"What You MUST Know To Get
The Right Digital Camera"

Although it would seem there's a direct answer to how many pictures you can put on a memory card, it's really a little more involved. The answer depends upon several factors:

• The amount of space your memory card has
• How many pictures you take at what resolution and in what mode
• The degree of compression you use

Let's talk about the amount of space your memory card has first. Naturally, a larger-capacity card will hold more. If you're talking about a 1-gigabyte memory card, that's enough space for thousands of pictures! But if you're talking about the 8MB memory card that comes in the box with your camera, it can only hold about 8 to 10 pictures. What a huge difference!

The memory cards that come packaged with cameras are only meant to get you started. You'll need to purchase another one if you want to seriously take some pictures.

Compression/Resolution Confusion

The other important factor is the resolution you use. Before I start talking about compression and resolution, let me point out one thing — it's easy to confuse high compression with high resolution. But high compression is the opposite of high resolution. I admit, it can be quite confusing.

Think of it this way, high compression results in low resolution because the more you compress a picture, the less pixels you have. Imagine crushing a milk cartoon wearing a big boot. The carton will go from big to small in no time, and so will the picture on the back of that cartoon!

You just won't have the same quality picture anymore. You might say the high compression of the boot instantly lowers the picture quality.

In this case, the boot smashes the "pixels." In the case of a digital camera, the pixels don't even get recorded. After all, how much milk can you put into a smashed milk carton? So in a digital camera, the lower the pixel count, the lower the resolution (because you're crunching the storage space).

That's why I don't recommend taking all your pictures at a high compression (i.e. low resolution) unless you're sure you won't ever want to print them. I prefer low compression and high resolution.

However, higher resolution takes up more space. And that means that the higher the resolution you use, the faster you'll use up the space on your memory card, and vice versa — the lower the resolution of your pictures, the less space they'll take on your memory card.

But don't take pictures based on storage space. Low- resolution pictures may not suit your needs at all and you might end up regretting it for years. Only use a low resolution if you're sure all you're going to do with that picture is email it or put it on a webpage. But if you might decide to print it in the future, better to be safe than sorry.

Just make sure you have a memory card with enough space. If you take pictures at only the highest resolution all the time, you will need more memory on your card. As a general rule, have at least 128MB of storage for a 3 or 3.2 megapixel digital camera, preferably more. If you have 4 or 5-megapixel digital camera, get at least 256MB of storage.

Personally, I prefer to have plenty of storage and take high-resolution pictures most of the time. That way I can print 8x10s if I want or crop a section out of the big photo and still get a good picture. I burn my photos onto CDs for permanent storage so they don't fill up my hard drive and label them so I can find them when I need them.

It's always better to have more storage than less. You never know when you might need it. Also, you sure don't want to run out of storage if you're taking your digital camera on a long trip.

Another thing to keep in mind is that TIFF and RAW capture modes take up more space than JPEG. TIFF and RAW are only available on higher end cameras, so you won't have to worry about them if you have a basic point-and-shoot.

And once again, do make sure you get the right memory card for your camera and that it can support the size you want to get (not all cameras support 4-GB memory cards).