SD cards, for decades, have been a reliable way to store files – be it photos, videos, or documents. Their hot-swappable nature makes them extremely convenient for workflows that require constant file transfers between devices.This is why they remain the primary storage option for moast DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. Even tho there aren’t many smartphones with microSD card slots available today, they can still read and write to SD cards with an appropriate dongle. This allows you to repurpose old SD cards as archival storage.
Like internal storage options in smartphones, SD cards, too, come in different sizes. The popular ones are 32GB, 64GB, andNot all images are created equal – some have greater detail, a higher bit depth, and more metadata. The device used to capture the image can also adversely impact the number of photos an SD card can hold. Digital cameras allow for professional shooting modes that may produce images with file sizes up to 10 times that of a modern smartphone set to default settings.
Newer Android and iOS devices ship with high-end sensors, capable of capturing high-resolution photos – but this is rarely set as the default option out of the box. When tested on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, the device captured 12 MP photos in the HEIF format – averaging just over 1 MB per image. But the same smartphone, when set to capture full-resolution 48 MP photos in the more compatible JPEG format, produced images weighing an average of 8 MB. Capturing in iPhone’s ProRAW mode, which outputs uncompressed images, led to photos that individually occupied over 70 MB of space.
The case is similar with Android smartphones and DSLRs, where you can adjust the file formats and image quality. If you take these estimates at face value, a 32 GB SD card can hold as many as 32,000 compressed HEIF images – or as few as 500 RAW photos. You also need to consider the fact that the total capacity of storage drives is often a touch less than what’s advertised. So, a 32 GB SD card is highly likely going to offer you around 29 GB and change.
## How to maximize storage space on Android and iOS