RAW storage calculator: how many RAW photos fit on your card

Published October 1, 2026 · Daniel Tello · RevelRaw

Pick your camera and RAW mode, choose a card, and see how many RAW photos fit, counted from measured sample files for 922 cameras. The mode matters more than the megapixels: a Nikon Z8 file is 60.8 MB in Lossless and 24.4 MB in High Efficiency, so the same card holds about two and a half times as many frames.

How many RAW photos fit on a 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB card

If you only know your camera's megapixel count and how it saves RAW, this table is the short answer. A 24 megapixel RAW file is typically 25 MB compressed, 30 MB lossless or 50 MB uncompressed; at 45 megapixels, 37, 54 and 81 MB (median sample file, raw.pixls.us, September 28, 2026). Each row takes every full-resolution sample file in that megapixel class and compression tier from the raw.pixls.us archive, uses the median file as the typical frame, and divides the card's usable space by it. The "Files" column is how many measured files sit behind each number; read the rows with 3 or 5 files as a guide, not a measurement.

Cards store files in fixed blocks: 32 KB on cards up to 32 GB, 128 KB on 64 and 128 GB cards, 256 KB on 256 and 512 GB cards, 512 KB on 1 and 2 TB cards, the sizes in the SD Association's formatting table. Each file is rounded up to whole blocks. "Compressed (lossy)" is Nikon Compressed, HE and HE*, Sony Compressed, Fujifilm Compressed and Canon C-RAW; "Lossless compressed" is Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm Lossless plus Canon's standard RAW. The 24 MP class holds files storing 23.5 to 26.9 megapixels, 33 MP holds 30 to 34.5, 45 MP holds 44 to 47.9 and 61 MP holds 60 to 62.5. Data: raw.pixls.us index, September 28, 2026.

Two things the table hides. First, the lossy rows mix brands whose lossy modes are very different sizes: a 24 megapixel Canon C-RAW or Nikon HE file runs about 12 to 17 MB, so those shooters get roughly double the 24 MP lossy row, while a Sony Compressed file from the same class sits near the median. Pick the body in the calculator and the mix disappears. Second, the 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB columns use the larger blocks those cards are formatted with, so they run slightly below the card table in the RAW file size study, which used 128 KB blocks up to 512 GB.

Why your camera's counter shows a different number

The "shots remaining" figure on your camera is the number most photographers trust, and with reason: it is per body, per mode, and it is standing on the screen when you need it. But it is built from one fixed file size the maker picked for a standard test scene, and each maker picks differently. Nikon and Canon print that size in the manual; Sony prints only the count. We took five bodies whose manuals publish a count, re-read those pages on October 1, 2026, and ran the same card through this calculator.

Camera counts as printed in each manual: Nikon's D7500 (16 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC, June 2017) and Z8 (660 GB Nikon CFexpress Type B, March 2023), Sony's a7 IV and a7 V help guides (Sony SD cards), Canon's EOS R6 Mark II ("32 GB card that conforms to Canon testing standards"). "Calculator" is what this page shows for that body, mode and card size, with the median sample file in brackets. For the D7500 the comparison uses the archive's sample file at the same bit depth as the manual row; the calculator itself shows the median of its 12-bit and 14-bit files. The five combinations not shown: the D7500 in Lossless 12-bit (+67%) and Compressed 14-bit (+39%), and the a7 IV on a 128 GB card (+12% Compressed, −1% Lossless, +15% Uncompressed).

In 14 of the 17 combinations the calculator lands above the counter, so the counter is usually the pessimistic figure, though not on every brand. Nikon's counters are the most conservative: the D7500's archive files give 39 to 75% more frames at the same bit depth, and the Z8's Lossless file 47% more, though its High Efficiency modes land within 6 to 10%. Sony's a7 IV counter sits within 16% in every mode, and on Lossless at 128 GB it is 16 frames higher. The a7 V's Compressed counter is the outlier: the archive's file gives 44% more frames, but it is a single 23.3 MB sample in a format new with this body, and Sony's count implies about 33.5 MB per frame. Canon's counter is the one that beats the archive: the R6 Mark II's samples allow 7% fewer RAW and 18% fewer C-RAW frames than the manual promises, because Canon's quoted 26.1 MB is below the 29.4 MB archive file and Canon divides all 32 billion bytes by it with no reserve (the study's arithmetic gives 1,169 to Canon's 1,170). Read the two together: on a Nikon, treat the counter as a floor; on a Canon, leave a margin; on a Sony, either number is close enough to plan a card around.

Why a 128 GB card shows 119 GB

Card makers count a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. Lexar prints "1GB = 1 billion bytes" in the fine print of its card pages, and Apple's storage-capacity note says the same of storage makers generally. Software that counts in binary units divides by 1,073,741,824 instead, so the same 128 billion bytes shows as 119.2 "GB", a 64 GB card as 59.6, a 256 GB card as 238, a 512 GB card as 477 and a 1 TB card as 931. Nothing is missing. Apple's note says OS X Leopard and earlier reported in binary; every newer Mac, Finder included, counts in decimal, so your Mac shows the card near its printed size, while a Windows PC typically shows the lower figure. This calculator uses decimal bytes for the card and decimal megabytes for the files, so the two units never mix.

That mix is where most online card calculators slip. Most either multiply the card's gigabytes by 1,024 before dividing by a file size in decimal megabytes, which overstates the count by 2 to 7%, or apply a flat 7% "formatting loss" that is really the units gap in disguise, which understates it by about the same amount. Formatting itself costs far less: by our own arithmetic, the file system on a 128 GB card takes well under 1% of it. So the calculator keeps a 0.5% reserve by default, and offers 96% if you want a margin.

Why no two RAW files are the same size

Every compressed RAW mode finds repetition in the sensor data and stores it once, so a frame with large smooth areas, a clear sky or a studio backdrop, packs smaller than a frame full of foliage, fabric or grain. High ISO adds noise, and noise has no repetition, so it compresses worst of all. Canon's R6 Mark II manual says it plainly: "File size varies by shooting conditions (such as cropping/aspect ratio, subject, ISO speed, Picture Style, and Custom Functions)". In the archive behind this calculator, two files from the same body in the same mode at the same pixel count differed by up to 1.42 times: a Nikon D7000 in Compressed 14-bit produced a 16.3 MB file and a 23.1 MB one. Uncompressed modes are the exception. They store a fixed number of bytes per pixel, so the count barely moves from scene to scene: the study's 15 modern Sony uncompressed files varied 4% per pixel, against 35% for Canon C-RAW, the widest spread of any mode (the study printed 39% before we moved one standard RAW file out of the C-RAW group).

Compressed vs lossless vs uncompressed RAW: how much the mode changes the count

The mode you pick moves the count more than the brand does. In same-day pairs from the same body, Nikon's Compressed setting came out at 87% of Lossless, HE* at 62% and HE at 43%; Sony Compressed at 84% of Lossless and 51% of Uncompressed; Fujifilm Compressed at 67% of Lossless, with Lossless itself 53% of Uncompressed; and Canon C-RAW at 57% of standard RAW. Fujifilm's uncompressed default is the one most worth changing. The format pages for NEF, ARW, RAF and CR3 explain what each setting keeps and discards, and the study's mode comparison has every pair.

Method and assumptions

• The card. Printed gigabytes times 1,000,000,000 bytes, of which we assume 99.5% is usable. That share is our assumption, not a sourced figure. Tick "Leave a margin" to use 96% instead.
• The file. For a listed camera, the median size of the full-resolution single-shot sample files for that body and RAW mode in the raw.pixls.us archive, snapshot of September 28, 2026. The archive lists sizes in binary megabytes; we convert to the decimal megabytes Finder shows. Crops, pixel-shift composites, Dual Pixel and reduced-size files are excluded.
• Storage blocks. Cards store files in fixed blocks: 32 KB on cards up to 32 GB, 128 KB on 64 and 128 GB cards, 256 KB on 256 and 512 GB cards, 512 KB on 1 and 2 TB cards, the sizes in the SD Association's formatting table (reproduced in the mkfs.exfat manual). Each file is rounded up to whole blocks. Up to 128 GB this matches the card table in our RAW file size study exactly; that table used 128 KB blocks on 256 and 512 GB cards, so its counts there run up to 0.35% higher.
• The count. Usable bytes divided by the rounded-up file size, rounded down, as in the study's card table; a test script checks this page against every cell of it.

Things the count does not include. RAW+JPEG: add the JPEG's size and enter the total as your own file size; Canon's R6 Mark II figures are in the FAQ. Dual-slot backup: a mirrored second slot gives you one card's count, not two. Sony's 40,000-image limit: the a7 IV and a7 V help guides cap each card at 40,000 stills, and the counter shows "9999" whenever more than 9,999 frames remain; by our arithmetic, any Sony file under about 49 MB reaches that cap on a 2 TB card before the card fills. Video on the same card. And each card's exact user area, which we could not source.

Data and limits

The figures come from 1,540 full-resolution single-shot files covering 922 camera bodies and 46 makers, read from the raw.pixls.us index on September 28, 2026; the method and every number are in How big is a RAW file?, our data study on the same archive. The files are contributed test shots, mostly color charts and daylight scenes, often at base ISO, and most bodies have exactly one file per mode. The calculator shows the file count next to each mode, and a range where there is more than one. Of the 1,540 files, 1,434 are CC0 and 106 are CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; the result says which license applies to the files behind your number. Where the archive does not record which compression a file used, the mode label says so rather than guessing, which matters most for Fujifilm's "compressed" uploads and for Sony bodies released since 2021, where "compressed" can mean either setting. A few labels we corrected: the archive's lone Sony a7 file is tagged uncompressed by its uploader but is 25 MB for 24 megapixels, half the size an uncompressed file would be, so it is listed here as Compressed; a Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III file tagged C-RAW is, by its uploader's own note, standard RAW; and the Sony a230, a380, a850 and a900 files tagged compressed are too large per pixel for Sony's compressed mode, so their mode shows as not recorded. To measure a camera before you buy a card, our free sample RAW files cover 14 formats, and the EXIF viewer reads the compression setting out of a Sony file without uploading it.

FAQ

How many RAW photos can a 128 GB card hold?

About 5,100 from a 24 megapixel camera in a compressed (lossy) mode, about 4,300 in lossless and about 2,500 uncompressed, using the median size of measured sample files. A 45 megapixel camera fits about 3,400, 2,300 and 1,600, and a 61 megapixel camera about 1,800, 1,600 and 1,000. Pick your camera in the calculator for its own figure; your camera's counter will usually show fewer.

How many RAW photos does 1 TB hold?

About 39,500 from a 24 megapixel camera in a compressed mode, 33,300 lossless or 19,600 uncompressed; about 26,700, 18,200 and 12,200 from a 45 megapixel camera; and about 14,400, 12,500 and 8,000 from a 61 megapixel camera. On a Sony body, note the 40,000-image limit per card stated in the a7 IV and a7 V help guides, which a 1 TB card nearly reaches with 24 megapixel compressed files.

Why does my 128 GB SD card show 119 GB?

Because the card maker counts 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes and the software you are looking at counts it as 1,073,741,824. Divide 128 billion by the second figure and you get 119.2. Nothing is missing. Apple's storage-capacity note says Macs newer than OS X Leopard count in decimal, so Finder shows the card near its printed size; a Windows PC typically shows the lower figure. Formatting then sets aside a small amount for the file system, well under 1% by our arithmetic.

Is lossless compressed RAW much bigger than compressed?

On Nikon, barely: in same-day pairs from the same body, Nikon's Compressed file was 87% of Lossless, while its High Efficiency modes are 43% and 62%. Sony Compressed was 84% of Lossless across nine bodies, with the a7 V the outlier at 53%. Fujifilm Compressed was 67% of Lossless, and Canon C-RAW 57% of standard RAW (raw.pixls.us sample pairs, September 2026). Lossless keeps every sensor value; the compressed modes discard some precision to get smaller.

Does shooting RAW+JPEG change the count?

Yes, by the size of the JPEG. Canon's EOS R6 Mark II manual lists 1,170 RAW frames on a 32 GB card and 890 with a JPEG alongside, at 26.1 plus 8.2 MB per frame; in C-RAW the count drops from 2,350 to 1,430. To estimate your own, add your camera's JPEG size to its RAW size and enter the total in the "your own file size" box. If your camera writes the JPEG to a second card, the RAW card's count is unchanged.

Why does my camera's counter show a different number than this calculator?

Your camera assumes one fixed file size for a standard scene, and each maker picks it differently. In 17 body, mode and card combinations checked against the manuals (October 2026), the calculator landed above the counter in 14: 39 to 75% more frames than Nikon's counters in Lossless and Compressed, within 16% of Sony's a7 IV counter, once just below it, and 7 to 18% fewer than Canon's R6 Mark II counter. For the closest figure, enter one of your own file sizes.

Related reading: How big is a RAW file? Sizes by camera and format · Free RAW to JPEG converter · Free RAW EXIF viewer · download sample RAW files (CC0) · All RAW formats RevelRaw opens