Congratulations Paul-Dan Dragoman, March 2025 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Kitchen".Paul-Dan Dragoman - Entry 1036 Kristine Kohl - Entry 1037 Peter Wingfield - Entry 1044
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Today, with just one Google search, you’ll easily find tons of storage options for your photos. These storage methods can easily make you overwhelmed. So, many photographers stick to the long-lasting SD card storage medium. Below, i’ve answered the question, how many photos can an 8GB SD card hold?
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An 8GB SD card holds as many as 2,220 JPEG images shot at 12MP resolution. However, a camera captured in the RAW format can store around 220 images at the same resolution. At a resolution of 10MP, it can store around 2,288 JPEGs and 222 RAWs.
Frankly, there’s no fixed answer to your question above. You’ll be surprised that this SD card can still hold up to 6,600 images simultaneously. Other times, the number of photos you can store on it will be less than 125. Let’s discuss the reason behind this below.
Several factors contribute to the varying amounts of images you can store on a single card. As a result, every shot you take on your camera comes at a different size, irrespective of the resolution. Knowing how they affect your image size can help determine your camera’s average file size.
Below, i’ve discussed how each factor affects the average size of images on your SD card.
There are a ton of different file formats in which you can store your images. However, the most common ones are the JPEG and RAW file formats. They’re both widely known by photographers because of their ease of use. One of them offers high-quality images, the other, more storage space.
Generally, JPEGs have smaller sizes compared to RAW images. This massive size reduction takes place while converting from RAW to JPEG. When compressing, you’re reducing the amount of data on the original image into a smaller-sized JPEG.
By default, a RAW file is of higher quality than a JPEG. It is often at least twice as big as a JPEG. This difference results from the lossless compression that a RAW file undergoes. A RAW file retains the same quality as the original image, even after compression.
The quality of every shot from your shutter depends on the camera settings. The bit depth is one of the major camera settings affecting your image size. This refers to the storage space required by each image to store and display all its colors.
The quality and color depth increase when your image has a higher resolution. As such, more space is required to store the pixel for each color. This increase in storage requirement also affects the file size, causing it to become larger.
There’s a wide range of camera resolutions to explore depending on the shot you want to take. As a rule of thumb, the higher your camera resolution, the higher the quality, and the greater the image size.
Your camera’s resolution is in MegaPixels, which helps to determine the average size of any image. For example, at 16MP, the average size of JPEGs is 4.8MB, while a RAW will be around 48MB.
There are undoubtedly more memory card sizes than you can initially comprehend. When you look past the technical details, you’ll discover that choosing a suitable card is quite easy. You mainly need to focus on your intended use for the card and some of the features you require.
Before deciding on a memory card, you must evaluate the project. Some photos could look better with lower-quality settings and smaller resolutions. This clarifies the difference in size between some images and others. Depending on your specialty, I have some suggestions for you.
Most landscape photographs use a 3:2 aspect ratio. The size of a picture is also affected by the aspect ratio because of the relationship between the two. A resolution of 6000*4000, or 24MP, is realistic for this aspect ratio.
This pixel number is between 4.5 and 8.2 MB in JPEG file size. The same image in RAW format might be anything from 52 MB to 64.9 MB in size. Thus, most landscape photographers will find their ideal storage space to be at least 1TB.
You have a lot of creative freedom as a real estate photographer. You could be shooting the interior of a residential building or the exterior of a commercial property. However, for each client, you might take dozens of pictures.
Typical property photos might range from 10 to 50 MB in size, depending on the quality settings. Therefore, you will need at least 8GB to accommodate most of your recent pictures.
The number of wedding photographs you shoot will vary from client to client. Besides, keep in mind that the typical size of a high-quality wedding photo is at least 10MB. You might use a storage capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) or more if you need more storage flexibility.
A memory card is your camera's principal means of storage. So, most recent digital cameras have a memory card slot. Depending on how much data you need to store, you can select from many different types of memory cards. So, let's talk about a few of the more common ones.
Due to its rapid read/write speeds, the compact flash card is widely used by photographers. It typically comes in sizes ranging from 8 GB up to 512 GB. The maximum number of RAW files it can hold is 14,222, and the maximum number of JPEGs is 142,222.
You need a Secure Digital (SD) card to take digital photographs nowadays. An SD card also has a fast processing speed. However, it's quite slower than that of a CF card. It has storage capacities ranging from 2 GB up to 128 TB.
The capacity of this card is more than any other of its size. It can be easily included in cameras of different sizes. Not only that, it also offers massive storage, up to 128TB depending on the chosen format.
When deciding on a storage capacity, it's essential to consider the card's processing speed. This rate is expressed in megabytes per second (MB/S). There is a maximum processing speed of 985MB/S in the SDUC. The compact flash, SDXC, and SDHC processing speeds are similar.
Knowing your images' size is the easiest way to estimate how many you can store in 8GB. Can you supply images in RAW format, JPEG format, or both? Whether you prefer to keep your photos in JPEG or RAW format, each has an average file size.
A MegaPixel means 1 million pixels. It is the standard unit to measure the number of pixels in one image. A pixel refers to the smallest unit of any photo. So, every image is a continuous stack of millions of pixels combining to form a picture.
A CD will hold around 106 to 583 JPEGs at a time. However, depending on the average image file size it will only hold between 10 to 60 RAW images. A CD has 700MB of storage space, which is quite limited in function. Thus, it’s not ideal for storing photos.
The huge increase in the number of photos taken daily calls for more durable storage mediums. I’ve discussed the number of images you can fit into an 8GB SD card. Besides, i’ve broken down some factors that affect the size of an image on your SD card.
