[Canada_Rockies]

I specialize in aviation photography and to be honest shooting fast moving aircraft requires lots and lots of frames to be shot to ensure that at least 2 in a series of 5 or 8 frames are perfectly clear. It also allows me to capture unusual events such as aircraft striking birds on take-off. I remember just the other day I had a Boeing 777 departing from Sydney Airport and 3 or 4 of the 10 frames showed dark black smoke trailing from the tyres and only 2 of those 4 frames were absolutely perfectly clear. That day I filled a 4GB card in 2 hours.

To have 100% of your shots be of publishable quality would be great but the reality of the situation is that it is almost impossible.

I worked as an accountant at a small newspaper in the late 70's and early 80's, and they expected printable results from two frames out of a 36 exposure roll once they had me trained.

I was taking school sports for them while carting my children around. They were really picky, I must admit, but on the other hand, there were quite a few award plaques on the walls, one of which was for third best weekly newspaper sports coverage in Canada, so I guess they knew what they were talking about.

[MRRiley]

...
you can get much more usable shots if you double check your work while out in the field, sometimes i've retaken the same scene 5-6 times before i got the exposure just and angle just the way i want it.

the digital age has done a wonderful job at making the world your teacher.

I agree with that point completely... And as you say, this check is a good guard against "empty SD Card slot syndrome".

I just don't take the time to delete the bad shots unless I am in a break in the action (whatever that might be) and even then they have to be really bad and I have to be short enough on space to make it worthwhile.

[Canada_Rockies]

Why worry if Photographer X shoots 5000 photos of a particular event/subject/whatever while Photographer Y only shoots 300?

Why is it important for any given photographer to conform to anyone else's perception of the "right way" to shoot? If you like to take selective shots then by all means do so. If you like to blast away and fill up 10 4GB cards in an afternoon, then by all means do so. There is no "right" answer. And it’s up to each individual photographer to decide what is a "keeper".

Phil is right that the "quantity" style does cost in terms of post-processing but if thats what floats your boat, go for it. The "quality" style however sometime exacts it's own type of revenge in moments missed by a hair. Only YOU can decide which you prefer and both (or even a combination of the two) can be the right answer for YOU!

One last thought... Keep in mind that most people learn far more from their mistakes than they do from their, often accidental, successes.

Well said, Mike.

[silent_eyes]

All,
With our digital cameras, its so easy and fun to take large quantities of pictures. One can even do exposure bracketing to be sure of that right exposure on at least one image.

But then at home, these larger quantities of photos exact their revenge in requiring more effort to select the right ones to keep and which ones to delete. After spending this morning catching up, i have sworn again to the photo gods that i'll try to emphasize quality over quantity. This time i really will

I do think that anyone trying to seriously learn better ways of photography can benefit from taking large numbers of photos just to learn what works from what doesn't work. Its been said that one has to take at least 10,000 pictures before they experience their first keeper

But then for more experienced folks, i wonder if we can't benefit from exercising more judgement and less shutter clicks. Quality over quantity that is.

An experienced member of our photo club, and his wife just got back from a trip to Yellowstone where they together took over 3000 pictures. Last i heard, they had winnowed this down to 300 keepers and were trying to delete even further.

I have to admit that i'm not nearly as good as deleting worthless photos, but i'm trying. Maybe they were justified in taking more pictures, because if they missed something, wasn't going to be easy to go back and take that better angle.

Anyway, any thoughts or strategies about this subject are welcome.

Phil B.

well, first, we need to know quality treshold for a specific shooter, and what his subjects are. For example, if you shoot studio portraits, you'll probably do about 10 or so shots of same expression, angle, lighting,..., then change the setup in some way, and do that again, and once you get to see full size shots, you'll discard those with eyes closed, or hair in the middle of nowhere, or something, then those with weird look on models face, and you'll end up with one or two shots for specific setup. After sorting out all shots, you'll then pick let's say 15-20 out of 50 really good ones, and those will be your keepers. Now, if you shoot landscapes, there's a lot less to go on, usually becouse of clear idea what you're going for in shot, so you'll maybe do bracketing, maybe some whitebalance experimenting (I doubt this one becouse of the raw), or try some creative filters, fog or soft for example. this way, you'll have maybe 2 or 3, or up to 5 shots (bracketing) to choose from, and once you see them full size or printed, you easily pick "the one". shooting street is completely different, IMHO... you have moods, you have weather-factor, maybe you're thinking about something and then relate to it through subjects on the street, so you'll have bunch of shots which looked really good and interesting to you at the moment of shooting, but not so good later. So, I guess, this is area where you'll be taking really a lot of shots, which will in the end be private keepers, something not really good, but you're really fond of it, or more usually deleted or something, not worth second look.

Maybe the only thing which could really be considered a problem with quantity is crop/PS work... to many shots are taken with ideas like:"ok, it's not really good, but I'll snap one, and then crop-rotate-PS-it-to-hell, so maybe something will turn out".
Ok, I understand we all need practice, after all - what are first shots with new lenses? not some great keepers, but usually shot of box in which lens came, or table, or something...

so, quantity over quality? I'd go for fewer shots, but then again, if you get 10 great shots a day, does it really matter if you waited for 6 hours in the same spot, and took those 10, or walked around snapping everything, then pick 10 out of 3000? It's keepers that count

[VF-19]

This weekend I shot my cousin's soccer games (3 games over 2 days). While there was some slightly unnerving incidents, namely pouring rain and the tripod took a hit from the ball, I managed to crank out about 1000 shots. Yikes. Now granted, I was shooting at maximum frame rate in Jpeg mode, but I felt that in order to get the shots that you sometimes see in the papers, I had to generate a large amount of "waste" shots, which are going to be the few shots before the picture and the few shots after the picture I'm going to keep.

It's my second time shooting a sports event, and I basically followed the ball around the field, and soccer is a fairly fast sport.

[philbaum]

Thanks to all for the great reasoned replies!!

We have a really good, kind bird photographer in our club that had this advice: don't put a great deal of effort in photographing very routine birds. he's even violated that a time or two himself.

But the advice is good in that it suggests assessing a potential photograph and what its worth is in real terms. I've sold some photographs but am confident i'm still an amateur in assessing good photos. But i'm getting better at it and am more likely to delete all the photos out of a casual day's effort, than i was a year ago. I'm currently reading a book on composition, that i hope will improve my ability to sense a good opportunity. I was at a political event a month back, and the local newspaper reporter took his shots with a Point and Shoot camera, while I, an amateur was using my SLR. He quickly took some photos that he probably figured were good enough for a low resolution newspaper and then wisely spent 90% of his time jotting down notes for the newspaper column.

I especially like my Pentax camera's ability to set my camera into an exposure bracketing mode, and then use single shots or bracketing shots depending on the situation and how much time i have to get it right. Good camera design.

thanks for the tips.

[aabram]

It's easier when you concentrate not on ditching the bad ones but rather keeping the good ones.
Don't go through your pics looking for bad ones that you can delete. You end up debating with yourself "but it's not THAT bad" and before you know it, you've kept all those mediocre pics. Just look for really good ones, pick those out and delete the rest. It really is easier that way.

[navcom]

Just look for really good ones, pick those out and delete the rest. It really is easier that way.

Can I hire you to clean my house?

[philbaum]

It's easier when you concentrate not on ditching the bad ones but rather keeping the good ones.
Don't go through your pics looking for bad ones that you can delete. You end up debating with yourself "but it's not THAT bad" and before you know it, you've kept all those mediocre pics. Just look for really good ones, pick those out and delete the rest. It really is easier that way.

Thats quite exceptional advice. Why invest more time with the mediocre pictures?

I've definitely going to incorporate this idea. But how does one know what's mediocre? So I think i have to do both. I'm presently reading a book that shows like 4 to 6 crops of the same picture, then assess the qualities of each.

I think really good photographers often overlook the time they spent developing their artistic judgement. Or take it for granted.

So the formula might be:

Develop technical skills + Refine and think about artistic judgement + work with best images = success

The thing about artistic judgement - is very individualistic. And it doesn't happen without spending time on it.

[philbaum]

Boris,
I like your comments about the type of shooter. Your website is quite instructive and very well done. Quotes are great and i especially liked your abstracts with feet and all of your street photos. Started my day off right.

Phil

[todd]

Per Phils recommendation, I also enjoyed a browse through your site Boris! Inspirational quotes and really nice work!

[silent_eyes]

Boris,
I like your comments about the type of shooter. Your website is quite instructive and very well done. Quotes are great and i especially liked your abstracts with feet and all of your street photos. Started my day off right.

Phil

well, thank you very much It means a lot

[Kerrowdown]

I would love to say I can always get the perfect pre visualised image in one shutter depression. But hey, I never managed that yet in 30 years with either film or digital.

That does not make me a poor photographer or a good photographer, it comes down to choice. For example bracketing is to perfect exposure, right, but really it’s comes down to which looks best, or which one you can extract the most detail from, or which best suits the “shooting brief”.

Memory storage card options are now so cheap to purchase (even branded Pro type versions), it’s not an issue to take large numbers if you so wish. Each to their own, but enjoy what you do.

[Billgscott]

Memory is cheap, memories are priceless.

Since I went digital I do not take cameras off continuous mode.

I went on safari last year and took 2500 shots.