use or lose

[cotug]

I am posting this here because I would like to know some Pro opinions...

On a day of shooting, for fun or work, what is the percentage of keepers vs. throw aways in the images you take.


Let's say you take 100 photos ( I know it's a low number), how many are really usable. I'm not talking brilliant, gallery style shots, but just technically correct, even if the shot may be boring.


I post this as a newbie who had an interesting day of shooting about 350 track meet shots in the morning and then the same amount at a dance recital in the evening.

I had about 40 total that were nice, about 6 or 7 that were IMHO great.

[Maureen Souza]

I always give myself the 1:10 rule. For every 10 photos I take, I keep one. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending.

[RichardtheSane]

Last shoot I did I fired about 220 shots

I binned 15 for technical reasons

I would often fire three frames is quick sucession to capture variations on the portrait, or theme - on those occasions I would pick the best.

I put up a web gallery of 78 images for my clients to view.

Now, the bit that for me determines how many keepers I produced is how many they want printed. Of that 78 I took orders for prints that covers over 50 of the images. Many at 5x7.

The ones that are ordered at 12"x8" or higher are what I refer to as the cream.

Now I don't work full time pro, but I do charge for my work and take quite a number of jobs on. What I consider to be a keeper is often different to what my clients consider to be keepers. I have higher standards, by my fiancee does quality control and tells me what people will like and not what photographers will like.

Handy :)

[Mike Panic]

it all depends on my situations.

when i shoot raves, nightclubs, metal bands, etc - its a coinflip as to how many i'll keep, mainly because the lighting is constantly changing.

for studio work im on a 1:8 or so level right now, mainly because im bracketing a LOT of shots till i can further nail down the lighting work im doing. when shooting models id rather shoot way too much then regret not having them move an inch this way or that way after the fact

when shooting for fun, im on about a 2:3 level - slowed down a lot, covering architecture, still life and stuff like that. on good days im more of a 4:5 level because i can seriously take my time and not be concerned

for shooting product and food shots, im about 2:5 ratio - again overshooting, bracketing exposures and rather have more then less for a client

[paulbuceta]

Perhaps I'm a freak of nature here but I only keep about 10% of the pics but only ever use 1%.
I don't like anyone to know I'm capable of taking a bad picture.
For example, in under a year I've taken over 100,000 pictures - The 10D has been a real workhorse for me.

[belmondo]

I keep virtually everything, but that's part of my backup system. I process no more than 10% of my shots. I print no more than 10% of my processed images.

[Vegas Poboy]

I keep everything that's clean, sharp,in focus & not a duplicate. Sometimes I get calls on photos I thought was useless but is a value to someone else.
I have a WD external drive, DVD burner, Cd Burner & designed a file system that works for me. Never know when that photo is going to bring in some good income.

[KennyG]

I retain 90%+ of what I shoot, typically 1000 to 1500 per day of shooting RAW images. Storage is cheap enough that all I am concerned about is that they are technically OK (in focus, correct exposure, etc.) and the choice is then a matter of editor's requirements, news worthiness or composition.

[robertwgross]

I print probably 5-10% of the nature shots that I take.

For a wedding, it is more like 50%.

---Bob Gross---

[Longwatcher]

On the session I just finished working up, I took about 1600 images (Raw+M2) and am using about 240 for photo sets and probably 2 to 15 of the set will get used by me for updating my portfolios with 3-4 printed out the next timeI do an update. But all of the images were archived. This is over a 6 hour period with basically 5 different settings (2 of which were not useable for the photo sets, but are useable for the portfolio). So I would say about 20% are actually getting used. Which is up from less then 10% about a year ago.

I would love to get to the point where I use 50% of the shots. But not there yet.

Just my exerience,