A question for all on here regarding typical outing and image count and keeper rate

[spudhead]

Ok so this will require people to be honest about the way they use their camera and expectations about image count and keeper rate, I keep reading on here and other sites people quoting I shot hundreds or thousands of images on this outing, with that in mind what is your typical image count and keeper rate you get? It is very rare for me to go on a walk or day out and shoot many more than 200-300 images, with a keeper rate of maybe 70 percent, and that is not because I am any better with the camera than others its more that I do not even take shots now if I think they are waste of time or beyond the camera lens combo I have at that time, or light and conditions limit possible results I tend to shoot silent shutter and low frame rate on the a9 a73 and a99ii. So what do you do?

 

[-ST-]

Hi, Gary.

This changes from day to day, depending on the weather and the lens I have mounted on the camera. I don't change lenses when I'm out hiking around.

If I'm shooting birds in flight, I might get well over a thousand shots. One day it was over fifteen hundred. On those days, the majority may be in focus and well-exposed, but many of those shots will be nearly identical and not worth keeping.

I'm just learning how to use the FE 200–600 mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS I got ten days ago, and until I understand it better, the keeper rate will be low.

More typically, my image count will be around 300-400 per daily outing. I make an album every day for my elderly mother. She's a shut-in in a city far from me. We talk every day and go through the daily album, she's happiest when the album is about 75 images.

A lot of the throw-aways are victims of my learning experience.

 

[Brownie]

Not sure there's anyway to quantify that for every outing. Today I went for a walk at lunch and made exactly 30 images. No idea if any are worth keeping until I get home. When trying to push old gear to find its limits I expect to have a lot of trash, it's the nature of the beast.

Shooting at the track will usually result in around 2000-2500 images if I'm careful, spread out over two cameras. Of that, the vast majority will be usable with only a handful (10 or 20) not in focus or poor panning, etc. Out of a burst of 6-8 images I am looking for that one standout to process. As a rule, I'll see the same car 2 or 3 times, so I may have anywhere from 12-20 images of that vehicle. I may process one at launch and one doing a burn, the rest get tossed. Sometimes I won't post any images of a particular car if they're all boring. People buy these images, the drag strip uses them for advertising, and they post them, so I need to make sure I don't publish anything questionable.

This wasn't the case when I first started out there. I had to learn the ropes and had a lot more stinkers. The real challenge is at the far end, trying to get a decent burst of a car coming directly at you going 200+ MPH. Now, several years later, repeated results are expected. The one caveat is the A7RIII's inability to focus on the fly with speed and accuracy, so I've had to develop a work-around. The A7IV gets the action shots where considerable movement and fast focusing are required. It's also why I'm thinking about the A9III.

 

[Landshark99]

When I was working with film it was anywhere between 3 and 5 thousand images per job, when I switched to a workable digital cameras it rose to 5 to 10 thousand images per shoot, always had around a 95+% keeper rate that was later culled by the clients to what they needed. Now, just fooling around for myself, it could be as little as 100 or as many as 1500, same keeper rate, but I only process out a few that speak to me and store the rest

 

[iamdlewis]

For me it will vary immensely. I've been out and taken as few as 10 images on a 2.5 hour walk and other times I've been out for 1.5 hours and took around 5000 images. Typically I expect to keep about 10% of the images I take, that doesn't mean the other 90% are "bad" they are more likely to not be as good as some other image or an almost identical version. If we count images that are in focus I expect a 90%+ rate.
If I take my top 2 locations I shoot at, which are just different sections of the same state park, I can expect something like:
By the creek:
Fall & Winter: 200 images with 15-30 kept
Spring: 500 images with 30-50 kept (not counting Swallow outings)
Summer: 400 images with 20-40 kept
By the fields:
Winter: 50 images with 10-15 kept
Spring: 500 images with 30-60 kept
Summer: 200-1000 images depending on butterflies (in flight butterflies is fun) with 20-200 kept
Fall: 200 images with 10-20 kept

My profile image came from a fall outing by the creek in which I took about 150 images and I kept 78 in which 62 are the Kingfisher approaching and landing on that branch. That was a 3 hour outing in which outside of the 2 passes the kingfisher made over a 5 minute period I may have taken 10 images.

If I take a day trip somewhere I generally am going there with the expectation of finding a few specific target birds and will expect to get about 2000 images on the day with 150-300 kept.

If I am going on a birding trip to some other country I expect to get around 2000 images a day with 15% kept.

Then there are the two types of outings that sort of get out of hand. In the Spring I have the Tree/Barn Swallows and Blue Birds in flight (all in the same general location) which will see me end up with 5000+ images on an individual outing with maybe 5% kept. In the Summer I go to see the Peregrin Falcons which depending on how active the younglings are, I can end up with 100-3000 images with about 10% kept.

 

[Gaz]

I'm still working that out since starting again with the RAW format. I archive every shot in HEIF from slot 2, and then I'm pretty aggressive with deleting the raw files. Sometimes I can fill 64Gb with a thousand plus RAW images and tag 30 or so for retention. Most times I edit a few when I get home and leave the rest for later. I sort raw in PhotoMechanic, then upload retained images to dropbox.

I'm happy if I get a single shot on the day that thrills me, but I like peeking through and finding the gems when I can take my time. If I've inadvertently deleted the precise moment in raw, I can go back to HEIF and see if the detail I want is there... so that's reassuring.

How many great shots? lol. I'll keep practicing!

 

[Clix Pix]

Definitely for me it varies in terms of the situation(s) in which I am shooting and the gear with which I am shooting. Sometimes I go out with the A1 and the 100-400mm and have it set up at Continuous High+ so that when I'm shooting bird action on the lake I'm firing away like mad and then have a whole bunch of images to review and cull later. Sometimes I'll shoot well over 1000 images in a single shooting session and wind up processingl only a handful of those.

Today, though, I went out with the A7R V and the 70-200mm lens mounted on it, set in single shot mode, because I was more interested in getting images of the blossom on the Tulip Magnolia trees. As it happened I also did have fun shooting a goose who was nearby feeling frisky, but I didn't bother changing to continuous high, just shot single shots at a time. The A7 V is the camera that I usually use for shooting macros, closeups and tabletop images at home, but it is good to see how she performs in outdoors situations where subjects are moving, too. Today I shot 82 images and out of those I saved 14 to actually process and edit.

 

[Unframed Dave]

Yesterday I spent a happy hour watching a pair of nuthatch and treecreepers in a spot of woodland. In total I took about 1450 shots, the 30fps really does add up, even in short bursts.

I've just reviewed the first 666 and kept 10.

I'll do the next load after my eyes have recovered.

I don't edit my photos generally beyond cropping and straightening.

I'd say the first hundred shots or so were getting the exposure right, the light was very changeable and small birds flitting about in between trees isn't the easiest of subjects. Fingers crossed there's a nuthatch in flight in the next folder.

 

[spudhead]

Yesterday I spent a happy hour watching a pair of nuthatch and treecreepers in a spot of woodland. In total I took about 1450 shots, the 30fps really does add up, even in short bursts.

I've just reviewed the first 666 and kept 10.

I'll do the next load after my eyes have recovered.

I don't edit my photos generally beyond cropping and straightening.

I'd say the first hundred shots or so were getting the exposure right, the light was very changeable and small birds flitting about in between trees isn't the easiest of subjects. Fingers crossed there's a nuthatch in flight in the next folder.

Dave I know you do not edit much because you have said that before so are you shooting jpeg?

 

[Unframed Dave]

Dave I know you do not edit much because you have said that before so are you shooting jpeg?

Pretty much exclusively.

 

[BryLogan]

Ok so this will require people to be honest about the way they use their camera and expectations about image count and keeper rate, I keep reading on here and other sites people quoting I shot hundreds or thousands of images on this outing, with that in mind what is your typical image count and keeper rate you get? It is very rare for me to go on a walk or day out and shoot many more than 200-300 images, with a keeper rate of maybe 70 percent, and that is not because I am any better with the camera than others its more that I do not even take shots now if I think they are waste of time or beyond the camera lens combo I have at that time, or light and conditions limit possible results I tend to shoot silent shutter and low frame rate on the a9 a73 and a99ii. So what do you do?

I presume your questions are more directed to ”action” — bird and vehicle — shooters than to types like me, ‘cause I’m definitely an outlier vis-a-vis the predominant genres here. I am, almost totally, a studio shooter. High frame counts or high burst rates are antithetical to my style of photography. Although I’ve never counted, I’d be pretty surprised and upset if my keeper rate was much below 90-92%.

Depending on the subject and the number of people I have to deal with, I’ll shot anywhere from 125 to 300 shots per session. Rarely more than that. I remember one two-day fashion shoot where I almost needed counseling after I realized I had shot over 800 exposures during the course of those two days.

 

[Brownie]

I presume your questions are more directed to ”action” — bird and vehicle — shooters than to types like me, ‘cause I’m definitely an outlier vis-a-vis the predominant genres here. I am, almost totally, a studio shooter. High frame counts or high burst rates are antithetical to my style of photography. Although I’ve never counted, I’d be pretty surprised and upset if my keeper rate was much below 90-92%.

Depending on the subject and the number of people I have to deal with, I’ll shot anywhere from 125 to 300 shots per session. Rarely more than that. I remember one two-day fashion shoot where I almost needed counseling after I realized I had shot over 800 exposures during the course of those two days.

LAZY!

 

[BryLogan]

LAZY!

Yep, and that’s at a pace of once every 7 to 10 days!

 

[Unframed Dave]

I'm just going through some of my recent overseas wildlife shots. On average, I'm keeping about 1% where I'm using high frame rate shutter.

 

[Brownie]

The problem with this thread that there is no definition of keeper rate. Keeper rate isn't the number of images you want to keep, it's the number of images that turned out as expected. It is the number of shots that are acceptable for use after culling, ie: In focus, decent composition, light, etc.

@Unframed Dave's post is (hopefully) an example. I doubt Dave went out and came home with 99% crap shots, so he could only keep 1%. More than likely he simply doesn't need multiple shots of the same subject.

So Dave, if you were to rephrase that to the number of acceptable shots, what would it be? Something higher than 1%, I expect!

 

[Unframed Dave]

The problem with this thread that there is no definition of keeper rate. Keeper rate isn't the number of images you want to keep, it's the number of images that turned out as expected. It is the number of shots that are acceptable for use after culling, ie: In focus, decent composition, light, etc.

@Unframed Dave's post is (hopefully) an example. I doubt Dave went out and came home with 99% crap shots, so he could only keep 1%. More than likely he simply doesn't need multiple shots of the same subject.

So Dave, if you were to rephrase that to the number of acceptable shots, what would it be? Something higher than 1%, I expect!

Sorry Fella, I take a lot of dross.

Being serious though, you're quite right and I find that if I take a burst of anywhere from 3 to 10 shots, it's normally the first that I keep. I say normally, so I wouldn't want to lose the facility. I've another couple of folders to sort, so I'll keep a better count when I do them.

 

[Clix Pix]

OK so today I was out on my deck and started shooting a couple of birds standing on the chains on our nearby pier. They were just hanging ou, no big deal. I patiently waited and finally got a little more action from them, so kept shooting. Eventually, tihngs really picked up when another bird decided to dive-bomb them -- wow!! Anyway, what started out as a ho-hum session which would have ended with maybe a hundred images at the most turned into something where I had over 650. In post-processing, I reviewed the images and culled out a lot straightaway, and then went back and culled out more so that in the end I think I've wound up with about 23 images to actually consider processing, and at that, it's probably going to wind up where I only edit maybe three or four at the most. There actually were more keepers, but they were near-duplicates to the ones I finally chose as the best. That is one of the hazards of shooting in rapid-fps-burst mode.

The time spent watching and shooting this bird activity? Not wasted at all -- I thoroughly enjoyed the show! So if in the end I only wind up processing two or three images, that is OK with me.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Interesting replies.
It was always considered that 10% was a good keeper rate (on early digital cameras), and I have always managed this pretty much, but on average now, if I wanted to, I could probably keep over 50%, maybe 75%, as I have got my settings and technique right with the current camera. This will drop for BIF on the RIV of course. I don't often shoots long bursts, usually shooting in bursts of 3 or 4, which obviously limits how many shots to go through as well. If I were shooting 20 or 30fps on an A1 for example, I would expect the keeper rate to drop because I wouldn't keep everything for a start, and actually I'd probably get bored looking through!
The reality is that I usually keep around 15-20% in the end, at least for field trips. For the Moth shots I keep 90% because I check the first is in focus, and if it is I don't take another. It's a more controlled environment though, so much easier to achieve.

 

[spudhead]

Interesting replies.
It was always considered that 10% was a good keeper rate (on early digital cameras), and I have always managed this pretty much, but on average now, if I wanted to, I could probably keep over 50%, maybe 75%, as I have got my settings and technique right with the current camera. This will drop for BIF on the RIV of course. I don't often shoots long bursts, usually shooting in bursts of 3 or 4, which obviously limits how many shots to go through as well. If I were shooting 20 or 30fps on an A1 for example, I would expect the keeper rate to drop because I wouldn't keep everything for a start, and actually I'd probably get bored looking through!
The reality is that I usually keep around 15-20% in the end, at least for field trips. For the Moth shots I keep 90% because I check the first is in focus, and if it is I don't take another. It's a more controlled environment though, so much easier to achieve.

Kev thanks for reply so one thing you did not mention is the typical frame count taken on a day out, I ask because many people have mentioned what I consider to be big numbers or maybe I dont take that many shots myself

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Kev thanks for reply so one thing you did not mention is the typical frame count taken on a day out, I ask because many people have mentioned what I consider to be big numbers or maybe I dont take that many shots myself

If I'm out for a full day, then I probably average 4-500 when there's plenty going on at least.

 

[GracieAllen]

If I'm doing landscape-ish things the number is pretty low - maybe 1-2 hundred. If I'm shooting birds it'll be anywhere from 1000 to 6500 depending on where, how good the birds are, light, all that. In general, if birds, my keeper rate is about 1%. Yes, there are others that are sharp and perhaps reasonably composed, but they're not "THE" shot. And, in general, at least half of them are complete junk, so they never make it out of the thumbnails.

Fortunately, I'm very fast at culling.

 

[Unframed Dave]

I was "on" the Barn owls last night, and took around 1500 shots in an hour. With the A1 at hi+, it's almost impossible to shoot 3 frame bursts like I used to when I had 10 fps available. It would require extreme attention to "trigger technique" and take the mind off following the bird.

It's also very easy when an owl is approaching you at close distance to keep taking bloody photos. I will probably never stop doing this as it's very easy to delete them, but you may never have the opportunity again.

 

[GracieAllen]

Yes, I'd rather deal with a dozen extra images than miss the decisive moment!

 

[Gaz]

I may have answered this before, but it’s not a competition. Lately I’ve been shooting everything and everyone in burst mode, just in case a bird flies into the frame!