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I have a Canon Rebel T3 and a Lexar Platinum II 8 GB SDHC class 6 card.

I can only fit about 180 photos on this card that are roughly 5 MB each. Unless my math is really bad, that's only about 900MB used, so I should still have 7 GB left - but I don't.

When I plug this card into my computer and dump all the photos off, it says it has 8GB capacity, but every time I go out to shoot photos the same problem comes up, and I'm limited to under 200 shots and then my camera tells me the card is full.

Can anyone tell me what might be causing this, and any suggestions to help resolve this issue would be appreciated.


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Try formatting the card in the camera, after removing all the photos of course. –  Phil Aug 14 '12 at 1:51
Maybe you have recorded some movie by accident? –  rygel Aug 14 '12 at 6:26
Most likely "hidden" files as others note BUT there are many fake and clone cards available and you may have one of those - with these anything (bad) can happen. –  Russell McMahon Aug 14 '12 at 7:53

2 Answers 2

up vote 4 down vote accepted

There is likely a hidden folder on the card somewhere that is using up your space.

Using a utility like DaisyDisk on the Mac will help identify the missing space, and let you clean it up.

I have found that some cards have ".Trashes" folder that gets created and keeps copies of a bunch of junk you've deleted in the past. removing this folder will let you reclaim your lost space!

Hope that helps!

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Macs place a hidden file and folder on mounted volumes. The file is always small but if you delete files from the card using Finder then they will end up in .Trashes until the the trash is emptied. Some other possible reasons might be you have done some kind of move or copy/delete, or copied something to the card, or maybe you never formatted the card when you first used it in this camera.

Best way forward is to save everything from the card and reformat in camera, then write protect the card before connecting it to any computer especially a Mac.

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It's just good business to format every time, regardless of which computer OS you use. –  Therealstubot Aug 14 '12 at 19:06

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