Forgetting an SD card is probably the number one thing all photographers have in common. It’s right up there with leaving the lens cap on or thinking the battery was fully charged. And when it happens, it stings, because almost no camera will let you do anything without a card in the slot. Unless you’ve spent thousands on a Leica or a Hasselblad with built-in memory, your high-end gear turns into a very fancy paperweight.
The irony? Every camera does have internal storage, but it’s reserved for the operating system, locked away where your RAW files can’t touch it. That’s why I was surprised when my Fujifilm X100 let me take photos without an SD card. No workaround, no setting to change, it just worked. Which, of course, made me wonder: what’s it actually like?
So let’s get into the details. The original Fujifilm X100 shoots 12-megapixel photos, and a single RAW file weighs in at just under 20 MB. That’s not huge by today’s standards, but it’s still too much for the camera’s mysterious little stash of internal memory. How much space are we actually working with here? Around 20 MB. Not gigabytes. Megabytes.
That means you get exactly one photo. One shot. After that, the camera politely asks you to either delete the image or insert an SD card if you want to keep shooting. Now, if you’re curious enough you can squeeze more than one photo out of the X100’s internal memory. It just takes a little fiddling through the menus.
Hit the Menu button, scroll down to Image Quality, and switch from RAW to Normal. Then go to Image Size and choose according to your needs. If you leave the aspect ratio and dimensions at default, you’ll go from one lonely shot to seven usable photos. Not bad for a camera that wasn’t supposed to store anything.
Want to stretch it further? Fujifilm lets you shoot in 3:2 or 16:9, which can get you a few more (or fewer) shots depending on the setting. For this article, I chose to shoot 28 photos at 3 megapixels (2176 × 1448 pixels, 3:2 aspect ratio). Surprisingly decent if you’re just snapping for fun or sharing online.
Since you’re limited to JPEG, keep in mind that your film simulation will be baked in. So pick one you like: Provia, Astia, Velvia, or Monochrome and its variations are the only ones to choose from.
For this photo walk, I chose the Monochrome + R Filter picture profile to give the images a point-and-shoot feel. Before diving into the images themselves, I think it’s worth showing just how big of a difference there is between a 12-megapixel and a 3-megapixel photo.
You’re essentially losing about 75% of the image detail when dropping from 12 to 3 megapixels. But that might not be such a bad thing. Most of us enjoy photos and videos on our phones anyway, and if you’re reading this on a smartphone, these images might actually look perfectly fine to you.
If you’re on a laptop or desktop, though, I’m curious: do they still look detailed enough? Let me know in the comments.
These might not match the quality you’re used to, but 28 3-megapixel photos are a lot better than being limited to just one. All you have to do now is transfer them. If you bought a first-generation X100 second-hand, there’s a good chance it didn’t come with the original PC cable. So how do you move your photos to a phone or computer?
Insert an SD card into your X100 and turn the camera on. Press the Playback button, then the Menu button. Scroll down to Copy and select “Internal Memory → Card.” Once the photos are copied, take out the SD card and put it into a slot or reader that works with your phone or computer.
That’s it – all you need to know about using the Fujifilm X100 without an SD card. It’s impractical, limited, and honestly kind of fun. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that even when your gear isn’t perfect, there’s always a way to make something out of it.
And here’s a simple way to avoid ever finding yourself in this situation: keep a spare SD card in your wallet. It takes up almost no space and could save your next photo walk.
