A poll -- How many pictures do you take and keep

[PhatPhoto]

This might sound stupid but,
I wanted to know if you went out somewhere with your camera, how many pictures would you take on a average and then how many of those pictures do you keep.
Thanks in advance,
John

[pos]

When i do a motorcycle calender shoot i will take about 70 pic's for one month of the calender. When i go thru them i'll keep about 20 and let the bike shop owner pick the one for the calender. Only having 20 to pick from really speeds things up when you show them to the models and owner. pos

[Glenn NK]

Actually it's changing. I shot film for 40 odd years, and never once enlarged anything to the size that I view now on my monitor.

The truth is, digital has improved my technical skills so much, I sometimes wonder what I was doing all those years.

And because I'm learning, my keeper rate is going up; partly because I don't just snap away, but think first, and partly because my technical understanding of things like DOF, hyperfocal distance, is much better, and I know how to use it.

I think when you get better with the technical aspects, then the keeper rate goes up.

In direct answer, I'm probably keeping 70 percent, but I do go back and trash images that I thought were great a few months ago. In time, the percentage of my older images may only have a keeper rate of 50 percent, but the newer images will have a higher keeper rate.

[howzitboy]

digital is killing me! i used to shoot weddings medium format and id shoot formal couple 2 times, formal bride and groom once. then we went 35mm and id shoot all of them all one extra time. now with digital, illl shoot 4 or 5 lol. i used to shoot 72 shots for a wedding , now im shooting about 400!! im gettin such bad habits with digital. closed eye, i dont care, looked away, i dont care its digitallllll !!! i can shoot forever because i dont have to print them!!

[mrbplus]

Most of my photography could be classified as "event candids". I often get lazy and have the high-speed shutter activated to increase the chance of getting great facial expressions. I took about 300 photos in 1 hour today, but only kept 40 or so.

[liza]

I look at it in terms of a percentage rather than a number. My overall keeper rate for sports, portraits, weddings, and events is 80% or better. The number depends on the type and duration of the event.

[gjl711]

I’m all over the map. Shooting a reunion I took way more than I had to and dumped maybe 50 %of the shots. At a wedding I did the same with about the same result. But while on vacation I spent way more time on each shot and my keeper rate is maybe over 80% and shooting air shows or macro my keeper rate plunges to maybe one keeper in ten.

[Radtech1]

I tend to keep everything.

For me, it is just too much trouble to go back into the folder, look at each shot, grab the jpg and the raw and delete and delete and delete and delete and delete and delete and delete.

So, I will vote "keep 100%" when you get your poll set up.

Rad

PS - Answering the question "How many do I take?" - that varies SOOO WILDLY that I cannot say. Depends on where I am and what there is to shoot.

[B3SEO]

I keep everything also.

But what I show the client is different. If you give someone hundreds of image to peruse and to select from, it's almost impossible for them to do it, or it takes forever.

I generally will go through the lot of them, pick the keepers, and then show those to the client. Of course I am there to give them my strong input as to which one they should use.

[on da move]

I keep all every candid family & friends shots but I sort through my vacation and event shots.

[Jon, The Elder]

Keepers? A little over 4000 just for events this season so far.........

[Miyagi-san]

As a hobby I shoot "street", urban candids etc....also candid shots of my family...

I average about 300-500 shots a month. I toss anything that is badly OOF or that is just simply not nice to look at. By that I mean the shot is just not a flattering image of the person in the photo....

Keep everything else

[nicksan]

Varies based on where I am at.
I don't do any official shooting like a lot of the folks do here.

Some places just lend themselves to great captures. Others, not so much...and that has a huge impact on my keeper rate.

I'm not too concerned with keeping track of keeper rates. As othersdo , I copy everything to my PC first, then throw away the obvious ones (OOF or crappy composition, etc.) then keep the rest. Out of those that I keep, if I get 1 or 2 "good enough to hang on the wall" shots, I feel good about it. I've got a long ways to go...LOL!

[PhotosGuy]

I wouldn't recommend this "Shooting as a process" method for things like weddings or school portraits, but for general editorial work, or especially for fluid situations where things change rapidly, see my post #15 & #23.

How do you guys get your IDEAS? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2361648)

[Mcary]

For a 3 hour shoot including 4-5 outfits if I can get 4-5 excellent images from each outfit and 2-3 WOW images from the shoot I'm happy.

My review process works like this

View images at 100% for focus flag the ones that pass inspection with a green flag
Go through them and flag the strongests ones with a *
Now go through those again and flag the strongest ones with a **
Repeat again for *** and **** and ***** until I've narrowed 300 shots down to 25-30.

Mike