Originally posted by joergens.mi Add 1. Pentax ist working very conservative with it's calculations. It is based on the worst possible scenario, otherwise custumor will complain the camera displays 400 photos to be taken, an I get only 398 on my card. Therefore a approch with roundabout 70-80 MB per pictures is correct. Second the camera itself always calculates the free picture numbers bei dividing the free space on the card by the default file size. Therefore you can be really shure, that you will get the numbers shown in the display on yopur card. Typically the posible pictures are (1.5 times the pictures shown in the display even that is conservatively taken. The value is based one measurement done with K20D K5 K3 K1 over the last years) This type of calculation ist no point to complain about in my opinion.
1. I was almost convinced with the answer (thank you very much) before I started little thinking.
2. Calculation of size of an uncompressed 36 Mpx RAW file
7360 * 4912 = 36152320 pixels
36152320 * 14 bit = 506132480 pixels
506132480 / 8 bit = 63266560 Bytes
63266560 / 1024 = 61783.75 KB
61783.75 / 1024 = 60.34 MB (approximate size of 36 Mpx uncompressed RAW file, add a small amount for EXIF data, let it be 60.35 MB)
Now, 32 GB * 1024 = 32768 MB;
32768 / 60.35 = 542 shots available (rounded down to next integer number).
This is not a rocket science.
I cannot explain why RAW DNG files from the K-1 are significantly smaller than the file size as calculated above. Either those are compressed or delivered at significantly reduced bit-depth of 10-bits (that would be BAD). Same applies to PEF files (these are about 42 MB in size). So far, I never got a RAW DNG file bigger than 50 MB.
3. On the other hand, a RAW DNG file taken from Pixel Shift Resolution has a quadruple size of a single RAW file. It could be as much as 156 MB. 156/4 = 39 MB. I'm pointing to the fact that a K-1 user might want to take Pixel Shift Resolution pictures only. In such situation, a 32 GB card would be able to store about 32768 / 160 = 204 shots instead of promised 401.
Is it possible that Ricoh engineers might not understand what they were doing?! So sophisticated camera and so unreliable with simple calculations with different picture-taking modes? Very disappointing indeed. I am not so experienced to know how Canon and Nikon do it but as a Pentaxian I can only say I am very much disappointed in this respect. I am an engineer myself.
P.S. I am very happy with the K-1 as such. I might want just invest into larger SD cards. Still, is it a wedding or a large music festival coverage, an aspiring professional photographer must be aware how many shots are still available on their memory cards. Otherwize, a prize-winning shot might be unexpectedly lost.