Help with camera SD card issue

I have a 1 GB SD card for my old Nikon D50 camera. For some reason, every time I import my photos onto my laptop and put the SD card back in the camera, the number of photos I can take goes down. It used to hold 250+ photos and now it can only hold 89. What is the problem?

Your description is not clear enough to understand the actual problem

Here is the workflow many of us have been using since the introduction of digital cameras.

* At the end of each shooting day, remove the memory card from your camera.
* Insert it into the card reader on your computer.
* Use your computer skills to copy (NOT move) all the images to a new file folder you have named for the subject/location and date.
* Once all the images are all safely on your computer, remove the card and reinsert the card into your camera and use the format feature to format the card.

Do this routinely and you should not have any more problems

Format the card in your camera.

How are you "importing" the photos?
Which computer and operating system?

If you are using some sort of image cataloguing application (example: Photos on Macintosh), then there's an option to delete images from the media after importing. Deselect that option from the application's preferences.

The formatting in the camera is very simple minded and doesn't handle problems well. Try using the formatter from the link and see if that improves things. You may get a card not formatted error when you put it back in the camera, in which case just format it in camera as well.

Format the card in the camera. DO NOT format it with your photo software on the computer. DO NOT simply "erase" the photos from the card in the camera.

Do a FORMAT of the card IN THE CAMERA and it should solve the problem.

By the way, I have never, ever, heard of the format function in the camera to be "simple minded" and not work. Try formatting the card in the camera FIRST before attempting to use some third party software online.

Are you copy and pasting, or cutting and pasting? Using the first method keeps the pics on the SD card reducing the capacity. Using the second method removes the pics from the SD card freeing up memory.

Import? Use Windows Explorer / File Manager or (Mac) Finder to do the copying then format the card to regain all the space back. Formatting deletes everything in the card and keeps it healthy. The D50 can use up to 2GB SD cards BTW although it can't use SDHC and newer.

Sounds like you're doing everything correct. You're copying photos from the card to your computer. However what you're not doing, as it would seem, is that you're not formatting the card with the camera's format function. Doing this will clear out the file system and provide you with full capacity of the card.

Put the card into your camera and use the camera's format function. DO NOT ever format a card with any other device as it will put a different file system onto the card and the camera won't be able to write to it.

You need to make sure all photos are saved on your computer and then format the card in the camera.