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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Compact Flash Cards (1 Viewer)

Fatboy

Active member
How many pictures can you get on one card?

This may seem obvious but does a bigger memory card just mean more picture storage?
 
Yep, spot on. That is exactly what it means.
:t:

I would also recommend a small investment. A card reader, they save wear and tear on the camera terminals and generally download faster. I have one that will read most popular memory card/stick and only cost £24.

Mike
 
Hi Fatboy

It depends on the image size and quality. My camera a CP880 is 3 mega pixels.
If I choose Fine quality full size I will get 40 images on a 64Mb card
However if I go to VGA size and basic quality I can get 1301 images. That is IMO a waste of having a 3 Mp camera but could be useful if you are running out of memory. There is a whole range of choices in between.

Yes for a 128Mb card just double these figures.

I hope that makes sense.
 
How many pictures you get on the card is function of three things:

1. The size of the card
2. The number of megapixels the camera produces
3. The quality at which you save it.

For example I have a Nikon 885, which is a 3MP camera. Nikon will say that in Fine mode (the highest qualty jpg) you will get 80 images on a 128MB, although in practice I get over 90.

The manufacturers usually give guidance on the number of pictures you will get on a card, although this tends to be conservative.

Hope this helps.

Robin
 
The bottom line is yes, the larger the card the more photos it will hold.

The number of photos then depends on the quality setting that you select.

With the Nikon 4500 I use the FINE setting at 2272x1704 size and with a 256MB CF card it will hold 133 photos according to the camera readout.

The 16 MB CF card holds just 9 shots.

If you use the NORMAL or BASIC setting then you can hold far more shots per card.

Those numbers are just a rough guide as I have had 12 shots on the 16 MB card - it really depends on the detail / range of colours in each shot as to how much memory is used.
 
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Rudolf Baumuell said:
I am also concerned about wearing out the camera terminals (USB:) but taking the card in and out might be worse?o:)

A good point. I have had an Olympus C2000Z for four years and it has taken a few thousand shots, likewise a C2100 UZ which has taken even more. I use a card reader and have never had a problem, but then the SM cards don't have little pins for contacts.

I've never heard of any problems but I wonder if anyone has had a problem with CF cards ?
 
I use a Microdrive, at full fine on my D60 set at 100asa gain I get 400 pictures, at 200 asa 371 pictures and less as the gain is set higher, this will then vary as I shoot, for instance pictures with lots of blue sky or sand (anything of one colour) have a smaller file size so this may boost the number of images at 100asa to 430+, it depends on your subject matter and can be very variable.

I use a Card reader for many reasons, but primarily it is far less expesive to replace the reader than the camera if something should go wrong with your PC, i.e. software corruption, power surge etc.
 
I was just going to add, but Nigel beat me to it, that one more variable is WHAT you take a picture of. Something which has more detail, which you might say is more "busy", takes up more megapixels. My camera is 2.6 mp, and on a 128mb card I can get anywhere from 79 to 112 photos.

BTW, not all cards are created equal. Check out www.dpreview.com in their storage/forums area.
 
Thankyou all for your opinions and advice,

As I suspected, nothing is ever as straight forward as you hope!

It has been very useful to hear your comments on various aspects re card readers/quality etc, one day I hope to purchase a camera but until then I'll just admire everyone elses efforts!
 
On the subject of compact flash cards can somebody tell me why after I delete all of the images from my card instead of the camera shot counter reading 40 it reads 39 or sometimes 38.The only way i`ve found of restoring the reading to 40 is to format the card(in the camera).I have taken the flash card back to a well known high street retailer & they have formatted the card on their computer but i`m still having the problem.Any ideas or help would be welcome.

Regards Stevo.
 
Stevo, only speculation on my part, but it may be that with deleting it not all the info is really deleted. That does happen with hard drives. The only way of really getting rid of everything is to format it.
 
As far as I know files remain on the card as ghost files and are only totally removed by formatting. Though a little annoying this can also be useful. I have a very simple image recovery program which allows you to retrieve photos, which you have deleted. Formatting is simple enough and can be done either via the camera or through your card reader (if you use one).

Mark
 
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