What's your percentage?

[GenDEM]

Hi there

I'm wondering something. I have had my G1 for about 9 months now, and in that time I've taken...let's see...3492 pictures. Of those, maybe 500 were experimental (learning the camera, learning my 420EX, etc) and maybe 3-400 were for panoramas. That leaves about 2500 shots.

Now of those, I have about 50 that I have actually printed and shown to others. That means only 2% of my pictures are worth showing.

How about you? Am I average? Below? Above? Granted, i didn't know much about photography when I started, so maybe thats it. I love photography (I'll love it more when I can ditch my G1 for the Pro90 successor) and I love the process, I'm just wondering if the ratio gets better, or if the mantra of take more, take often should still rule my life?

...Mike

[beach512]

2% might be high for me. I have shot about 1000 pictures since Nov. 2001.
Really liked = 30
Printed out so far = 4
Shared via email, web = 50

Dave

[gandini]

I don't expose all that many "negatives", unlike many I've heard about. I remember when Pekka announced his 10,000th shot with the G1--wow and I think it took him less than 6 months to get there. But my "success rate" would be less than 2%. I remember a quote from Ansel Adams where he said that 12 great images a year was what he aimed for. He probably achieved that, but perhaps not much more.
I have about 200 images on my web, including all those photos of my baby girl. Maybe 50 or so in my general galleries. I could lose about half of them if I really got critical. So that's about 30/3000 very roughly. 1 percent. I've NEVER printed a digital photo. I do have a Kodak digital picture frame though, but that only shows images of the kids at home since my wife kept asking to see my photos.

cheers,

[Pekka]

An example with D30: I've recently shot about 200 RAW's of my friend Jouko Harjanne, ca. 100 shots a day. Of those 200 shots we had about 20 different postures and locations, and flash setups. For each posture it usually takes about 2-3 shots to get shadows and light right and then I just shoot about 4-7 for right composition and especially look for a good facial expression. Sometimes you need less and sometimes more. Maybe 12-15 shots of those 200 were cataloged as a "master" (good technical, artistical and compositional aspects plus they work for the message required).

So the percentage is different from "a good photo with a meaning and use" (about 5-10%) to "decent exposure and sharpness and composition" (about 95%, in concert halls maybe 60%). You could take a decent photo of a tree 'til your batteries are dead but to get one with meaning combined to technical finesse is really hard (and after all it needs only a one press of shutter release :) ).

Compared to e.g. 6 months ago, I take today less photos and think more what I'm doing, and it has really got my learning curve up by forcing me to pay attention to detail.

Of course photos like "Traveler" still needed about 20 shots to get it how I like it: when you work with two flashes and mirror surfaces you need to do a lot of tests. Photographing needs a lot of patience.

I don't shoot everyday. I try to shoot only when I have specific subject, or when I'm in the mood for photography. I've noticed that when you go out and shoot just because you feel that you 'need to', you end up having 2 gigs of nonsense and tired feet. It's much better to have real motivation and aim and to this it helps a lot that you keep pauses, too.

But when I get started and I have good subject I don't stop until I get what I need to get :)

[KenC]

A very good question! :)

I have not had my G2 that long to work out a decent average - due to experimentation.

What I do notice is that I am tending to 'shotgun' subjects with digital, as opposed to thinking more of lighting/composition on 35mm and taking just a couple.

....Then there is the 'tweaking' at the PC/Printer stage -will I ever be 100% happy that I have the perfect photo? :)

[justincase]

mine's very low as well. i probably keep about 75% of my shots archived on CD, pull out about 20% for slideshows, and only print about 1%. i read somewhere (at one of the photography sites) that national geographic rejects 6000 photographs from their professional photographers for every one they print. professional photographers, as a whole, usually only keep 1 shot in 200. soooooo, thank GOD for digital!!!

[Leighow]

Since I have only had my G2 for a month, I will have to base my response on rolls of 36 film (and I only took a couple of those each year !) …Agfa for pastels in the 60’s … Kodak for reds in the 80’s ….Fuji for greens in the 90’s. During that time I took (at best) one shot out of a roll of 36 that was worth keeping. And that only happened when I was boiling with excitement. For example:

1: On a windsurfing trip to Cape Hatteras in the Fall of 91, I took a great picture of two fishermen casting into what would soon become the Perfect Storm.. You could feel the tension in the air.

2: One rainy, cloudy soccer day I caught my daughter’s green sweatered team in a huddle around the coach’s bright yellow jacket. Everyone’s face was straining against the tough competition.

3: A few year ago we had a massive ice storm. Although nothing on my roll was worth keeping the local newspaper had no trouble finding entries for its photo competition!

4: One sun and snow filled day I bracketed a shot of a beautiful cross-country ski trail -- a tunnel of snow wrapped in and twisted overhead trees. That one is now a 2ft x 3 ft poster.

I am excited your G2 preparations, for sure you have to be ready for that great shot.
(Last year I missed the only double sun-bright rainbow that I have ever seen). So with the G2 if I shoot 5 times as many “inspired” shots (say 36 x 5 = 180) and find one that is a keeper, I will be happy