how do i delete my camera roll to free up usage space

You have to delete the photos in the camera roll itself. Tap the Camera Roll album, then the edit button, select (tap on) the photos that you want to delete and then tap Delete.

Yes, it should free up the storage. Yours is not the first instance where I have seen this happen and I don't know why the storage reading isn't correct.

Try rebooting the iPad and see of that corrects the storage reading.

Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider if it appears on the screen - let go of the buttons. Let the iPad start up.

Are you using Photo Stream?

The links below have instructions for deleting photos.

iOS and iPod: Syncing photos using iTunes

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236

iPad Tip: How to Delete Photos from Your iPad in the Photos App

http://ipadacademy.com/2011/08/ipad-tip-how-to-delete-photos-from-your-ipad-in-t he-photos-app

Another Way to Quickly Delete Photos from Your iPad (Mac Only)

http://ipadacademy.com/2011/09/another-way-to-quickly-delete-photos-from-your-ip ad-mac-only

How to Delete Photos from iPad

http://www.wondershare.com/apple-idevice/how-to-delete-photos-from-ipad.html

iPhoto for iOS (iPad): Delete photos from iPhoto

http://support.apple.com/kb/ph3137

How to: Batch Delete Photos on the iPad

http://www.lifeisaprayer.com/blog/2010/how-batch-delete-photos-ipad

(With iOS 5.1, use 2 fingers)

How to Delete Photos from iCloud’s Photo Stream

http://www.cultofmac.com/124235/how-to-delete-photos-from-iclouds-photo-stream/

How much space is used by your Other? You may be able to reduce.

How Do I Get Rid Of The “Other” Data Stored On My iPad Or iPhone?

http://tinyurl.com/85w6xwn

With an iOS device, the “Other” space in iTunes is used to store things like documents, settings, caches, and a few other important items. If you sync lots of documents to apps like GoodReader, DropCopy, or anything else that reads external files, your storage use can skyrocket. With iOS 5/6, you can see exactly which applications are taking up the most space. Just head to Settings > General > Usage, and tap the button labeled Show All Apps. The storage section will show you the app and how much storage space it is taking up. Tap on the app name to get a description of the additional storage space being used by the app’s documents and data. You can remove the storage-hogging application and all of its data directly from this screen, or manually remove the data by opening the app. Some applications, especially those designed by Apple, will allow you to remove stored data by swiping from left to right on the item to reveal a Delete button.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Ensure you are reading "GB" and not "MB", big difference I have occasionally missed as well. I have also seen a similar issue with my Photo Library which is synced from iPhoto. Some, but not all photos were duplicated and could not be deleted even by turning off syncing through iTunes. A Restore to a backup was the only way to delete these duplicates.

I have the exact same problem -- the camera roll is using 1.9GB of space...but there are no pictures in the camera roll. I can swipe to delete the camera roll from the usage screen, but nothing happens and the 2GB remains 'used' by camera roll when I return to the usage screen.

I suspect that this is related to a bug with the camera connection kit where pictures that are transfered and then remove somehow never get completed deleted. A couple months ago I transfered about 2GB of pictures from my camera while traveling, which is about the same time this probem began.

So far i've found no solution, including backing up the iPad and then restoring..

If you sync to iTune, it should recover the space.

I'm facing the same problem too. I have no idea what's going on:

I've even restarted my ipad.

The culprit for my case turns out to be thumbnail files. I used iExplorer to remove them, forcing rebuilt.

I have the same problem. 600MB in the camera roll which cannot be deleted. Tried from settings, usage, photos, delete. Tried to reset the ipad holding the two buttons, tried to sync with itunes. Nothing worked.

So, do we need to buy an app for deleting photos? Any other way?

I can confirm that this is the fix. I use the Camera Connection Kit to retrieve RAW photos from my camera memory cards. I had 2.0GB in the camera roll despite having only 6 photos on the roll. Rebooting, deleting camera roll had no effect.

I used the demo version of iExplorer (www.macroplant.com) to look at the files on my iPad. Under the DCIM directory, there were a number of directories representing attempts of the connection Kit to import files. Many of these had the raw file still in them despite all the imports being deleted, at 25MB per time. Deleted all of these individually - I now have 1.2GB of additional space with no impact on the camera roll function.

I have noticed that I had problems importing raw photos. Often I would click on import and the process would fail. I would then repeat until it worked. Potentially therefore these left-over files represent failed attempts to import photos where the file was taken on but where the import subsequently failed.

I will confirm that Tim's post above solves the problem. Nothing else worked. Looks like some pesky .CR2 files got stuck in the camera roll. Lesson learned; I'm only working in jpegs in future when connecting to ipad. I'll save the RAW files for when I'm working on the PC.