How Many Raw Files Will Fit on a 32GB SD Card?

Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I've often wondered how many shots I can *actually* store on a 32GB SD card and today I got an answer. I worked a dance audition that was a full two hours of near non-stop shooting and not once did I eeeeven stop to think about my SD card capacity. Had I done so, I would have swapped them out halfway through the shoot. At the end of the audition I had 1,049 shots and about 78MB remaining on Card 1 (raw files). I'm thinking that left room for about three more shots. I had backup cards, of course, but I'm thinking I might invest in set of 64's.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
There's no answer for this. First, the number of mp varies by camera, plus each frame uses a different amount of memory. It's not like a raw file always takes up x.xx mb.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
480sparky said:
There's no answer for this. First, the number of mp varies by camera, plus each frame uses a different amount of memory. It's not like a raw file always takes up x.xx mb.
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Thank you for your penetrating insight but my post wasn't meant to be a technical treatise on the subject.
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
So what happens when one card gets completely filled and the second card slot is empty? Will there be a camera prompt that it can't write any additional files/ :confused:
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
hark said:
So what happens when one card gets completely filled and the second card slot is empty? Will there be a camera prompt that it can't write any additional files/ :confused:
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If you've set the second card to Overflow, yes. If you've got it set up for BackUp, the second card will be just as full as the first.
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
If I am shooting something important I do backup on the second card otherwise I most always have it set for overflow. On rare occasions I have the second card set to JPEG and then wonder why the hell I did that. LOL
 
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Fortkentdad

Senior Member
Caller: How many slices in your large pizza?
Pizza Shop: How small do you want them?


But to give an idea I looked at RAW files from my D500 and D610 and see they range from a low of about 20,000k to 40,000k
400 RAW's took up close to 10GB on my hard drive so you'd get upwards of 1,200 on a 32GB card
Checked my current 32GB card in my D610 - 188 pictures takes up 5.5 GB.


I've gone with 32GB cards for the D610 and D7100, faster ones in the primary slot, slower older one in the secondary slot.
I've tried the RAWs to one and JPG to the other, now just shoot RAWs to the primary and leave the second slot as backup.

For me the saving grace of the second slot is when I take the card out to pop into my card reader - then leave it there. Grab camera and glory be there is still a card in it. When I was using my D5100 with only one slot we did have one time when we went out for the day but sadly I was without a card in the camera - lesson learned. Also have some old 8GB cards tucked into corners of my camera bag - just in case.
 
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RocketCowboy

Senior Member
[MENTION=13090]Horoscope Fish[/MENTION] ... if you shot all your images in portrait mode instead of landscape, do you think you could have fit a few more? ;)

(Too early on a Friday for bad jokes? :) )
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
In hindsight, I probably should have switched from raw+jpg to raw only, with Slot 2 designated for Overflow, as Don K. pointed out. The Producers were back and forth on if pg's were wanted immediately after the shoot or not, though, so I decided to have them just in case. Once I'm knee deep in the shooting they decide they're willing to wait for me to cull and process the shots so I can release finished work. Ugh... Clients, man.

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Texas said:
Would take me about 6 weeks to process over 1,000 raw's.
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Oh I have no intention of processing all 1,000 shots... I should be that good! No, I'll be culling that 1,000 shots down to about 50 usable shots and those will get processed fully.


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*still waffling on getting a pair of 64GB cards*
 
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Danno

Danno

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
In hindsight, I probably should have switched from raw+jpg to raw only, with Slot 2 designated for Overflow, as Don K. pointed out. The Producers were back and forth on if pg's were wanted immediately after the shoot or not, though, so I decided to have them just in case. Once I'm knee deep in the shooting they decide they're willing to wait for me to cull and process the shots so I can release finished work. Ugh... Clients, man.

....

Oh I have no intention of processing all 1,000 shots... I should be that good! No, I'll be culling that 1,000 shots down to about 50 usable shots and those will get processed fully.


....
*still waffling on getting a pair of 64GB cards*
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I have a pair of 64 GIG cards I keep as back up. I used them originally for VBS where I would shoot for 4 nights and shoot JPG for the church and I would shoot RAW for the parents. lf a parent saw a photo of their child that they wanted to print I would process the RAW file and let them have it. I have not used them in over a year now.
 
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