Removable digital camera memory

How many photos you can expect to store

By Mark Toft
Staples Editor

Digital cameras use removable memory cards with up to 4GB of storage. How many digital photos can these memory cards hold?

The answer is that it depends on the resolution and the compression format of the digital images. The higher the resolution (that is, the more megapixels) the fewer pictures a memory card can store. When it comes to compression, you'll be able to save more images if you take pictures using a good quality format such as JPEG, while TIF and other files will occupy much more space.

Good quality photo storage

While the photo storage capability of memory cards varies, you can still expect to store a certain range of photos in each.

The following tables provide estimates of the number of good quality photos you can expect to store as high–resolution JPEGs on CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Smart Media, and MMC, SD and XD cards.

Best quality photo storage

The following tables provide estimates of the number of high–quality photos you can expect to store as high–resolution JPEGs on CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Smart Media, and MMC, SD and XD cards.

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¹Figures in both tables from SanDisk Corporation. Actual results will depend on the camera model, resolution and compression mode setting.