Ratio of good to bad pics from a day out?

Paul11

Paul11

Paul11

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i was thinking that with digital photography anyone can take a camera and go out and snap away hundreds of picutres and get a few really great shots, by luck, more than anything else.

so i thought, what makes a good photographer, is capturing the photo you were going after in the first place.

i also thought that the less you delete from a days shoot, the better (in theory)

what percentage of pictures that you take would you say are "keepers"

im probablly running at a 10-25% that i take, i like. with only a one or two as really good ones.
 
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robmiller said:
Why artificially remove one of the best parts about shooting digital?
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do you mean the ability to delete the bad ones?

im not saying remove it, im saying that i feel that the less i delete, the better i was in taking the shots in the first place.
 
Depends why your throwing away the pics and what you class as being bad..

Me, if its out of focus, cropped heads/feet, colour all wrong, too bright, then i bin it right away.

Then i go through the rest, mostly i will have 6-10 of each pic i was after, so maybe keep 2 out of each. So looking at it that way, i guess i will bin about 70% of the pics for that days shoot.

But thats why i take so many pics in the 1st place :) when using film, a roll of 26, i normaly keep 20-22 of them as i take longer to set up and shoot what i want, digital is good for off the cuff.

Of course, Photoshop is good, sometimes you can get a good picture from a ok-ish pic by cropping it right down.

But if its too bright, bin it, if its too dark, you can work with it, at least for me.

<ColiN>
 
It really depends on where i am, and if i forcing myself to find good shots where they just dont exist.
E.g stick me in tailand 90% keepers, stick me in mcdonalds car park and i might get 5%.
 
Cuchulain said:
I'm sure I read somewhere that Andy Rouse wrote he'd feel lucky if he only managed and handful of keepers from each shoot.
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I do wildlife as well mainly, obviously on less impressive scale ;) but I'm 100% happy with only 2 or 3 out of 100!

Shooting weddings I aim for 33 out of 100 keepers! (Bearing in mind I do the candid stuff)
 
i am more careful with the shots i take, as in not snap happy, maybe because i'm still used to a small memory card (started with just a 512mb CF) and even though i've got much more space i'm still cautious. However, when i'm doing macro shots then i'll keep maybe 10% as the rest will be OOF :D, with landscapes etc i'll probably keep about 40-50%
 
I only really delete
oof.jpg
shots, therefore I tend to keep 95+% of the photos I take, which would kinda explain why ive got ~20k photos in my Aperture Library which weighs in at about 150gb... (Glad HDDs are so cheap)

I only have about 2% printed and put about 1% into my online galleries (when I get around to rebuilding them)
 
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Fstop11 said:
I go out and vary rarely come back with more than 20 shots these days. I keep a lot but then I don't take many.

When I started out I just filled up my cards because I could.
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In the last couple of months I have started to reduce the number of shots I take on a trip. I am starting to concentrate on the angles and shots more than I used to, which explains the increase in number of keepers. Although I still probably only process about 20% depending on what I shot.

I keep about 95% of the shots though as I hate deleting photos, even if they are totally rubbish.:o
 
I only keep prob about 2 or 3 out of say 40 shots but then im new at this and it's safe to say im er crap at it but i enjoy myself.
 
It entirely depends on what I'm shooting. I've gone out before and taken 400 shots and binned the lot because I wasn't happy with them. But it also depends on what you class as a 'keeper' as well I think. I've taken countless shots that are all fine to the untrained eye, everything is in focus, no feet cut off etc etc but the shot doesn't stand out so it goes in the bin. I find I have to be harsh as with wildlife you could easily end up with thousands upon thousands of 'record' shots which to me is a little pointless.

Take richmond Park for example. I've been there so many times to take deer photos and so often come home with shot after shot of the deers nice and sharp but just sitting around doing nothing etc etc. After a while you stop keeping those shots even though there is nothing technically wrong with them. But you have to because it makes it more worth while when you get something a bit more special
 
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