How many shots are rubbish?

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intel86

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I took about 300 shots yesterday and only a handful turned out nice!! Most were blurry or too dark or too light etc etc.

Do you get this? Do you throw away quite a lot? What % would you say are non keepers for you on a daily / weekly basis.
 
I chuck loads - two days ago took just under 130, whittled down to 15 just from the thumbnails, only kept five and published two.

I'll let you do the maths ;)
 
Generally, the fewer I take the better the keep-rate.

But some subjects might have a lower keep-rate than others, they might be high speed (motor sports, aircraft in flight), they might be unpredictable (social occasions) or they might be high speed and unpredictable (wildlife, children, stormy seashore).

And sometimes you're just taking shots whilst waiting for the inspiration to strike, or you take one but keep on going waiting for something better that might not come. Michael Freeman has a section on this in The Photographer's Eye where he talks through sequences of shots in this way, I think he covers diminishing returns but I might be confusing that with another book.


I've had four days when I've filled four memory cards and produced two dozen shots worth printing.

I've had an hour when I've shot two Polaroids and a dozen digital shots and they've all turned out right.
 
It depends on what I have photographing, but I star all mine in Lightrooom. 2 star = rubbish, 3 = ok, 4 = good, 5 = really good - on a typical trip out I will get maybe 80% 3 star, 40% 4 star and 10% 5 star (which are the ones I would upload to flickr/blog/here).
 
Again, depends on what I'm doing. Events, my dump rate is a lot lower, but on a day out my dump rate is probably somewhere in the region of 90%?
 
I'm fairly new to this hobby and like others have said, i probably dump around 90%. At the minute in taking loads of shots of birds in the garden, my 2 dogs running about outside, things i see on walks etc, just to get used to the camera and different settings. Hopefully my keep rate will soon start to rise. Heading to kenya in less than 3 weeks so those better be good!
 
Im pretty new to this too and my keep rate is also probably ony 5-10%, im hoping that will change though as my level of ability increases and I gain the experiance necessary to know that im taking a great shot when I press the sutter button and I dont feel the need to take another 5 shots at different appatures etc just incase ive got it wrong.
 
Few keepers, really I should be looking for THE image but in practice I'm looking to take photos so inevitably there's a high rate of wastage :(
 
Doing fast moving sports I have about a 10% keeper rate. As the pace of the sport gets slower my keeper rate increases.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
It depends on what I have photographing, but I star all mine in Lightrooom. 2 star = rubbish, 3 = ok, 4 = good, 5 = really good - on a typical trip out I will get maybe 80% 3 star, 40% 4 star and 10% 5 star (which are the ones I would upload to flickr/blog/here).
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I've given up giving low star ratings because I'd just be getting in a right mess:). Shots either get a 4 (maybe) or they get a 5 (definite) and if I don't have enough 5s then a 4s get thrown in for good measure :lol:

I generally put 20-50 images over to an editor depending on the size and type of piece I'm shooting, although I shoot 200-500 per day, many of which are just slight changes in exposure or composition (etc).

The only other selection I do make in LR is 'X' for the total duffers - they get the bin treatment straight away. Everything else just festers on the hard drive but might come in handy as stock at a later date :)
 
I have a much higher fail rate on colour as Ektar has a very narrow lattitude over which the colours will actually come out right, a smidge under everything goes too dark and blue, a smidge over it'll go orange. A lot under you get a blue monochrome image and a lot over you get a very posterised image with neon green, rust red and pastel blue and no other shades in between.

On B&W I have a very high success rate as not only is the nature of the film more forgiving but I seem to see B&W images better than colour ones.
 
I think I must be getting lazy. I used to fire off hundreds of shots and then rate them in LR, which took ages. I came to resent the time I spent peering at the computer screen comparing 20 virtually identical shots to decide which was the best one, or two.

These days I find myself taking much fewer photos but getting more keepers than before with less computer time too ... it's win-win :D
 
I actually keep all my shots. Only because I'm a hoarder!

Basically being exposed right, in focus etc I expect 50-80% to fill that criteria - depending what I'm doing, obviously! I do a lot with animals so it all depends how much they move last minute!


I've not got past that habit of taking far too many yet on other things, so I guess 10% of non duplicates for my everyday stuff are worth publishing, though I tend to just doo a selection.
 
I delete most of mine. I took about 40 today and will be happy if I keep 2 or 3 and I will probably delete them once I get a bit better and start taking proper photos. I am still a beginner tho.
 
mattd said:
Im pretty new to this too and my keep rate is also probably ony 5-10%, im hoping that will change though as my level of ability increases and I gain the experiance necessary to know that im taking a great shot when I press the sutter button and I dont feel the need to take another 5 shots at different appatures etc just incase ive got it wrong.
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You may find Matt, that as you improve, you start deleting even more shots because your standards will have changed, you will be more self critical.
I shot around 130 images the other day with an old lens and teleconverter, and after just previewing them in Elements, I immediately got rid of 110 or so. In all honesty I could have got rid of them all.
 
It's the joy of digital ;) when I'm at a horse cross country show I would take about 4 photos of each horse over each jump I'm positioned at so that adds up to a lot plus ones of them on the flat in all my the end of the day I leave my self with atleast 600/700 photos if not more, because I don't have the time like I would have at a photo shoot to make sure I don't get a dud photo and granted I not leave myself with about 50-100 photos once I have gone throught them all but would only sell to my clients or post on here about 20-30 of them where as when I'm photo dogs or wildlife I have that extra time I don't have at shows to get say 200 photos with 100 good ones
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
It depends on what I have photographing, but I star all mine in Lightrooom. 2 star = rubbish, 3 = ok, 4 = good, 5 = really good - on a typical trip out I will get maybe 80% 3 star, 40% 4 star and 10% 5 star (which are the ones I would upload to flickr/blog/here).
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specialman said:
I've given up giving low star ratings because I'd just be getting in a right mess:). Shots either get a 4 (maybe) or they get a 5 (definite) and if I don't have enough 5s then a 4s get thrown in for good measure :lol:

I generally put 20-50 images over to an editor depending on the size and type of piece I'm shooting, although I shoot 200-500 per day, many of which are just slight changes in exposure or composition (etc).

The only other selection I do make in LR is 'X' for the total duffers - they get the bin treatment straight away. Everything else just festers on the hard drive but might come in handy as stock at a later date :)
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Interesting.
I go through a quick rating initially so I can sort the chaff. I use 2 star for maybes to look at, 3 star for usable, 4 star for images that are great and 5 star for stunning/portfolio shots. Anything out of focus, flash didn't fire etc, gets an instant x and is deleted after initial triage.

If I'm working through old images for selection (i.e. going through all 5 star, or all car images etc)I use the colour tags for that particular selection.

At the moment, I'm trying ideas for my last assignment. I've shot 500-ish shots for 15 I'm happy to use.
 
At airshows, probably 20% keepers at most. General stuff, probably 30% and portrait sessions more like 50%.
 
i went out on a local walk took about 50 photos and i have 2 that i like

the other day i was taking pics of the moon of tripod and one was ok i took some last night free hand and by the looks of it i have a couple of good ones to look at properly

ive not long got my camera tho so hopefully my rate of keepers will improve as i progress
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
It depends on what I have photographing, but I star all mine in Lightrooom. 2 star = rubbish, 3 = ok, 4 = good, 5 = really good - on a typical trip out I will get maybe 80% 3 star, 40% 4 star and 10% 5 star (which are the ones I would upload to flickr/blog/here).
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Impressed! you keep 130% of the shots you take :thumbs::thumbs::D

I do motorsport mainly and if I keep 10% from the day I'm doing good.

I usually go through the lot in Bridge, ditch any out of focus, too blurry, the ones with people in the way:) or just no car! then go through the remainder with 3* being good 4* being very good and 5* being 'my god how did I manage that' quality. (don't get many 5's)

Paul.
 
Being a landscape fan I used to end up with loads of shots that looked exactly the same and spent far too much time trying pick the best (and running out of hard disk space at a rate of knots). I now try to be more selective when I'm behind the camera and refrain from random shutter clicking :lol:

I think I've now got it right: I spend more time staring through the viewfinder then at the computer screen :clap:
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
on a typical trip out I will get maybe 80% 3 star, 40% 4 star and 10% 5 star
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OK Jimmy - How do you do your Maths?

You typically get 30% more shots than you shoot? lol
 
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EOS_JD said:
OK Jimmy - How do you do your Maths?

You typically get 30% more shots than you shoot? lol
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It could be a virtual copy which has a different crop or changed to black and white etc

If I get a shot in like I like to process the same shot differently :-)
 
haha smart arses. I can't think how to word it, but yeah about 40% get 4 stars and I tend to end up with 10% of the total shots taken as 5 stars (I don't make anything 5 on the first run through, only get 5 after they have been processed). The 80% are the amount rated in someway...IE not thrown away.
 
Just can't get the staff :D ... :) ... :shake: ... :exit:
 
Ive found as time goes on nd I use the camera more often, Im taking less and less shots, however, I still decide to keep the same amount of images.

Before I used to take 100's when out and about and keep about 5-6
Now I probably take around 30-40 and keep the same amount.
 
How many shots are 'rubbish'? Less than 5%

How many shots are great? Less than 5%

Everything is relative, if I was still binning a large number of shots due to bad focus or exposure after nearly 30 years I'd be doing something really wrong. Whilst my real 'keeper' rate hasn't changed that much, the quality of stuff that isn't 'good enough' has changed dramatically.
 
intel86 said:
I took about 300 shots yesterday and only a handful turned out nice!! Most were blurry or too dark or too light etc etc.
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That suggests to me that you may be doing something wrong. Like everyone else I take lots of shots knowing that they won't all be keepers, but I think I have a basic expectation that most of the time they'll be more-or-less correctly exposed, more-or-less correctly focussed, and more-or-less free of subject blur or camera shake. If yours aren't, then I think it might be fruitful to ask yourself why.
 
Being fairly new I take LOTS of pictures, I always keep photos of the kids and one of any bird variety even if they are naff (usually the case) just for the record. As I get better bird pics they get replaced and the older ones get deleted, generally speaking I get very few I am 100% happy with, probably less than 1% (no thats not a typo).
As I get more experience and practice the success rate will improve. I think I am and will be hyper critical even then but who isn't when they deeply analyse their own pics ?
The other thing is that seeing constant quality of work on here that has you wishing you had taken the shot makes you strive for perfection more which can only be a good thing as long as you don't lose heart.
As a beginner, I feel you have to accept your failure rate will be high at first and just work on improving it.
Best wishes
Cliff
 
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StewartR said:
That suggests to me that you may be doing something wrong. Like everyone else I take lots of shots knowing that they won't all be keepers, but I think I have a basic expectation that most of the time they'll be more-or-less correctly exposed, more-or-less correctly focussed, and more-or-less free of subject blur or camera shake. If yours aren't, then I think it might be fruitful to ask yourself why.
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I think that you have hit the nail on the head Stewart, because with modern kit "more or less" is not quite good enough. When I look at the images on here, particularly in the specialist sections - nature, birds, sport, transport and the like, most of them are pretty much spot on. Consequently, I end up binning a large number of mine because they are merely adequate.
 
Depending on the subject of the shoot I could keep 10% to about 85%. Airshows and wildlife are where I shoot the most and they have the fewest keepers. Portraits, landscapes, still life and candids get the highest keeper rate. But my great shot rate is about 10% overall.
 
Photography is about taking many shots and cutting them down to the perfect few. In any one situation I could take 20 photos and cut it down to 1 - if 1 shot was the original aim. A photographer would be lying if they said they got the perfect shot the first time they pushed the trigger.
 
Jarrrp said:
Photography is about taking many shots and cutting them down to the perfect few. In any one situation I could take 20 photos and cut it down to 1 - if 1 shot was the original aim. A photographer would be lying if they said they got the perfect shot the first time they pushed the trigger.
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I see what your saying but when I started and still at social occasions just take as many as I see fit and whittle them down but its time consuming and its gets to the point where with 1 photo you are happy but with 10 none of them seem great and only differ very slightly.

But after doing it I tend to think more about what I want from the picture, what do I want in and how I want it to look. A test fire to see if that conecpt works, then one or two more whilst tweaking the settings.

Agree with people who say it depends on situation though, when doing landscape or still photography you have time and can plan each shot. Taking pictures of my neice is a nightmare as she will stay still long enough to focus then she is gone :lol:
 
Jarrrp said:
Photography is about taking many shots and cutting them down to the perfect few. In any one situation I could take 20 photos and cut it down to 1 - if 1 shot was the original aim. A photographer would be lying if they said they got the perfect shot the first time they pushed the trigger.
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I sometimes shoot on large format film. I can assure you that photography in that case is about taking one image or at most two... Have you seen the price of 10x8 sheets of Velvia :lol:
 
StewartR said:
That suggests to me that you may be doing something wrong. Like everyone else I take lots of shots knowing that they won't all be keepers, but I think I have a basic expectation that most of the time they'll be more-or-less correctly exposed, more-or-less correctly focussed, and more-or-less free of subject blur or camera shake. If yours aren't, then I think it might be fruitful to ask yourself why.
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Perhaps it would be a useful exercise to examine the ones that are too dark, too light, too blurry etc. to try to establish how that happened. When you get that worked out, you'll be well equipped to avoid it happening next time. If they're too dark or light, look at your metering mode. If they're too blurry, look at your focussing or shutter speed.

I apologise if you already know all this.
 
Depends on what I'm doing. For still life and not moving kind of things then keepers are probably 90%. The more it moves and the trickier the light the fewer the keepers. Fast moving things in patchy light would probably be down to 5% worth keeping.

I don't delete any though. It is useful to keep mistakes so you can learn from them and see days when the vast majority of photos taken were keepers.
 
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