true indication of remaining space on CF Express card

[Thomas Stellwag]

inserting an Angelbird 512GB (newest software on cam and on card) into my Z shows with a 128GB SD  1.7K pictures. Setting  RAW uncomressed, 14 bit and  JPEG normal for SD. This is the max number of pictures to store on the SD in JPEG std. If I take the SD as reserve it goes up to 4.6K pictures on CF Express, which anyhow correlates to the card volume. I bought it to have enough space for some additional videos on a trip.
Now my unsecurity is: in case I stay with the SD for Jpegs, is then then the camera still recording onto the CF Express in case the SD is full, or does it stop with or without any warning? Most probably I will never reach that amount of pictures and I would have no problems to change the SD against an empty one. Its only good to know.

[Wally]

Hi Thomas,
Assuming you refer to a Z7 II from your data points? My Angelbird 512GB SE card displays 5.5k estimated picture capacity for Raw /14bit / lossless (newly formatted). This is quite a difference to your 4.6k -
Hence I believe your settings (stored on the primary card, your SD) have an impact.
Did you format both cards? Did you check the card recording options? I would recommend to choose the overflow setting, once the first card is full the camera continues automatically to record onto the second.
P.S. extremely happy with my Angelbird card which I used extensively in Africa during the last few weeks

Best
Walter

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Remember that the camera gives worst-case estimates of how many images will fit in the remaining space of the card; the true number of files is in practice always higher.

[Thomas Stellwag]

Walter, Ilkka, thanks for your answers.

I did a comparison and put the CFE card in my D850. It shows (after formatting) 5k pictures RAW 14 bit uncompressed. Same card newly formatted in Z7II shows 5.6K pictures. It only shows true values when 2nd slot is empty. This was my mistake, when posting first time. But now it is the same as Walter gets. In case I put an SD card for JPEGs in the 2nd slot, the camera shows only the number of shots for the SD card, which is for sure depending on which JPEG quality and how big the SD card is. F.e. a 128 Sony and JPEG normal shows 3.7k images.

my question still is: when will the camera stop recording?  reaching the end of the 2nd card or going till end of first card and not recording JPEGs in case 2nd card is full and I do not exchange it?
And after exchanging the SD, which amount will the counter tell me? remaining RAWs (which I expect), remaining new JPEGs and maybe less Raws without indication?  Is there anywhere a line in the menue to see the 2 cards seperately?

[Ilkka Nissilä]

You can do the following to test. Copy files to the SD card, they don't need to be image files, so that it is almost full, and then try shooting a few with the two-card setup to see what happen when the last bit of space is gone.

I have shot dual card backup in some situations but I don't remember ever filling the cards when doing this.

[Thomas Stellwag]

thanks Ilkka, you gave me the important hint.
I was not willing to make even with a small SD card of 4GB senseless pictures until it was full. But filling it before to a certain extend did not come to my mind.

Inserting it empty the camera showed  258 pics, prefilled I did my test with 20 pics left, which were indicated at the cameras display.
After taking those, the camera did not release anymore, even the main card was more or less empty with more than 5K pictures remaining.
Switching in the menu to: main card RAW and SD card reserve made the camera work again, showing the total amount of pics on CFE card

Now at least I know, that the camera react the same way, no matter which card is filled