There’s memory in your camera and memory in your computer.  If you go beyond what your camera’s memory disk can hold, it will lock up on you.  If you go beyond your computer’s memory storage, you can actually crash your computer.  Been there, done that.

If your camera’s memory disk is full, you will have problems getting your pictures off.  What to do? After turning off the camera, pull the disk out of the camera and insert it into your computer’s disk slots.  Use your computer’s software to download from the slot drive.  This may save the day. 

The problem is that the camera uses some of that disk for processing and once the memory is full of photos, there’s no memory for the camera to process. So it locks up. Make sure you know how many photos of a certain size can be put on the camera’s memory disk.  Consult your camera’s user manual.  If you shoot lots of photos, such as when you use the high speed shooting setting and get 5 or 8 photos in rapid succession, be sure to use the largest memory disk your camera can use.  Otherwise just keep in mind the limits. 

Photos are memory pigs, especially if you shoot at sizes of 3M or 5M.  This is a size that can produce a photo large enough to print as a poster.  Since most of us amateurs don’t need to shoot that large, consider shooting your photos in a smaller size.  Have a look at your camera’s user manual to see what sizes your camera offers.  As a web master, I often have to shrink photos to make it possible to post them. These days, web software shrinks the photos down automatically, so if you don’t intend to shoot for large posters, consider 3M your largest and best for standard prints and posting online.

Now for your computer.  It too has a limit on how many photos can be stored in memory.  If you keep downloading from your camera and storing them, you will over-run the limit.  One rule to follow is: DELETE ALL BLURRY PHOTOS.  Yes, it hurts sometimes. That picture of the bright red bird that would have been perfect if it hadn’t moved.  Delete! Try again.  You’ll get it someday and you’ll get it right.  As for a blurry photo of a rare bird, keep it.  Even as a blurry photo, it will help with identification, but don’t post it on ebird.  Macaulay will hate you.

There are various ways these days to store photos.  Search “store photos” and you’ll get lots of answers.  Photos used to be stored on CD disks. That can still be done.  Or you can store them in the “cloud.”  This protects them even if your computer is destroyed.  I use a special “back-up” service that allows me to click on an icon and do an immediate back-up of all the photos that I took that day.  (After deleting the blurry ones, of course.)  Many amateur photographers are content to post their best on Flickr.com but it is always best to have copies of those that you post so you can prove you are the owner in the event that you sell a few.  Always read any emails that are sent to you about your photo storage service.  By a matter of a few days, I rescued my photos from ClubPhoto before they went out of business.  It taught me another lesson: Anytime you are working with technology, you are in for an adventure.  Good luck and have fun.