hi guys

i've got a D300 and i've recently started shooting in RAW. On the D300,i hv the option of shooting in RAW Uncompressed, Lossy compressed or lossless compressed and also in 12bit or 14bit.

I'm using a Sandisk Extreme III 8GB card.

i've set the camera to shoot in 12bit, however when selecting either lossless compressed, OR uncompressed, there is no change in the capacity of the card (on a freshly formated card, it reads 394 on the LCD). This figure doesnt change irrespective of whether Lossless compressed, or uncompressd RAW is selected.

IF i select lossy compressed, this figure changes to 541 (still 12 bit) and with 14bit selected, the 394 drops to 303 (for lossless compressed, AND uncompressed) or 448 for lossy compressed...

i'm surprised with this because Nikon's manual states that there is around 30% file reduction for uncompressed to lossless compressed and this is not showing on the capacity calculator on the camera.

for travelling on extended trips ie 4-5 weeks, i've got 3 of these CF cards (Extreme 3m 8gb) but i'm wondering if that's going to be enough.

can anyone give any feedback on this or share what their respective card capacities are?

I noticed that if i plug in the D300 to my MAC and read the CF card from the computer, thte 8GB card (after in camera formatting) only shows a capacity of 7.2GB....

these results are reflected on all 3 CF cards that i've got so i can safely rule out faulty card...

and feedback would be appreciated

cheers
Jeelan