Nikon D7000 manual HOW Many SHOTS?

Chapter 1 ■ Nikon D7000: Thinking Outside of the Box 23

Figure 1.9

Hold down the buttons marked Format to initiate reformatting of a memory card.

HOW MANY SHOTS?

The D7000 provides a fairly accurate estimate of the number of shots remaining on the top-panel LCD at all times (even when the camera is turned off), as well as at the lower- right edge of the viewfinder display when the display is active. (Tap the shutter release button to activate it.)

It is only an estimate, because the actual number will vary, depending on the capacity of your memory card, the file format(s) you’ve selected, and the content of the image itself. (Some photos may contain large areas that can be more efficiently compressed to a smaller size.)

For example, an 8GB card can hold about 813 JPEG Fine shots in full resolution (Large) format; 1,600 shots using Normal JPEG compression; or 3,100 shots with Basic JPEG compression. When numbers exceed 1,000, the D7000 displays a figure and decimal point, followed by a K superscript, so that 3,100 shots (or thereabouts) is represented by [3.1]K in the LCD and viewfinder. The D7000 offers three different resolution settings that provide different numbers of exposures: Large (4928 ⋅ 3264; 16.1 megapixels), Medium (3696 ⋅ 2448; 9.0 megapixels), and Small (2464 ⋅ 1632; 4 megapixels). For example, JPEG Basic using the Small resolution setting yields 11K exposures on a single 8GB memory card!

Using RAW/NEF format (more on that later) reduces the number of shots. An 8GB card has enough room for 300-400 RAW photos in Nikon’s NEF format (depending on the type of compression you choose, as described later) or 191 pictures if you’re shooting RAW+JPEG Fine pairs. Table 1.1 shows some typical capacities for an 8GB memory card. You should know that the D7000 has various compression options for JPEG and RAW files, as well as 12-bit and 14-bit dynamic range settings for the RAW format; we’ll look into those options in more detail in Chapter 8.