Ratio of good photos per shoot

As others have said... "... depends...". I do a lot of macro, where DOF is very thin. I shoot a lot of the same critter, trying to get just the right focus on just the right spot. (The fact that my hands shake, and I seldom use a tripod with macro, doesn't help). Far fewer throw-aways when I shoot landscapes, family groups, etc. (speaking for myself).

I recently went on a 2 week photography tour and visited a lot of different national parks. My statistics per each place varied. I could take 300 pictures at Yosemite and have 20 good ones or I can take 100 at Antelope Canyon and select only 5. At Lake Powell I took only around 10 pictures and ended up liking 2 of them. Shortly after at Horseshoe Bend I took around 30-50 pictures (including 3 shot HDR) and only have 1 picture I can work with.

Dont pay attention to ratio and just try to improve your composition and techniques.

shniks wrote in post #14655443
Thanks for your replies. It sounds like everyone gets some bad shots amongst the good ones. For some reason I thought I was the worst photographer because I didnt have a high keeper rate. Chauncey that video was great, thanks for sharing the link.

I guess what I mean by good and bad is - am I happy with them? Did they come out like I imagined? Are they technically ok and do they hold your interest? Are they worth opening up in photoshop for some editing?

I am averaging 2 GREAT shots a year out of approximately 40K shots. Those are why I shoot. I'm taking about shots where everyone says "wow", ones that win competitions, etc. I would love to improve on that ratio, but it's more luck than skill at this point.

I have hundreds of other shots that I like, that exactly match my vision, but don't appeal to everybody. That's OK. I like them and that's what's important.

It also depends a lot on what I'm shooting. If it's models I get a lot more keepers than if I'm shooting landscapes. That because I'm more experienced with models and less so with landscapes. I'm trying to improve but my keep ratio is going to be low until I gain experience.

I have found that as I've gotten better, I'm a lot more critical of my photos and actually have less keepers than I used to.