Keepers.....

Well, we have a very honored visitor from the Canon dSLR forum who has deigned to dispense his wisdom here in the u 4/3 forums.   Although he owns a Canon dSLR, and does not own any u 4/3 equipment he has lots of advice for those of us who do.

We should listen to him.

After all he has a "98% keeper rate" from the last 4500 photo's he took on vacation with his Canon dSLR:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50377493

This to me is astonishing!  I must admit I have never heard of such a high "keeper rate".  I would guess my "keeper" rate with u 4/3 equipment is about 40% on a good day.  Some days, no keepers at all!

Perhaps Canon dSLR equipment is just that much better than u 4/3 equipment.  Or, maybe there is a darker explaination that I am just not willing to face.

In any event, I thought it might be enlightening to find out from you what your "keeper" rate is with u 4/3 equipment and what a "keeper" means to you.

Thanks in advance for participating.

I went to my nieces birthday last weekend with the omd and a canon fd 50mm 1.4 and had a good three 'keepers' out of about 40.  Manual focus on little kids is not recomended.

I don't want to brag, but I have a 102.6% keeper rate.  I'm just that good.

Usually I take between 100 and 200 shots on a landscape outing.

Very few of them these days are OOF or badly exposed.  I would say about 2 percent of them are 'misses' such as this.  I usually delete less than 10 shots.

Then I search for the pictures that I like for posting.  In 100 shots I usually can find about four such shots.

The rest of the shots while perfect documentaries of the trip don't stand out or don't have a great composition.

Down the road I revisit each outings shots and may delete a few more but otherwise all stand for a good record and are part of the learning experience.

If we're counting the number of shots I post then my keeper rate is about 2%.  If we're counting the number of shots I don't delete, then it's about 95% since I delete about 5% of my shots.

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Dan

That is when I shoot RAW + JPG

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My nickel, since the penny is being discontinued...
Jeff.

I'll bet there's not one fuzzy squirrel in those keepers, either.

(Have we finished mocking the D4 at Disneyworld already?! )

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...Bob, NYC
http://www.bobtullis.com
/"Well, sometimes the magic works. . . Sometimes, it doesn't."/ - Little Big Man
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that's still got legs don't worry

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

This.  Exactly.  My "documentary" keeper rate is around 10-15% -- but that's just to satisfy my own desire to remember a trip.  If I take 500 photos, I'll collect 50-75 of them into a personal digital album of the trip.  The "keeper" rate of actual, good pictures that I would be proud to show to non-family members is about 2%.

I nominate you for the next commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFbcs7YStwE

About the same stats for me, too.

Interesting question!

I looked back at a few vacations and found that I typically delete 25-30% of the images I take, for a 70-75% "keeper" rate.  I post from 15-30%.  As others have observed, the rejects are not so much misfocused or misexposed as they are inferior composition or timing relative to the ones kept.

I don't see much difference between my M4/3 and my previous compact camera.  I suspect that keeper ratio has more to do with one's attitudes toward shooting, discarding and sharing than it has to do with the camera.

I think you'll find quite a divergence of views (already seen above) on what defines a "Keeper"... "literally" I guess it means a photo you don't delete.   I don't think that is how most use it, however, it seems to more typify something that standsout from the norm sufficient ot warrant sharing it (with people whom you care enough not to bore to death). For me I favour the latter definition and run around 5-10% "keepers".

But seriously although I keep many of my shots (that aren't out of focus, missing important features etc.). I'd say if I get one or two shots out of a shoot of maybe 300 or more (for example), that I'd show to anyone, then I'd feel good. I've found that being critical of one's own shots, in every detail, is paramount...and what may be OK to accept now, may not be a year from now.

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My Gallery is here -
http://www.pbase.com/madlights
Why so serious? :The Joker

I can imagine that high rate of keepers: everything depends on what you're going to keep.

I do not think about myself as a great photographer whos every shot belongs to the eternity, that is why I kill more than 60% - 70% of all my shots without regret, even so they are crystal sharp or they have great shallow DOF.

What is amazing is a huge number of shots during vacation. I presume this person is a teacher who has 2 months long vacation. My greatest achievement is 1200 shots in 10 days (and about 400 keepers)

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I’m surprised how much Wikipedia contributes to the forum.
http://g1.img-dpreview.com/20AE148C45244CBE9FB1585EDA32B1C1.jpg

The explanation is very simple. Finders, keepers. DSLRs have finders so they get more keepers. The same applies to some, but not all, MFT cameras. Luckily, mine has a finder so I get only keepers. Now if you are unfortunate enough not have one, you can turn to the Bible for comfort: Seach and you shall find.

doing aviation shots, i look for about 20 to 30 stand out shots from 500+ pictures taken on the day, but you are picking the best of the best doing this

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

some people are just hoarders. they keep every snap they take , just in case. unfortuantley

they often post too many of them up. being able to curate your own stuff and get rid of the rubbish in this digital age is really important. otherwise you just end up with 100 of 1000s of pics and you never get to find or enjoy the good ones. i delete about 95% .

i know of people that have 1000s of unprocessed raw files, that they havent even got round to looking at. they take 3 batteries on a few hour outing and take 1000s of pics. i suspect these are also the same people that when their vacuum cleaner dies they keep it in the attick 'just in case'

I'd say it really varies. Sometimes I'll go and I'll shoot a whole lot of pictures, knowing I won't use any of them in the beginning, but just to get a feel for where I am and what angles there are, and how I want to frame things, and what there is to shoot. I suppose I could do this without hitting the shutter button, but this is digital, there's really no harm in it. Once I've figured out what I want to do, I'll generally have a pretty high rate of keepers, if the light cooperates. My overall average of course is brought down by all those experiments in the beginning. I might very well study all those initial shots carefully, to give myself future ideas, or answer questions I had when I was at the shoot. Occasionally, one might even surprise me. But generally I shoot early and often as I approach my subjects, without any intention of them being keepers in the beginning.

I find this is particularly true with wildlife photography. I might shoot a whole lot of pictures just to make sure I don't go home empty handed, but the only keepers are at the end, once I've sufficiently snuck up on my targets. Maybe I take only 10-20 pictures at the end that I really want to take, and close to all of them might be keepers, like 80-90%. Of those, I might choose only 10-50% to actually show to anyone. Overall, for the whole shoot, maybe only 1-5%. I'm very willing to press the shutter button a hundred times to get the one shot that's really quite good. Many might be average, many might be good, even, but I generally go out with a firm idea of what I want, and when I see it on my screen later, the other pictures I took don't really matter, even if they are keepers.

Other times, I'll shoot with every intention of getting mostly keepers. I approach more boldly, and shoot more decisively with minimal repetition. I suppose it depends on my mood. Sometimes I want to just play with my camera and photograph for a while, other times I want to just get certain shots. I tend towards the former when I've gotten a new lens to try out. I tend towards the latter when it's cold out ;-).

Okay, so that's my general estimation of things. Now for some actual raw numbers.

I did a shoot last month of 253 pictures. A little bit of bird photography, but mainly macro bees (on a windy day which wreaked havoc with focus). 21 of them ended up "keepers". 13 of them were worth showing off.

Another shoot last month, almost all macro on a much less windy day, 165 pictures. 44 of them ended up keepers. 15 of them were worth showing off. I'd say that's pretty good.

Another shoot last month, an even 500 pictures. 116 were "keepers". 62 saw the light of day.

Another shoot this month, 90 pictures. 66 of them were "keepers". I haven't yet decided how many of them are worth actually showing off. Probably about a third, many of them are rather similar and I hate showing off too much of the same.

Another shoot this month, 102 pictures. Only 14 "keepers". I expect at most 3-4 will be shown to anyone.

So it really does vary. If I'm trying to capture a single subject, I might shoot a lot and my keeper ratio will be quite low. If I'm capturing an environment, I might shoot a lot or a little, but end up with a lot of keepers once I know what I'm looking for towards the latter half of the shoot. If my subjects are people- or camera-shy, I'll shoot many more pictures than I need to and approach slowly hoping to get great shots by the end. If I'm shooting landscapes, I'll take my time with settings and framing to shoot minimally, and shoot right the first time.

Regardless of strategy, I'll probably be happy enough with less than half my keepers to show them off. Maybe that's the ratio that really matters.

i usually delete the blurred and shots with bits cut off in the 1st pass, 2nd pass i mark the gems so to speak and delete the poor lighting/composition shots, saves lots of time this way but you do have to be harsh on yourself.

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.