How many do you take, how many do you keep?

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Tricky01

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Simon
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I do photography purely as a hobby but I love taking the camera out when I can and snapping away. Take this afternoon for example, drove down to Hosehill Lake near Reading and wandered about for 2 hours taking pics. I try to only snap things that look good (duh!) but typically I can run off 200+ pics quite quickly. I then get home, pop them on the laptop and go through...

...delete
...delete
...delete
...delete
...keep...just
...delete
...keep

So I'll generally delete at least 50%, some because I've taken several of the same thing slightly differently framed, others because I get back and just think it looks crap. It looked nice out there, but now I think no one wants to see that. I'm out there and conscious of this, and I *try* to limit myself, but still end up with a lot I want to delete.

So is this what everyone does, or do you try and go out and force yourself to take only "x" number of photos? Any other tips?


PS. I'll be posting a few of the keepers over on the landscape bit a little later. just got to delete all the rubbish first!
 
Im pretty much the same, but Im super critical of my photos.

Im sure most of them could be fine with some decent PP, but Im not great at that, so unless they look 80% as shot, they get binned. I also think I have my expectations too high.
If I take a shot of a person, I zoom straight for the eye after the shot, if its even slightly noisy or not crisp sharp, it gets binned. With some proper sharpening in PP, It would be fine Im sure.
 
Storage is CHEAP so I keep everything that isn't a total failure or a duplicate (if I take 10 pictures in 1.5 seconds I probably keep 1 of each group).
 
Take your time to think about composition, exposure etc and try to get it right in camera. I rarely come back from a full day out with more than 50-100 shots. I maybe delete a few of them. Obviously this is just my opinion, but I hate photoshopping when it can be avoided.
 
A simple quote from Les McLean(He knows his stuff) over the weekend...... You can't polish a turd so if it's crap delete it. If it's a memory keep it if not DELETE!!!!!!! AND TRY AGAIN.
 
I only delete photos permanently if they were blurred or out of focus, I keep everything else and come back to it in a year or so and sometimes I spot keepers that I missed before.

As for keep rate, it depends what I'm shooting.. If I am shooting lots of bursts (just in case of camera shake, closed eyes etc..) then somewhere around 5-10% keep rate. If I'm shooting conservatively then the keep rate would be around 40-60%
 
Almost all of 'em.

I pride myself on having a nearly 100% keeper rate, I'm very frugal with the shutter button, and if I can't "see" a good scene, I don't even try and photograph it.

The only exception to my 100% rule was a recent trip to Glasgow. Came back, and on hindsight, decided all the pics were rubbish, deleted them and then made a cup of tea :lol:

...oh, and whenever I'm testing something new.

A "day out" for me ranges from around 1-10 shots. If it's an urbex trip, it can be significantly more, but they are as equally planned out.
 
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foggy4ever said:
A simple quote from Les McLean(He knows his stuff) over the weekend...... You can't polish a turd so if it's crap delete it. If it's a memory keep it if not DELETE!!!!!!! AND TRY AGAIN.
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:plusone: excellent quote.

Family/friends/travel pictures - I keep almost all of them as memories.

Specific shots that I go out to take (landscape shots), I only keep a select few which I think are (almost) perfect and and worth hanging on the wall (and worth selling in my dream world) :D
 
I think I take too few and keep too many. I really do need to get a filing system organised!
 
Islander said:
I think I take too few and keep too many. I really do need to get a filing system organised!
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The sooner you get your library sorted the easier it is so no putting it off!
 
Islander said:
I know, I know...
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Problem is the sooner you start, the sooner you realise you want them organised differently so the sooner you need to start all over again :bang:
 
I was worried I was taking too many, but I'm often taking ones of the Mrs on her horsey/Pony/money pit and he has a habit of doing something naughty so having a few shots extra helps to get 'the' shot.

I feel I'm getting worst at picking holes in all my pictures, I'm working on spending more time getting it right before than tweaking on photoshop.
 
You actually can polish a turd, but lets not pick the bones out of it.....

At football matches i delete as i go, during breaks, just to get rid of the obvious duffers, maybe 10-25% get deleted at this stage. Then i get home and delete another 10-25%.

At this stage i back up, and then edit/crop about 25-50% to upload onto flickr.

So including every shutter actuation, i keep roughly 50% - half of which are put on show.

Adey
 
I keep pretty much everything.

My keeper rate isn't particularly high, as I am super critical of my shots. As an example: from my recent trip to Botswana, I would say I am 90% happy with about 5 shots taken from 2500, and I am about 50% happy with a further 15, the rest are merely OK at best. I haven't deleted any as they are memories of taking my parents on their first safari.

In terms of numbers of frames taken, it depends on what I am doing. I am used to using film, so I don't tend to get too snap happy - depends on what I am doing but somewhere between 20 and 100 on a typical day out.
 
Well - I usually take 12 frames on the Perkeo, and anything up to 36 with the 35mm cameras :) I'll scan all the shots, and keep digital versions of anything I like, and make a small (800px longest side) of the rest, for reference, and delete the full size ones. Oh - and I keep all the neg's so if needed I can always go back :)
 
I think my shooting habits have changed over the years, in the early days when a roll was 12 shots and expensive (well for me on pocket money) it was think twice or more shoot once. Then 35mm and with 36 shots to play with plus more money I could afford to shoot more freely. With digital it took me a while to shoot more realising I could shoot hundreds without worrying about the expense. Has this profligate use of the shutter button improved things, I somehow doubt it, apart from actiopn that is. Perhaps we all need to think more and shoot less.
 
I usually delete about 60%.

If Im just on a normal walk about I will take quite a few and maybe be happy with one or two.

If Im at a car show I will probably take around 150 pics and keep maybe 70-100.

I suppose as I get better the ratio will improve.
 
I have stopped uploading and checking my shots (everyone of them anyway) as soon as I get home.
Because I have gone back to groups of shots after time and found a fair amount of images I am very pleased that I just never saw initially?..

This week I have found some shots on a few old CF cards I took of my new born son (three years ago) that I am SO pleased I never sent to the recycle bin..I thought I had!!!.
Regards
Steve
 
foggy4ever said:
A simple quote from Les McLean(He knows his stuff) over the weekend...... You can't polish a turd so if it's crap delete it. If it's a memory keep it if not DELETE!!!!!!! AND TRY AGAIN.
Click to expand...

I think you'll find you are WRONG...........
I recall an episode of Mythbusters ( it must have been late 2009).
Anyway - both the guys on the show managed to pollish a turd , so there.



This is my 2nd post on this forum , I will eventually get round to the subject of photography - I promise.
 
I usually keep everything. I sometimes delete the odd shot if it's completely blurred or out of focus. This approach does take a lot of disc space though.
 
This is one thing im dredding, i know on DSLRs you can take pictures alot faster than compacts.
I went to a car show earlier this year with a Panasonic TZ8, on 3 cards i took over 1400 pictures with about 9 movies of the action stuff. My bin rate was maybe 55% at first but then maybe after a while i only kept 40ish photo's.

What is my bin rate going to be on a 7d specially when it can take 8 (?) pictures a second.
Think i might need to buy that 32gb card.
 
I keep the lot, but use is another matter. What I use is about 15%. Typically I'll shoot 200 and about 30 I'll actually use in some form (i.e. publish on the web, stick in gallery software, share amongst friends/family, prints, etc).

The rest are all archived in case someday I'm scanning through and spot something I hadn't before.
 
How much I keep and how much I like are two very different things :shrug:

After all these years, I now am happy if I come back with the one shot that I like :thumbs:; one shot I like would make my day a very pleasant day.

How many do I keep, about 25% of what I've shot that day and that can vary from 100 shots to 1000; depending on how long the day was and how new the subject was.
 
Since I'm only just starting out I take far more pictures than i need to, delete the blurred and edit on ps the ones which i feel are good enough, prob 20%, although the more mistakes I make the faster Il learn. Hopefully
 
Keep rate depends on what I'm shooting.

Rugby is about 75-80%, I just delete the out of focus shots, publish something like 25-30% of the original number shot.

Studio work is very few deleted, just the occasional shots where the flash guns hadn't recharged.

Most stuff is composed in camera with very little PP work, mostly crop in lightroom.
 
scottcampbell said:
You can't polish a turd... however you can roll it in glitter.
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Quite apart from what Mythbusters managed, go to any fossil shop and ask to see their Coprolites!

Rolling in Glitter; the new euphemism for HDR?! :thinking:

Once a pic makes it home, it's kept. HDD space is dirt cheap and I might want to borrow a bit of (even a crap shot) to C&P over something in a better one. Although I don't tend to chimp, I do sometimes take the time to review some shots and will then discard the real dross (OOF, subject/camera movement, wrong exposure) to free up a little space on the card.
 
I delete 90% of my images, not because 90% are not keepers but because I really like having just 1 or two to look at.

Example, this weekend I went to the park with my daughter and got 20 shots 15 of which were perfect keepers, but I only kept 2 because - well how many shots do I need of her at the park that day? I find it much more interesting to look at a few pics than lots of pics so I'm very frugal, any slight duplicate of a shot i'll dump
 
john182rs said:
What is my bin rate going to be on a 7d specially when it can take 8 (?) pictures a second.
Think i might need to buy that 32gb card.
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You do know it's not compulsory to take 8 shots a second, don't you ??? :lol:

My EOS-3 will do 7 shots a second on film with the PB-E2 booster grip, but I can't honestly say it gets an awful lot of use like that - 5 seconds for a roll of film gets a bit expensive :gag:
 
I always delete shots with the Mother-In-Law in them! Simples. Except of course for the shot of her i use in my Avatar!! :D
 
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TheBigYin said:
You do know it's not compulsory to take 8 shots a second, don't you ??? :lol:

My EOS-3 will do 7 shots a second on film with the PB-E2 booster grip, but I can't honestly say it gets an awful lot of use like that - 5 seconds for a roll of film gets a bit expensive :gag:
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Its the beauty of digital, no film to worry about and having my own print machines at home is better. (no, not just your normal printer)
 
john182rs said:
Its the beauty of digital, no film to worry about and having my own print machines at home is better. (no, not just your normal printer)
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That's not the exclusive domain of digital either... Can't remember last time I sent a reversal film out for processing :shrug:
 
Sorry, i forgot i was on a photography forum where people can process the films themself just as much as people in the digital era.
Can i ask why you still do the film sort and not digital?
 
john182rs said:
Sorry, i forgot i was on a photography forum where people can process the films themself just as much as people in the digital era.
Can i ask why you still do the film sort and not digital?
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I do both to be honest. One of the reasons I still shoot on film, is that I like the total involvement of film - from selecting the correct film for the effect I want to achieve, through to getting the shot correctly in the camera without the aid of histograms, blinkies or chimping (I get a kick out of occasionally achieving that level of mastery of the cameras hardware), through to processing the film in my choice of chemicals (again to get a specific look - be it contrasty/grainy/smooth etc.) - and finally to the finished print - currently by digitising the shot, applying similar techniques as I would have in the wet darkroom (dodging/burning for example) and then either printing or sending the shot out for external printing.

Some of the most satisfying shots i've taken have been done with the most minimal of kit - Pinhole cameras for example - though that doesn't mean I'm some kind of a luddite - I'll happily shoot on digital if the circumstances dictate - if it's for work, or for money, or a 300 identical posed shots grip-and-grin, or if the situation is just something that I'll not be able to replicate, I'll shoot on digital, use all the tools I can to ensure i've got the shot in the camera before I leave location. But, when I want to challenge myself, to see if I truly understand what i'm doing with a camera, and for my own personal fun and satisfaction, I seem to be shooting film more and more.

Sorry to take things off-topic for a while... :shrug:
 
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Yes off topic but also answers a question without another thread being made.

Good on you i say.
 
This Sunday at my son's rugby match I took 486 and put 88 on my website for sale which I think works out at 18.1%
 
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