Problem with my CF card or D300?

[Rokphotoz]

Here's what happened last night while shooting. I have a 4gb Sandisk Extreme IV CF card. When empty, I can fit 197 shots on it. Well after about 45 min of shooting I look to see how many shots I have left and it says that I had already shot 263 shots. I looked through my camera settings and everything is the same. SO I continued to shoot. I was able to shoot 345 shots on the card. When I was at my last 4 shots, it kept saying on the camera display that I had one shot remaining. So the last 4 shots it kept saying one shot remaining. Has anyone ran into this weird problem? Is something wrong with the card or the camera? I put the shots from the card on my computer and all the photos were perfect. No corrupted shots at all. If someone has had this happen to them or might know what is going on, please let me know. I'd rather the card be screwing up than my camera =(.

 

[Tim Bury]

The amount of shots remaining is an estimate. Each image is often slightly different in size since different light, shadows, colors, tone, etc. have different values, so each image is a didfferent file size. So the amount remaining is a generic estimate. This sounds like ormal behavior to me.

Do you ahve another card to try? If you're filling up your card you might want a second one anyway.

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[David Grrrr]

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Only the name starts with Gr...

 

[Rokphotoz]

Thanks for your input. I understand that due to lighting, exposure etc., that file sizes can be different but I used the same lighting as I did the night before with the same camera settings and same backdrop. The card always went to 197 shots and then would say full. Going from 197 for full capacity for that card to 345 is a huge jump. What I also thought was some kind of error is when the camera kept saying '1' shots remaining when still was able to shoot out 4 or 5 more shots. Just never had this happen to me since I've been shooting with the D300, D100 or D200.

 

[Chuck Steenburgh]

My experience is just the opposite. I've NEVER had a camera (D1, D100, D70, D80, D90, D200, D300, Fuji S1 Pro) fill up with the exact number of images shown remaining on the card when I turned it on. What Tim describes is very normal behavior.

Do you shoot only in NEF?

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[baloo_buc]

The number is the worst situation. The file size is at the maximum possible (RAW uncompressed maybe) and you used compressed RAW.
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Victor
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[Rokphotoz]

Yes I always shoot nef and always 12bit compressed.