How many pics do yo take before you get a good one?

[MRivera]

Hey Double H, Thanks for the advice on review the pictures on the screen. I tend to do that with every picture i take. I fnot happy i usually delete it at the spot. I will follow your advice to review the photos until finish or until i get home to download. By the way, do you have any good photography book that you could recommend?

 

[JRob]

I took around 70 today and only 5 were even worth keeping. So be prepared to shoot a lot and delete a lot too. I am a beginner and ive learned that very quickly.

 

[MACollum]

Usually when I go out to shoot pictures (which isn't often these days) I end up taking around 50-100. Of these, most aren't very good. I usually only end up with a couple that I like and will display. Progress has been slow and I find that hindsight is 20/20. I always see my pictures after the fact and think of things that I should've done at the time. I think in the long run this helps me because I know what to do different next time. I look at some of the pictures I took a couple of years ago and thought were good at the time and realize that I can do better now. Good luck and keep shooting. IMO, Experience is the best teacher.

 

[BradUF]

Wow, I really hope I have at least a 50% that turn out good because I went with a film SLR instead of digital.

 

[monkeykoder]

Exactly why I decided to go digital... If I planed on getting anywhere near 50% good pictures I would stick with film. Until I get better at this I'm going digital and dealing with the whole .5% good pictures.

 

[Ls3D]

32 out of 200 on a recent surf shoot, but it was hard to know if they were going to pull into the barrel, AKA green room. Plus at 6.5 frames a second.. well better to trash and reformat than miss the shot!

I'm happy with 2 or 3 good shots from a day out.

-Shea

 

[Happy Hour]

I took 244 pics this morning only 4 turned out unuseable. But out of 240 good pics I only like about 15 of them.

 

[93rdcurrent]

I take a lot of pics at any location and of any subject. I change my shutter speed, aperature, white balance, etc. as I'm shooting the same subject. I will try different lenses, and focal lengths too just to see if there isn't something I would like better.

After getting my pics home and reviewing them I will also go back to the location sometimes for different lighting or maybe just because I want to try something different than I did before.

All that said I may take 2 pics or 20+ depending on what I'm after and how difficult conditions may be for shooting the image.

 

[Phazan]

I'd say about 10% of my photos (In one camera use) turn out as complete failures, 80% turn out as snap shots, and 10% are ones that I actually put in my good collection! If I goooo say to Yosemite for the day, I might take 300-500 pictures in a day.

That's what lots of memory cards are for!

 

[BradUF]

Exactly why I decided to go digital... If I planed on getting anywhere near 50% good pictures I would stick with film. Until I get better at this I'm going digital and dealing with the whole .5% good pictures.

I went with film because I thought it would force me to take good pictures in a few shots.

 

[openedmind]

I just got my first DSLR, the canon xti last week and used it for the first time at my daughters swim meet saturday. I shot 86 pictures indoors, with a slow lens (75-300mm f4-5.6) and I'm very happy with about 65 of the pics.
I took about ten test shots in the pool area during warmups before the meet started to find the best settings (I could have never done this with my old film camera). Trial and error are a big plus using digital.

 

[HomerSimpson]

I'm no professional photographer (or even a semi decent one at that! But I am learning stuff so here's hoping..) but what I do is take as many as I want until I get bored, then I take a few more.

The same always happens, the few I take after I get bored are the ones that come out the best for some reason.

Also, a mistake I always used to make was the focusing in on one specific detail, then I'd end up with blurry crappy pics, I learnt over time that sometimes what you think will look good actually looks a lot different on the camera, i.e. open your eyes a bit more and you will get a better shot.

I took my camera to work with me the other day and I took about 200 pics, I kept about 75 of them, simply because some came out crappy, others were good but I felt they'd been taken the same way a million times before and I always try and take a picture which is more personal to me than for anyone else.

Sorry about the mini lecture, another thing I will add is don't get disheartened, it's very easy to take a "good" picture once you understand more thoroughly how your camera works and what it is capable of doing, e.g. I loved taking macro shots but my camera isn't so good at them (it takes them well but doesn't deliver the detail I was expecting) so I borrow my uncle's SLR for more detailed shots and use my digi cam for others as I'm happy re. how it works for landscapes etc..

 

[MACollum]

I went with film because I thought it would force me to take good pictures in a few shots.

When I used film I had too many disappointments so I strayed away from photography. An example is a trip with my dh on his truck several years ago. I had a wonderful shot of my son and me (he was 2). When I got the pictures developed they were all purple and blotchy. I asked the lab what caused it and they said that it looked like bad film. I had just bought it for the trip so it wasn't because I had it too long. Of course, I was stupid and didn't know that film had a shelf life. I've got too many missed (or messed up) memories that will never be anything more.

It really comes down to this for me: I have very little patience (and until recently no $$ for film and developing. Because there's no waiting, I've learned more in the year since I've had my DSLR than I have in the 6 years that I've been into digital photography. Also it's free to practice; I only have to pay to print the good stuff.

 

[BradUF]

That is bad luck though with the film being bad..

Honestly, I would have went digital but I got a Nikon N80 for 86 bucks came with box and only been used twice. To get a digital camera of equal I felt like I would have to spend about 500 on a body. I also feel that my camera if digital would need to be 10mp +

 

[schuylercat]

I had a friend invite me to photograph Bobby Rahal's racing team at practice in Phoenix back in 1990 or so. Thing was, I didn't own a camera, and knew literally nothing.

I read a book on sports photography (don’t know who it was), then I bought a Rebel kit with a junky little lens, found a 600MM f/8 mirror for $100, and got in the car.

We arrived Friday night, drove to Phoenix International raceway in the early morning, and I proceeded to burn through 200 rolls of Kodak Gold 200.

So. I developed them as cheap as I could, and made a very important series of discoveries:

1 - If you don't know how to use a camera, shooting in the GREEN ZONE doesn't help much when the subject is moving at 180 miles per hour.
2 - Neither does setting the little dial thingie to the sports setting - in fact, that makes it worse (no blur, and the car, moving so fast, looks like it's parked on the track).
3 - Publishers have requirements. One requirement was SEND SLIDES. Oops.
4 - This publisher had an old school graphics department who accepted 8X10s in black and white. I made about 15 (at something ungodly like $18 each) and sent them in.
5 - Racing publications are both a.) cheap and b.) intolerant of n00bs.

So I paid about five hundred dollars to shoot the event. I was paid $25 for the one borderline print they took, and I cannot believe they bought that one, it was so terrible. Got to eat lunch with one of my favorite drivers, though.

The last time I shot a racing event it was a qualifying day for NASCAR at Fontana. I took twenty rolls of Sensia (bought in bulk for what, $3.50 a roll). I shot it all, and sent the whole mess to my editor who selected 20 shots, 3 of which sold for $125 each. The rest of the slides came back to me, and I made another sale to a Finnish magazine for $85.

The rest were parsed, and I recall being pleased that I only threw out 20 or so before I got picky about details. In all, 20 rolls of 24/25 (the 1N was efficient) netted a little under 500, I sold 4, and I tossed 20/25 out. Profit was low, but that's why I am a technology project manager instead of the next Annie Leibowitz.

There must be people who shoot so solidly and plan so well they never toss a shot - except any practice/setup shots they take (used to be off a Polaroid back, not...they're intentionally expendable). Me, I bracket and test and shoot from the hip sometimes - I am used to taking risks and trashing my stock because I never shot anything that stood still, and you just...never...know.

And no one - NO ONE is as critical of your work as you. These folks on this board are fair, honest, and open minded. Share your stuff, brace for negative feedback, and keep shooting.