Keeper rate?

[MPrince]

I don't keep track of my keeper rate. I don't see the point in doing so.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

i don’t think your experience is all that usual. You may take a lot of shots of something, but ultimately how many do you end up wanting to keep? Like for birds, you have to take many cause the buggers are so twitchy. Ultimately it’s not about getting a clear shot, but getting a good pose. Same with a sunset—the lighting can change minute by minute, and you don’t know which moment will be the best until the sun is long gone. Ultimately, how many shots do you want to preserve to successfully capture the memory?

Anyway, what I really want to know is, which camera had the higher keeper rate?

 

[Bidkev]

Anyway, what I really want to know is, which camera had the higher keeper rate?

Mine! ?

 

[ADemuth]

A couple of weeks ago, I was testing out a repair on a film camera and had a short roll loaded up. It was an icy day and I knew I didn't have enough film to make the outing worthwhile, so I brought some digital gear too. I spent a couple of hours shooting off 16 or 17 shots on film. Once I ran out of film I switched to digital. At the very next stop, I had at least 40 shots I had taken in under 5 minutes. Some of those were fighting AF, some were tracking a moving target, and some were just because it was cold and I wasn't on a shot budget - take a shot at angle a so if angle b doesn't turn out to be so good, I don't have to go back to angle a to take it.

Having said that, I had two that I liked from shooting film, and several I wasn't too embarrassed to show here. I only had one from digital I liked (though I was out for half the time with digital).

 

[Stanga]

I have been known to go out to take pictures, but ended up with zero keepers. The 2018 Eastbourne air show is a case in point. At other times it can be the last shots of the day that end up producing something worth the effort. Bees in flight is perhaps a good example of what I mean. Anyone who has tried it is well aware that a full 32GB SD card might only produce a handful of shots that pass the acceptance test.

 

[retiredfromlife]

I have been known to go out to take pictures, but ended up with zero keepers. .

Sounds like my last European holiday, absolutely nothing worth posting. Maybe extreme PP may save a few but that would be all.

 

[threeOh]

Do you retain either RAWs/JPEGs for future perusal though? Or straight away delete?

-First cull gets 1 star.
-A quick pass thru the 1 star's and nearly all (including j's & p's) get trashed. I may keep some editing challenges for later.
-For keepers I used to keep jpeg's but not necessarily raws when I shot Fuji. With m4/3 I have yet to dial in jpegs the point I like them so I’m shooting raw only most of the time.

For difficult lighting, even if I use a jpeg, I will keep the raw. For the very few 5 star rated images I always keep the raw.

I use Lightroom. I’ve trialed DXO twice. If I used DXO I’d shoot raw only. The initial render is so close to what I like it’s a very easy decision. With Lightroom I still have hope I can dial in some jpeg settings that work for me. Lightroom's initial render of the raws means work.

As as I travel a lot, Lightroom's CC on an iPad is a godsend. It just works. So moving to DXO has implications.

 

[threeOh]

I don't keep track of my keeper rate. I don't see the point in doing so.

There is no point. It’s the result we're discussing. I don’t have a rate I keep track of and use to determine how many I need to cull.

 

[mrjoemorgan]

Do you retain either RAWs/JPEGs for future perusal though? Or straight away delete?

I use star ratings in my work flow which help. My first pass will be one stars which will be about 10% of images. Then I’ll do 2 stars which will take it down to half. I’ll start to edit the 2 stars to see what I am working with and do another pass making them 3 stars. That is typically 3-5% of images. Once I have edited all of those, I do 4/5 stars for keepers/sharers.

whilst I typically never go back to the 1 stars there have been times I use them for reference or change my mind about a certain shot I didn’t like but now do

 

[threeOh]

[QUOTE="mrjoemorgan, post: 1350495, member: 30783"
whilst I typically never go back to the 1 stars there have been times I use them for reference or change my mind about a certain shot I didn’t like but now do
[/QUOTE]
After shooting for 58 years I’ve found I’m more sick and tired of dealing with 100,000 image libraries than tossing an occasional borderline image. So, for me, I tend to think less and toss more. Whatever works for me may be totally different for someone else.

 

[GBarrington]

for at least one year after the shoot, 100%. I don't toss anything out except for photos of my incredibly good looking feet or belly. Then over the years, if I've never actually used a given photo and feel I never will, I will then pitch it. That makes it difficult to come up with a statistic.

I have found that I frequently discover gold in my old, lesser photos in that the current me now sees exactly how to process a given photo that the younger me was too inexperienced (or stupid) to see.

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

Anyway, what I really want to know is, which camera had the higher keeper rate?

Olympus. I shot carefully planned vertical panoramas with it most of the times and portraits from that 45 which turned out great!

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

Having said that, I had two that I liked from shooting film, and several I wasn't too embarrassed to show here. I only had one from digital I liked (though I was out for half the time with digital).

Right, I think when you are forced to do a shot budget the quality of our work improves? Gotta try shooting a holiday on a 16MB sd card

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

I have found that I frequently discover gold in my old, lesser photos in that the current me now sees exactly how to process a given photo that the younger me was too inexperienced (or stupid) to see.

This is me!
(And first part of your comment made me chuckle, so thanks)

 

[pondball]

Most of my shooting is while travelling so i really have a twofold purpose to toting around my equipment... when we first started travelling the shots were as much about memories of places we had visited as anything else... but as I started looking back on the snapshots i discovered I’d actually taken a few decent photographs as well.

On more recent trips I’d like to think I’ve been more concerned about taking photographs than snapshots... although my shot count won’t attest to that! ?

Two years ago on a cruise, from Rome to Venice, my wife and I befriended a couple from Long Island. At the time we met I didn’t realize he was actually a professional photographer. I thought he was just some nice bloke shooting with his iPhone and with an interest in photography. At the end of the second day or so he asked my if I’d taken any good ones, knowing that I’d probably sprayed off a good 3 or 400 shots, in Amalfi, Pompeii and Taormina... I mean, like how could you not in those locations!... My reply was something like... yup... a couple I think! He nodded and said, “pretty good then”

Ive probably told part of this story elsewhere, but he shoots on location with medium format, and was tired of carrying heavy loads on trips so was experimenting with using only an iPhone on this one... I saw his photos... way more keepers than I had for sure, but then again he wasn’t particularly taking many snapshots either.

On a days shoot when travelling I’m usually happy with a handful of shots I can either share with family online or frame and hang. The rest are either “memory” shots or for the archives for those special club theme moments.

 

[bassman]

A Vlogger names Ben Horn shoots landscape with an 8x10. He’ll go out for a day with eight sheets and won’t always use them. Even when he does, he’ll often not really be satisfied with any images. And it’s about $25 a pop.

His field kit fills a large backpack. He’s a sweet guy; check him out on YouTube. You’ll get a new appreciation for thoughtful shooting.

As for me, I shot 2,000 images In two hours at a ballet school and was thrilled with 10 good images. And I spent a month in Southeast Asia and have ~300 pix in my “slide show” out of 4,000 frames taken. I have eight prints on my wall from almost 10,000 frames shot during 3 1/2 weeks in Africa.

So it depends

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

I have been known to go out to take pictures, but ended up with zero keepers. The 2018 Eastbourne air show is a case in point. At other times it can be the last shots of the day that end up producing something worth the effort. Bees in flight is perhaps a good example of what I mean. Anyone who has tried it is well aware that a full 32GB SD card might only produce a handful of shots that pass the acceptance test.

I remember a trips like that...

I use Lightroom. I’ve trialed DXO twice. If I used DXO I’d shoot raw only. The initial render is so close to what I like it’s a very easy decision. With Lightroom I still have hope I can dial in some jpeg settings that work for me. Lightroom's initial render of the raws means work.

As as I travel a lot, Lightroom's CC on an iPad is a godsend. It just works. So moving to DXO has implications

LR is good. Has it's negatives but I still rely on it most of the times. On iPad I never tried it but I have Affinity on iPad which works quite well although I have only edited NEF files on it and yet to try Olympus files. I have DxO too but getting used less and less every passing day. For JPEG processing I mostly use Windows photo viewer (shudder) but I have found it is quite good for photos that I post to eBay, FM and other buy-sell forum posts.

I use star ratings in my work flow which help. My first pass will be one stars which will be about 10% of images. Then I’ll do 2 stars which will take it down to half. I’ll start to edit the 2 stars to see what I am working with and do another pass making them 3 stars. That is typically 3-5% of images. Once I have edited all of those, I do 4/5 stars for keepers/sharers.

I just use 4/5 stars for images that I like. Rest just stay as it is. I need to use that system more effectively.

 

[ac12]

What is your keeper rate in general? I thank the wonderful technology that is digital format that allows me to take nearly unlimited photos on the cheap without worrying about anything except may be battery life.

If I was shooting film would my keeper rate be better?

YES, it "could be" higher, if you shot with film.
When each shot costs you $1 (much more if you shoot 4x5 or larger), you SLOW down a lot and be more deliberate.
You THINK about the shot BEFORE you shoot it. Looking at the different angles and composition alternatives. So a single shot could easily take 20+ minutes.

Next if you shoot slide film, rather than negative film.
With slide film, what you shoot is the FINAL product. So you have to GET IT RIGHT, IN THE CAMERA, there is no 2nd chance.
With negative film you have a 2nd chance to "fix" the image in the darkroom, when you print the image.

As @bassman said, I've been out on a LF shoot and did not shoot all of my pre-loaded film holders. I think I loaded 10 and used 3.
That is partly because of the time and effort to setup a LF camera. Before I unpack the view camera, I will evaluate the scene, walk around looking for different angles, and THINK about the shot. Is it worth setting up for the shot?

 

[ADemuth]

Right, I think when you are forced to do a shot budget the quality of our work improves? Gotta try shooting a holiday on a 16MB sd card

It almost seems like keepers per hour, vs keepers per shot - 2 hours out with film, 2 (sorta) keepers. 1 hour out with digital, one keeper.

Problem with the small card route is you can always delete, and also preview exactly what your shots look like. I'm not disciplined enough to shoot digital like film and I don't even know if I'd want to. There are things about the digital experience that I don't find as appealing as film, but there are advantages that balance them out.

 

[ivoire]

3-9% based on subject, lighting, etc