hi guys, mike here from cheshire uk, just purchased a used 300d and i am having the same problem with a 4gb cf card, however, i took and held around 120 pictures in high .jpg format and the counter counts down under the 999 mark so it is just that the counter is only a 999 total. i had a 80-200 af lens from my old canon1000 film camera and stuck it on my 300d and the results were fantastic, works well, however remember you wont get the full frame as in the original afs lense but the quality is real good. all the best to you guys.