I have noticed that some people never put a picture up that I would consider to be anything less than a 4/5 up. Those of you that do are doing it every single day.
Now I know I am a beginner nor as accomplished as half of you on here are. But, I reckon If I didn't have all my commitments, I could create a 4/5 every single day of the week. BUT!! I think unless I have created something similar or am just bringing an improvement to an old composition sometimes this will take a good few shots to get right.
So in this the age of digital, I guess what I'm asking is. What is your success rate, do you take 2 or 3 shots and pick the best or are you firing off a couple hundred a day as I was when I first switched to manual.
I've found that pretty much regardless of how many I shoot about 10% are good enough to go up online. Actually getting it bang on with 1 picture is pretty rare for me.
I personally will have a plan for the photo I want to take and work that until I get the picture that I wanted to take. If all else fails I deal with what I have.
So I will normally take around 30 images that include setup and pick the one from those photos, but I am a little bit different to most people on this site as most of my images are staged, but staged so they represent something that is happening in my life at the time.
Sometimes there are loads of images to chose from and some days there are no pics or they just do not have that 'the magic touch'. If there is no ok-feeling I'd rather use a filler from yesterday or the day before.
I've always some pictures in the waiting room but most times they keep waiting there forever because using my phone as camera I do take a lot of shots with pretty high rate of (personal) succes.
Those waiting pics are probably up for posting my second year...
Majority of my photos are rubbish. I take probably 3-4, maybe, of the same subject. Less chimping more clicking. It's not about "great photos" for me... It's more capturing great moments. I think it's personal to you. I'm no photographer, but I enjoy taking photos, and 365 has taught me a heck of a lot. I don't take life to seriously ... it's too fecking short!
I point and shoot most days. Sometimes I take up to 30 shots of different places / objects but certainly don't have the time to "work out" the best composition etc. Normally I'm walking through an airport or driving along the road, see something that strikes me, stop/double back and shoot it! Sometimes it works well, soemtimes it doesn't! I rarley post fillers!
It really depends on what I am doing, mostly I'm taking a couple of shots to try different angles & lighting etc but it really depends on what I'm shooting......if I'm taking a shot of one of my dogs or a friend's then I'm lucky if I can get one decent shot before I'm stuck with whatever I've shot :)
I rarely post fillers either @sparkle, although I'm currently shooting in film. That is a perfect point made though. It's difficult to take a great picture everyday and a great picture to you may not be great to someone else. We all like to take camera on holiday with us and to those special events because we want to capture those special moments and keep photographic memories of them. We don't always do something memorable or something we want to remember everyday.
I don't think the quality of a photo always MAKES the it.
For me, this was a way to document every day of my life. I take about 3 or 4 photos and pick the best. Who cares about the quality. I think its about capturing what stood out to you that particular day.
I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I don't really get what you mean by 4/5 up. Is it your opinion that most of the photos are not very good?
@dishaparekh176 Yes, that's what I'm doing. I don't care so much about technical stuff and great composition etc. The main purpose for me is just to have a record of a year of my life, even if some days are mundane! My only self-imposed rule is that the picture has to be taken on the corresponding day.
@julieannu I am glad you like them... ;-) They can be a hoot to take and as they all have special meaning to me I look back on them and remember what I was doing that day.
@onie This is born out of managing my pictures. In the management software you can add a colour and a numbered rating so 4 would be my best all round pictures but with room for improvement an 5 would be perfect and don't need done again. Needless to say I don't have a lot of 5s and as I gain more experience create better shots some of them later get changed to a 4.
Thank you all for your responses, I'm just interested to know how other digital photographers fare. And as I see it ha sparked discussion amongst your selfs, this can only be a good thing right?
I am making the jump into B&W film very soon, darkroom and everything so success rate to me is a big thing, also I want composition ect to be spot on, that's just me. I too don't like to take life too seriously and I don't see how trying to perfect something is too serious, Its just part of my personality. I programme beats and write rap lyrics I am a perfectionist at this too. It makes everything harder and I devalue a lot of my work over time but no one on here gets critical so I have to get critical
on myself.
I'm still at the stage of taking a ton of photos to try to get a few that mean something to me, while also trying to think of universal appeal. I'm nowhere near being able to shoot with film. I look forward to watching you venture into it, though! Also, I could be wrong, but I think if you ask for critique in the caption/narrative for your daily post, you'll find some who will oblige. I sometimes wish people weren't so gosh darn complimentary because I feel like my head is overly inflated, but at the same time, my eye and attention level has grown exponentially in three short months, so I'm totally thankful for this site.
When I started this project I would take around 1000 photos a week and end up with 20-30 that I liked. Now, i take about 5-10 a day and keep 2 or 3. Holidays and birthdays, I will take a 100 or more and keep the ones that tell the story of the day. When I did this project last year, I stuck to the photo a day thing, and I credit that, as well as the critiques and inspiration to my advancements.
starting out in film I learnt very quickly to compose a shot before I even pressed a button so coming into digital I would say I am personally happy with 1 in 3 of my shots, I only really need to take a few to get one that stands out, that said however in digital some days I do unnecessarily snap away :)
On the days when I have a "good" photo to post, I usually took at least 100 to get a good one. I've also noticed that my favorite tends to be among the last two or three that I did, so I guess I need to warm up a little (and it probably means I stopped too soon). Most days I only take a couple, and if I'm really lucky I'll have something decent. I just don't have enough time in the day to focus on taking an amazing shot every day. I do think I'm improving, though, and I find my no-effort shots are better than they used to be.
@miley89 You take pictures every day yet don't see yourself as a photographer, I have this debate with my father on a regular basis. He has been into photography for as long as I can remember yet does not think he is a photographer. I think the lines are very blurred on this subject. To me If you have a camera that you use on a regular basis, even if its just a mobile phone camera. That is a photographer. Unless you are using your camera for some other purpose than photography then surely you are!
I see what you mean Eddie. As a webdesigner and developer I'm a so-called pixel freak. I'd like the pixels in my pictures in good order too but photography (365) is kinda hobby. Hipstamatic does a lot of good thing to my pixels and sometimes it needs some extra polishing. Most important however is the fun looking at the world in a different way, telling myself a one-year story.
Good luck with your project!
I think even the pros take a bunch of shots of their subject and then pick the best from that. It's great if you can nail it with one shot (it has happened with me), but that's a rareity I think. There are all kinds of photographers, some who plan a creative shot in their head days before they actually go out and shoot it. That's not my style. I guess I'm more of a photojournalist. I shoot life as it happens around me. I never go off looking for something to shoot, instead shoot something interesting as it happens as I'm passing by. I'd say 95% of my shots are like that. I do try to take 3 or four shots at a time at different angels and later decide which one works the best to convey the story. Yes, every photo has a story in my eyes.
@5unflow3r This is born out of managing my pictures. In the management software you can add a colour and a numbered rating so 4 would be my best all round pictures but with room for improvement an 5 would be perfect and don't need done again. Needless to say I don't have a lot of 5s and as I gain more experience create better shots some of them later get changed to a 4.
just to save you the bore.
I take four of five shots of my chosen subject, mostly as insurance in case I mess up the exposure or focus. I find any more than that is counterproductive, otherwise I spend ages agonizing over which shot is the best one and I usually end up choosing my first or second one anyway.
I find that if I am taking photos of something I haven't attempted before, more usually equals a better chance of catching something. That being said, I still try to limit them. A few weeks ago I went up to a local ski hill and tried my hand at shooting skiers on the hill and in the air. The first time I did it, I shot around 200 shots....about 3 turned out...The next weekend, after doing a little research ( I copied some photos from the internet to my pictures file and then looked at the properties to get the exif) I brought my tripod, figured out where I needed to set up for the shots I had in mind and shot maybe 60 frames and 5 or 6 really turned out with another 7 or 8 that were ok! It pays to scout a location and do the research if you can...I feel way more comfortable with it now, and would love to get back up there to try some different stuff out!
@shadesofgrey - I too will often scout out a location and even take some prelims as a sampling. I believe in gaining a full understanding of the variables for a shoot makes a big difference in getting what you want out of a shot.
I used to take dozens of the same thing but have cut down to only a few but it also depends on the subject. I usually take about 40-100 when playing with water drops.
@michaelelliott I have done it in the past....and it has helped every time. I was kind of using the first time as a prelim scout but really just wanted to shoot and see what happened so I can get better! I completely agree with that philosophy.
@justeddie Sorry---I am sneaking peeks at work, so I am really skimming rather than reading everything...Don't want the boss man to see me reading this...LOL
My nephew took a digital photography class here in DC and the first words for out of the instructors mouth after to be in the class you need to be shooting in full manual and RAW were "One in every three photos you take needs to be publishable."
And my response to him was "So he shot on film before he went digital."
I'm not going to rate my photos on your scale. They are getting better and I'm happy. On film, for personal use, 2-5 photos hit the garbage can from every 24-36 roll of film. The rest were all useable. The hardest part would be deciding which went into scrapbooks and which I could let go of.
Now, I often get one shot off in a street photography or journalistic style shot and those get posted here.
But I also have the joy of chasing a better shot and will shoot from 3-10 versions of a sunrise, night monument, new technique, blowing bubbles, things flying like dandelion seeds and action photos.
The instructor's comment was that you just can't shoot till you get a lucky shot. But the reality is that with digital you actually can do just that.
However, when you do see an in the moment shot and you have seconds to shoot it, you won't get those shots.(Unless you get lucky)
My one tip about shooting on location would be set P, TV, AV and M for what you think are your most likely choices for the day. You can reset on the fly, but if you have an in the moment shot, you have preset options you can get to quickly to get the better photo when you have seconds to shoot and a one shot opportunity.
@5unflow3r well if you weren't so busy skimming and worrying about the boss man......tell him you're on a smoke break.....that happens to last 2 hours.
my photography instructor told us (back in film days) that out of a 36 roll, we might have 2-3, or 4. I remember once seeing an exhibit of Robert Frank's where there were some of his contact sheets laid out, and it was true for him too. on his roll he had maybe circled only a few on the contact sheet that were usable. Depending on my energy I might shoot just 3 some days, and force myself to pick one. Or I might shoot many more and have several that I have a hard time choosing from. There are certainly days were I post things that I am not happy with at all. But I think that is part of the process.. I don't expect every shot to be stellar here.
oh, and i don't think that's a reflection on how "good" any photographer is. good photography to me, is not about creating perfect images with every shot.
@jennverr I was about to bow out and say thanks for all the replies but your last comment was like bait to a fish. What would reflect a "good" photographer?
This post as been super eye opening, It is really great having a community to learn and seek guidance from.
technical ability is definitely important - but imo, good photography to me captures a mood, has a style, evokes emotion, invites questions, and even breaks rules.... it would be a little odd to me if someone was able to do all that with every shot they took. some photographers spend years developing that. for some, it may take one click (you know those super fortunate moments we have), or it may take a thousand. But in no way will I look at the photographer that took 1000 shots to get that and say he/she is better/worse than another. I guess what I mean is, if I see a photograph that I like, I don't care how long it took the person to get it, if it's a good photograph, it's a good photograph.
@jennverr I hate forums sometimes, they often require to much thought in how we word things. Baiting me in this instant was not a bad thing, I just wanted to know more.
@justeddie oh totally. I have lots of 5/5s in my library. i guess what i'm saying is that others might not see my photos as 4/5... so when you initially said that some people never put up a picture that you would consider to be less than 4/5, you probably weren't that interested in the hit rate of an average photographer!
@cromwell This is the sort of information I like to learn. I know nothing of photography nor photographers. When I post in these forums its just me sitting here thinking and then sometimes it will occur to me to ask what every one else is doing after all we are invariably going through the same processes albeit with different approaches and times.
This was very informative and probably my favourite response. I also like your rating method. By my own scale 1s,2s and even 3s are useable, you just have to look at some of the duds I have posted so far. Everything else gets binned.
This instructor you speak of sounds like a pain but I bet he gets the best out of his pupils.
I'm a shooter, but I "grew up" digital... as far as taking pics are concerned. I do not have a natural eye for a shot, so I need to take a shot or two, check them out, then maybe shoot more if needed making the adjustments I felt necessary after looking at the shots. Sometimes I get lucky and a single shot turns out great, but most of the time that is not the case. And I usually shoot with my iPhone. And I sometimes don't get my photos posted on the day I take them and I don't always post 3 shots every day. And I LOVE to edit! Sometimes I just need to tweak something to make it look on screen more like what my eye saw and sometimes I edit for fun or for a frame that I feel will "finish" the photo. The one thing I definitely believe about photography is that it is very personal and what works for one does not work for everyone. My sister ( @grammyn ) and I are nearly polar opposites in our approach to photography... she usually shoots in manual and posts sooc and can get a fabulous shot on the first try and faithfully posts her 3 shots a day.... and I already commented on my "style." :) But our styles work for us and we totally respect the other one's style. I am loath to give my posted shots a number, but I do feel I have had a few 5's... one that was only cropped, but most are at least cropped and color tweaked and framed and/or have additional processing. I also have at least one from my first weeks that is maybe a .25... I have been tempted a few times to delete it, but it's still there! :)
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So I will normally take around 30 images that include setup and pick the one from those photos, but I am a little bit different to most people on this site as most of my images are staged, but staged so they represent something that is happening in my life at the time.
I've always some pictures in the waiting room but most times they keep waiting there forever because using my phone as camera I do take a lot of shots with pretty high rate of (personal) succes.
Those waiting pics are probably up for posting my second year...
I don't think the quality of a photo always MAKES the it.
Who stole the fun!
I don't really get what you mean by 4/5 up. Is it your opinion that most of the photos are not very good?
@onie I don't get the 4/5 up thing either!
@agima Love your 'staged' pictures! That's the great thing about it on here, you get a variety of people using the site in their own way!
Bottom line is...it doesn't really matter does it? It's a journey and a window on other people's worlds!
Thank you all for your responses, I'm just interested to know how other digital photographers fare. And as I see it ha sparked discussion amongst your selfs, this can only be a good thing right?
I am making the jump into B&W film very soon, darkroom and everything so success rate to me is a big thing, also I want composition ect to be spot on, that's just me. I too don't like to take life too seriously and I don't see how trying to perfect something is too serious, Its just part of my personality. I programme beats and write rap lyrics I am a perfectionist at this too. It makes everything harder and I devalue a lot of my work over time but no one on here gets critical so I have to get critical
on myself.
Good luck with your project!
just to save you the bore.
I find that if I am taking photos of something I haven't attempted before, more usually equals a better chance of catching something. That being said, I still try to limit them. A few weeks ago I went up to a local ski hill and tried my hand at shooting skiers on the hill and in the air. The first time I did it, I shot around 200 shots....about 3 turned out...The next weekend, after doing a little research ( I copied some photos from the internet to my pictures file and then looked at the properties to get the exif) I brought my tripod, figured out where I needed to set up for the shots I had in mind and shot maybe 60 frames and 5 or 6 really turned out with another 7 or 8 that were ok! It pays to scout a location and do the research if you can...I feel way more comfortable with it now, and would love to get back up there to try some different stuff out!
And my response to him was "So he shot on film before he went digital."
I'm not going to rate my photos on your scale. They are getting better and I'm happy. On film, for personal use, 2-5 photos hit the garbage can from every 24-36 roll of film. The rest were all useable. The hardest part would be deciding which went into scrapbooks and which I could let go of.
Now, I often get one shot off in a street photography or journalistic style shot and those get posted here.
But I also have the joy of chasing a better shot and will shoot from 3-10 versions of a sunrise, night monument, new technique, blowing bubbles, things flying like dandelion seeds and action photos.
The instructor's comment was that you just can't shoot till you get a lucky shot. But the reality is that with digital you actually can do just that.
However, when you do see an in the moment shot and you have seconds to shoot it, you won't get those shots.(Unless you get lucky)
My one tip about shooting on location would be set P, TV, AV and M for what you think are your most likely choices for the day. You can reset on the fly, but if you have an in the moment shot, you have preset options you can get to quickly to get the better photo when you have seconds to shoot and a one shot opportunity.
oh, and i don't think that's a reflection on how "good" any photographer is. good photography to me, is not about creating perfect images with every shot.
This post as been super eye opening, It is really great having a community to learn and seek guidance from.
technical ability is definitely important - but imo, good photography to me captures a mood, has a style, evokes emotion, invites questions, and even breaks rules.... it would be a little odd to me if someone was able to do all that with every shot they took. some photographers spend years developing that. for some, it may take one click (you know those super fortunate moments we have), or it may take a thousand. But in no way will I look at the photographer that took 1000 shots to get that and say he/she is better/worse than another. I guess what I mean is, if I see a photograph that I like, I don't care how long it took the person to get it, if it's a good photograph, it's a good photograph.
A few weeks ago I went to the zoo and took a bazillion photos and ended up with no more than 15 that I liked. I think I posted 3 of them.
But I'm not a 4/5 photographer. I'm kinda average. :)
This was very informative and probably my favourite response. I also like your rating method. By my own scale 1s,2s and even 3s are useable, you just have to look at some of the duds I have posted so far. Everything else gets binned.
This instructor you speak of sounds like a pain but I bet he gets the best out of his pupils.