HELP Camera says I can take less pictures

[Tatts4Life]

First off if this is the wrong thread Mods can move to the right section.

OK so here's my problem. I have a Nikon D90 and a SanDisk Extreme 4GB memory card. I've had it about 2 weeks and have been taking random pictures. Each night I load the pictures on the computer and delete them from the memory card. I use a card reader I got from my dad because I don't like having it sit out where it could get bumped by the kids by accident. So I load the pictures and put the card back in the camera and delete the pictures. When I look at the remaining pictures section it says I can only take 219 in RAW format and about 880 +/- a few in JPEG. Before when I first got the card I could take 286 in RAW and over 1000 in JPEG (it shows 1k so it could be more). Now when I look on the card and on the computer it says the folder is empty. Can anybody tell me what's going on? I bought this card for the amount of pictures it could take because my wife and I love to go out and take a bunch of pictures.

[JEMS]

Hi C,
Just a thought have you tried re-formatting the card when you have put it back in...!

[carregwen]

First off if this is the wrong thread Mods can move to the right section.

OK so here's my problem. I have a Nikon D90 and a SanDisk Extreme 4GB memory card. I've had it about 2 weeks and have been taking random pictures. Each night I load the pictures on the computer and delete them from the memory card. I use a card reader I got from my dad because I don't like having it sit out where it could get bumped by the kids by accident. So I load the pictures and put the card back in the camera and delete the pictures. When I look at the remaining pictures section it says I can only take 219 in RAW format and about 880 +/- a few in JPEG. Before when I first got the card I could take 286 in RAW and over 1000 in JPEG (it shows 1k so it could be more). Now when I look on the card and on the computer it says the folder is empty. Can anybody tell me what's going on? I bought this card for the amount of pictures it could take because my wife and I love to go out and take a bunch of pictures.

Hmmm. If you have deleted the shots (in camera) it should revert back to giving you the estimate for an empty card - that is, the capacity of the card divided by the file size for that camera. If it doesn't then there is probably something wrong with either the card or the camera. Try formatting the card as suggested by previous post. If that doesn't work try another card (a 1gb will do) if you have one.

Another point. I know several people who have incurred expensive repairs by damaging the locating pins by constantly taking out and re-insereting memory cards.It is easily done. I always connect my camera to the PC and download. Cameras can break easily enough on their own. They don't need our help.

[Jim B.]

Check your image size for jpegs and RAW in your camera menu.Not sure about Raw,but I'm pretty sure there is a jpeg-NORMAL(smaller file) and a jpeg-FINE(larger file) size.Maybe this setting was changed by accident?

[PopsPhotos]

As a general rule, ALWAYS reformat the card after putting it in the camera. Don't have the computer reformat the card, rather, tell the camera to do so.

Pops

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the CiC forums (just in case I haven't done that)

I have been using about 4 cards; both 8 and 4GB Sandisks, in a D5000 (very similar to a D90) since May and I have never reformatted, nor needed to.

I do what you do; remove card from camera, read it with Nikon Transfer (actually in my laptop's built-in reader) - I do always "Safely Remove" it.
Then pop it back in camera to delete files.

Two things might be causing this:
Have you any Protected images (because they don't get deleted) - but I doubt it because you'd have noticed them everytime you reviewed in camera or downloaded.

The other possibility is that when you 'clock over' each 10,000th image, the camera starts a new folder and puts new images in there, so is it possible you have an inactive folder on the card with a load of older images in?

If you look at card on a file manager, under the root DCIM folder, there will be sub-folders called (by default, in my case); 100D5000, 101D5000 and 102D5000. Yours might well be 100D90 and 101D90.

I agree with the advice above to only ever let the camera do the writing to, reformating and deletion of images.

Cheers,

[Tatts4Life]

Thanks guys for the help. I was able to talk get a hold of a friend who gave the same advice as you guys to reformat the card. I had tried formatting the card while it was in the camera but it was still reading as the 80 less pictures. So when I tried hooking the card to the computer through the reader I found the reformat option by right clicking. Well here is where things go from bad to really crappy. First it doesn't let me reformat. Then when I try to look in the folder it tells me I need to reformat so I click OK, What do you know it starts. Well then it gets close to the end and says something about not being able to finish. So I remove it safely from the computer and put it in the camera and everything is fine, I have the full count like I did originally. So I take couple test pictures things work good. I take the card and hook it to the computer through the reader NOTHING. The computer won't find it as a removable drive, the reader just blinks. I try my wife's card in the reader works fine comes up right away. I start to get annoyed and try hooking up the camera and it works fine So I'm really starting to get seriously annoyed. Finally I just hook up the card through the reader let it sit for about 5 minutes or so and finally a message pops up saying some files need to be fix, even though the card is now empty because I deleted the test pictures. I let that run and now magically everything is fix like there was never a problem. The computer reads the card right away and I have all my pictures back. Talk about a PITA day.

I think from now on I'm just hooking up the camera to the computer.

[Dave Humphries]

Glad it's sorted, even if was a journey you wouldn't want to repeat

[chromvision]

Your card reader uses its own driver. Since you mention that it is from your dad, I assume it is relatively old (I mean more than 5-6 years). At that time there were no uniform standard on saving partitionind information on the different card. So when you attempted to reformat this card in computer, something was going wrong and pertitioning information was corrupted (it may be just MBR "master boot record" in sector 0, which your camera actually ignore). Your camera uses different algorithm for communication with this card and do not see corrupted information.
Generally, you always should reformat your card in the camera (prefferably using full reformat option). Most modern cameras has fast direct USB transfer option, which usually works faster and offer simultaneous erase function.
I hope it helps.

[Tatts4Life]

come to think of it you're right the card reader is about 4 years old. He bought a bundle kit that came with the camera and everything else you would need for a starter kit. He never used it so I figured I would use the card reader since he wasn't planning on using it. I bet he even forgot he had it. From now on I plan on using my camera to transfer the pictures. It was a nice idea to be able to use the reader. But not if it's gonna cause these problems for me.