How many "keepers" averaged per roll?

Amper · Dec 16, 2006

This may sound like a silly question, but I was just curious how many shots you get on average from one roll of film that you believe are great? I'm asking because I can usually only get 1 or 2. Sometimes none. But, haveing been told I am far too harsh in my judgement of my photos by more than a few people, I was wondering if maybe it was common to see most of your shots as lacking.

fmw · Dec 16, 2006

Less than one. Way, way less than one.

nealjpage · Dec 17, 2006

Ditto, Fred.

Alex_B · Dec 17, 2006

interesting, how the same questions pop up again and again on the forum

well, "keepers" I have about 30% ...

... images which i think are great, maybe 1 per roll if I am lucky!

Alex_B · Dec 17, 2006

Amper said:
I was wondering if maybe it was common to see most of your shots as lacking.

.. in other words, VERY common

LaFoto · Dec 17, 2006

"Keepers" and "GREAT" are different!
I am a pack rat. So I have literally kept many of the prints that I used to get out of one roll.
But to say how many of them were "great" ... :scratch: one in 10 rolls? Maybe? Most of them are very "la-la" ("so-so"). Nice. No more.

Torus34 · Dec 17, 2006

I take some pictures for display as prints on the walls of my home. The wall space is severely limited by other hangings such as oils and watercolors. At most, there might be 3-4 photographic prints displayed. Those are the 'keepers.' All the rest of my exposures are in the form of negatives. I work slowly and compose carefully. I expect one keeper/roll when I am looking for a new wall print.

That said, I also take 'record' shots of street scenes, grandkids, sunsets, wildlife, flowers, etc. I don't consider these to be keepers.

cosmonaut · Dec 17, 2006

For me. 1 per roll is real good. But last time out I broke a record with three and one maybe. I wasn't even trying for keepers I was just running my newly bought rangefinder through some test to check out it's meter. I think Ansel Adam said " 12 a year was a good crop" or something along those lines, and I bet he went through the film....
Cosmo

mysteryscribe · Dec 17, 2006

I'm at the point i dont really keep anything.

I shoot one a day (if im lucky) and play with it. Since I use cut film, I might shoot two exposures to get one image which I can fool around with.

I have been playing with laser prints lately so I am having them printed for the lab wall (for comparison purposes) but they are far from keepers in my opinion.

Amper · Dec 17, 2006

I figured it wasn't just me ^_~
Thanks for the feedback! :heart:

neea · Dec 17, 2006

I read a great book once by Lee Frost I think (tried to find which one exactly but cant seem to at the moment).
There was a story about how one day he was walking around town taking pictures and out of 120+ pictures he had maybe one or two that were any good.

Since then I've felt more encouraged when looking through my hundreds of thousands of pictures and having only a handful that i'd even be willing to show people nevermind try to sell to people.

I too am a packrat and have saved every single picture I've ever taken.
I keep thinking one day they'll come in handy or something. haha

Flash Harry · Dec 18, 2006

I've been "Pro" since 1996 and although my clients and family gush over a lot of my work, personally I have about three I regard as great photographs, all taken during film days.

terri · Dec 18, 2006

If I come away with one good image per outing, then I'm satisfied. I don't really keep track of "per roll" images, since during an outing I'll run through a few rolls. On a per-roll basis, that makes me more like Fred - less than one per roll, definitely! :lol:

I also think it's best to keep everything, and review past work. There have been images that I thought were trite or uninteresting at the time I first saw them, that actually struck me as much better than that a year later. Or the reverse (which is worse!) I'll look at something I shot, developed, perhaps did additional processing on, and think: "Now, what exactly did I think was so great here that it was worth all this work?" :scratch:

:lmao:

Michaelaw · Dec 18, 2006

I feel WAAAYYY beter about myself after reading this thread :lol:

Amper · Dec 18, 2006

Ditto Michaelaw! I'm still pretty new at this and have had no form of training. I tend to get discouraged, because I have 4 photo boxes with multitudes of pics and then I have my special "keeper" album with only 23 photos in it. So I tend to think maybe I'm just not any good at this. Not that I'd ever stop ^_~