more picture's? :shrug:
 
The thing is that no photo's were taken...

Once both formatted and plonked in the camera one read 366 & other read 374.....
 
Dave Stone said:
It depends on the file size of each photo.
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I'm sure he's saying both card are totally empty, they have both been format in camera, and he gets different numbers for the available space, nothing to do with file size of a photo.


Above reply post as I was typing :)
 
The way it addresses the memory? The space each card reserves for its index, could be a whole number of reasons :)
 
Wonder what would happen if they mentioned exactley just how many photo's you could fit per card per manufaturer then what card would people then buy....
 
aligibbs said:
In the example you have posted, your talking about 2%- hardly a deal breaker (and only an estimate)
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:thinking: Wasn't an example - it's what it showed... If thats on a 4gb card then what would it be on the larger ones...

Not saying that it is a "deal breaker" as you put it - I just asked how comes 2 4gb CF cards enable you to get different amount of pic's on each thats all...
 
Trig's said:
:thinking: Wasn't an example - it's what it showed... If thats on a 4gb card then what would it be on the larger ones...

Not saying that it is a "deal breaker" as you put it - I just asked how comes 2 4gb CF cards enable you to get different amount of pic's on each thats all...
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Right.... don't think your understanding me, you posted an example of 2 different cards... The size wouldn't matter- it would be 2% on a 4/8/16gb card- I suggested what a couple of reasons :shrug:
 
Theiving *******s.....write them a letter demanding they post you extra space for another 8 photos!! :lol:

Seriously, don't worry about it, there's always been a variation in all the Sandisk cards I've had. I have two identical 8GB Sandisk Extreme 60MB/s CF cards, once formatted in camera one reads 524, and the other after formatting reads 526??! :thinking: Both definitely genuine too.....unless Jessops are selling fakes!!! :suspect:
 
Its only an estimate anyway. The camera isnt always right. Just because it says it can take 374, doesnt mean it actually will.
 
I think Steve was just curious and asking a question,i think some of you have missed his point completely,It's an interesting question,we all know space on memory can be a bit hit and miss,for me it would be a consideration when buying, after all we would all like a little bit extra.
 
ghostdancer said:
for me it would be a consideration when buying
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How can you consider what you don't know? :thinking: I have two identical cards (well on the packet they are anyway!) and they have slightly different capacities....no way of knowing, until you've got them in your camera, exactly how much they'll hold!! :shrug:
 
Maybe it needs more investigation into Brands,Steve had mentioned his were different,I understand what your saying Damien with same Brand cards.
 
Flash has to "wear level" which is swap out pages that have gone bad. This means an 8G card may not actually be 8G if it has lots of bad blocks. Generally,. there are extra in place, but not every card has the same number of blocks available for writing.
 
could it be the software pre-programmed onto them?

can you check how much "actual" space you have on both?
 
Manufacturers tell you its 4GB when really it might be 3.95GB or so, its just easier to say 4GB.
Theres different coding/software to different models of disk space. Sandisk are specialists in this kind of thing, not sure about Lex. But the way Sandisk code their disks is different, which takes up less space from the original 4GB sold to you.

You should be able to see the actual difference if you format both and open them up in My Computer. Just right click the drive and click Properties.
 
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Trig's said:
Curious to know why....

I have a Lexar 300x professional 4gb UDMA CF card which enables me to shoot 366 pic's & the Sandisk Extreme III 4gb 30mb/s lets me shoot 374 pictures...

They've both been formatted completetly & all images have been removed & then formatted in my D700....

Why does the Sandisk hold/let me shoot 8 more picture's? :shrug:
Click to expand...

Would it be something to do with UDMA?
 
gman said:
Would it be something to do with UDMA?
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TBH - I haven't a clue - but I was wondering if that had something to do with it thou...
 
I reckon it must be, probably some extra code hardwired into it. Wonder if anyone has the same camera with a 4GB Sandisk UDMA card to check? I've only got the 8GB version and a different camera sorry.
 
Possibly down to the space that each card allocates for the formatting information.
 
When you say "both formatted completely", do you mean you formatted both in camera, or on a PC?

Try doing a full format on both cards in the PC, and make sure the allocation unit size is the same for both - if the cards have different allocation unit sizes then it will affect how many images can be stored (for example, if you have a 4096 byte allocation unit then a 1250 byte file will take up 4096 bytes of disk space. A 4097 byte file will take up 8192. If you reduced the allocation unit size to 2048 then the 1250 byte file will take up 2048 bytes and the 4097 byte file will take 6044 bytes). As the file size becomes large relative to the allocation unit size (as it is with your RAW files of 10+MB) then the difference in space requirement between two allocation unit sizes becomes small, but may still be enough to account for these differences.

When you format the card in-camera, the allocation unit size is not changed.
 
I-S said:
When you say "both formatted completely", do you mean you formatted both in camera, or on a PC?
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Formatted on a Lexar dual card reader - all images were erased, formatted then formatted in camera afterwards....
 
How many bytes free do each card say when plugged into a PC? (right click the disc it is mounted as, then click properties and let us know the exact number of bytes available from both)
 
Were the shooting conditions - especially the ISO - the same for each card? Higher ISO tends to give noisier images, which will compress less and give larger file sizes and fewer shots per card.
 
hollis_f said:
Were the shooting conditions - especially the ISO - the same for each card? Higher ISO tends to give noisier images, which will compress less and give larger file sizes and fewer shots per card.
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If I understand this correctly - these are blank, erased and formatted cards. Formatted once PC then again in camera - nothing on them, zilch, nada!

:eek:
 
chuckles said:
If I understand this correctly - these are blank, erased and formatted cards. Formatted once PC then again in camera - nothing on them, zilch, nada!

:eek:
Click to expand...

Did you reply to the wrong post? If the camera was set to a different ISO then identical cards, with identical free space, will display a different value for 'images remaining'.
 
Slimbert said:
I thought the OP was putting the cards in the same camera with unchanged settings.....not two separate cameras?! :thinking:
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Thats correct.....

Same camera - Nikon D700, two formatted 4gb CF cards, both erased of all images in the same card reader & inserted back into the same camera - formatted both CF cards (in camera) & got two different readings.....

Both cards were free of any images... Camera settings untouched & exactley the same for both cards...
 
The quoted capacity - 4GB in this case - is an approximation. For example, my 8GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC card isn't 8GB at all - it's 8.169GB (7.608 GiB). This is perfectly normal and expected.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The number of 'sectors' designed into the card will usually be a power of 2. That's simply down to manufacturing. Of those, some sectors will be reserved internally by the card, some will be reserved for wear levelling reasons, and some will be bad at the point of manufacture. With more than 16 billion MLC cells on a 4GB card, some failures are inevitable.

The result is that capacity may vary. Usually cards from the same batch will have the same or similar capacity, but it's expected for cards from different manufacturers to have different capacities due to differences in manufacruting process.

Consider the quoted size a minimum.
 
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Trig's said:
Thats correct.....

Same camera - Nikon D700, two formatted 4gb CF cards, both erased of all images in the same card reader & inserted back into the same camera - formatted both CF cards (in camera) & got two different readings.....

Both cards were free of any images... Camera settings untouched & exactley the same for both cards...
Click to expand...
What does the computer say is the free space on each card when in the reader?
 
arad85 said:
What does the computer say is the free space on each card when in the reader?
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Haven't a clue as of yet as have just used one of the cards - so until I download the images & then delete & format the card I wont know....
 
They will be different - about 100MB different.

It's worth checking mind - if the capacity of the SanDisk has dropped under 4GB then it may be a warning of impending trouble.
 
right for those asking about the properties:

Sandisk:
used space 12,288 bytes 12.0 KB
free space 4,102,111,232 bytes 3.82 GB
capacity 4,102,123,520 bytes 3.82 GB


Lexar:
used space 98,304 bytes 96.0 KB
free space 4,008,411,136 bytes 3.73 GB
capacity 4,008,509,440 bytes 3.73 GB


There you go....


:thinking: Would it have anything to do with that the Lexar has 45mb/s compared to the Sandisk's 30mb/s write speed :shrug:
 
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MarkG said:
They will be different - about 100MB different.

It's worth checking mind - if the capacity of the SanDisk has dropped under 4GB then it may be a warning of impending trouble.
Click to expand...


Seems that you was right in there being 100mb difference :eek:
 
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