On average what would you say is your success rate when you go out to shoot? And what’s your experience level?
For myself who has a passion for photography but zero formal training and only purchased my first real camera less than a year ago, I’d say 1% of the pictures that I take are “good” or at least to the point to where I’d share them.
I know a lot comes from just going out and taking pictures but I feel like the gaps between when I go out and take pictures and actually sit at the computer and look at them is so spread out that I can never remember what I did or was thinking last time I was out shooting
I don’t have a lot to add that hasn’t already been said toward your primary question. Something you said later on made me want to chime in. While there is indeed no replacement for experience, it is possible to accelerate that growth through education. If you haven’t already, watch YouTube videos on elements of design and principles of art and specifically how they relate to photography. You may see an increase in “keepers”.
I do landscape and à bit of street photographe. I get about 5% of good shots with street photography and 0.5% with landscape photography
Photo degree / 15 years experience / committed amateur level of involvement
For my landscape stuff, barring some unforseen malfunction or thing moving through the shot, it’s as close to 1:1 for shots to keepers as I can manage. Once you know what your settings / lens can give you, there’s not really a reason to set up for a shot unless you see the potential.
For my concert stuff, especially since I only use available stage and ambient lighting, I usually average around 20 - 30 sellable quality images out of 500 - 750 shots.
I just spent two weeks in Japan. We were in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara.
I took 3000 photos. I shared 600 of those. I whittled down about 100 that I’m proud enough to put into a book.
So that’s about a 20% “facebook worthy” rate and 3.3% “portfolio worthy” rate.
Now that’s also keeping in mind that you can point at basically anything in Japan and capture something worth printing, with enough patience.
I live in South Carolina, so… not so much here.
Same, same. Two weeks in Japan, took around 4000 shots. Maybe 10% worth sharing. Japan is very photogenic!
I mainly do macro work on insects and plants in the wild. 1 in 1000 is my rough estimate. But I also shot like 4000 pictures in a 2-3 hours time frame.
But in the end I usualy end up with at least 2-8 Keepers and one realy good picture.
When I did do product shootings in the studio almost 100% after setup.
Portait work depends on the model. Simple Business Headshots 9 in 10 workable 1 in 10 great.
Events 3 out of 5. Workable. 1 out of 10 great.
I shoot street so everything looks like shit. In a year, I’ll have less than 10 photos that I’m truly proud of.
This is a good thing to point out. “Photos I’m willing to at least share” are usually something you can find. “Photos I’m proud of”, because I imagined a shot, made all setup and preparation, and it worked out? Way smaller set.
Yeah, that’s a great way of saying it. And just because I don’t think my photos are excellent doesn’t mean I don’t want to share them. I still want to share “okay” photos.
When I first started to get into photography I was friends with a full time professional photographer that owned a studio business and shot magazine covers. He’d been shooting for many years and made incredible images. I asked him how many good photos he’d taken over the last years and he thought for a minute and said, “Six”. I understand that. As you get better you start to be more self critical.
I have a masters in photography now and I think that my “good” photos are only good because they are in successful dialogue with other photos. Really the question I’d ask is, what projects are good. I have two projects that I think are decent.
Handheld macro on live subjects and wildlife handheld with telephoto. Keeper rate ~5-10%, actual willing to show people rate? Less than 1%.
Thankfully I’m not going through film, because I’d be going broke :D
I don’t shoot much outside of the studio. I’ve never been that good on my feet like that.
Even with the complete control over studio conditions it can still vary a lot, like maybe the hair isn’t right, or wardrobe is problematic because it doesn’t fit or whatever. Biggest determinant for what I shoot is usually how comfortable someone is (and experienced at) being in front of the camera.
Experience level: idk. I’ve done a lot of commercial work by happenstance, but I’m only really good in very specific situations. So I’d probably two myself at like a neutral number in the middle.
Depends on the day and the subject tbh
Depends. I shoot a ton of street and landscape. Maybe 1-2% street. But my landscapes are carefully planned and executed so I get like 20%. The thing is that, a lot of the time at least with me, I get keepers that may not be exactly what I intended when I shot it but, with a little cropage and postprocess magic turns into a keeper. When I cull I have definite keepers, maybes and nopes. I may get an extra few percent from the maybes later on…
When I first started out on film we had to be more deliberate with our shots so that made me stop and think and learn to compose and frame on the first try. I did that for ten years before going digital. Also a lot of photography is VERY subjective. Some people will hate everything you do. Others will love it all. Still others will love shots you think are sub par or absolute shit.
Just back from three weeks in New Zealand where I took 1,600 photos. Been through about 75% of them and I have about 30 keepers. That’s about one keeper for every 40 photos.
To be fair, I took a lot of photos to stitch as panoramas. Plus, I tended to take two or more photos of the same thing and hope that one of them was sharp. Still, there were some where I don’t know what I was thinking.
If I had been by myself, I probably would have used a tripod and taken more time and had fewer duds. My wife was very patient but it was her holiday too.
Next time you come here you can borrow my tripod :)
Thanks for the offer. I took a tripod but only used it when my wife was sleeping in. Helpfully, she slept in at Kaikoura, Wanaka and Queenstown.
That’s a shame you missed the awe inspiring beauty of Hamilton’s high street at 3am on a Saturday.
A drunk hamiltonian searching for some kebab or overwarmed pie is something you won’t find in a zoo and an beautiful testament to the diversity of our fair land.
Visited Hamilton. One photo is a semi-keeper. The Renaissance Garden. The second - a panoramic photo of the food court didn’t make the cut. Sadly, we needed to get to Rotorua by nightfall. Looking forward to seeing the 3am shots though!
Ya know, I’ve been to about 50 major cities in my life and have only been offered meth precisely once - in Rotorua at a red light when I was waiting to cross the street to the lake and a van pulled up and said “hey bro, do you want some P, bro?” I said no thanks and he said “sweet as all good” and drove off.
Yeah I feel this, most of my shooting outings are outings with my better half and she’s the same with being patient with me but I can only spend so much time in one place because she deserves attention too haha
I’m sorry, but if you really only have 30 keepers out of 1600 pictures taken, you aren’t practicing photography, you are just clicking the shutter, hoping against hope that the camera will do all the important work.
Not to single you out, but include everybody else around here who make similar statements. 1 out of 40 is just relying on luck, and from what I can see, you aren’t having any.
What shall we say about Gary Winogrand then?
‘He had an insatiable urge to be out and about, photographing life around him. In total (on the low end) we can be certain that he shot at least 5,850,000 photos in his lifetime.’
Pretty sure most of us saw maybe a hundred or so of those. On film too…
What we saw is no reflection on the ratio of good or bad photos. Nor does the fact that someone takes over 5 million pictures matter. If you take pictures, you are either thinking about it and taking good pictures, or you are relying on luck and taking mostly wasted pictures. The choice is yours to make.
Comment accepted. I am not a great photographer. When you are travelling almost every day though, you don’t really have time to scope out locations and get back there at sunrise and sunset. It’s more, “Oh! That’s a lovely scene! Let’s see if I can make something of it even though it’s 2 pm and the light is crap.” Then get in the car and drive on.
That’s why I had such a high fail. Compositions were ok and they were sharp enough but the light made for disappointing photos.
Who says the light at 2pm is crap? Seriously. Somebody who is not there? Common wisdom? This is another myth of perfection. You can take great pictures in ANY kind of light if you are capable of taking great pictures. Some of the greatest pictures of all time were taken in the “wrong” light. Don’t let the mindless crowd tell you when you can and can’t take good photos. This is just as bad as letting your camera do all your thinking.
Urban/Street: 40-50% (out of 4 to 6 shots per location)
Events (mostly birthdays): 20-30% (out of 150 to 200 shots per event)
Motorsports: < 10% (out of 300-400 shots per day)
I shot a wedding the other day. 2000ish frames captured. 500ish edited and delivered to the clients. 100 of those I think are pretty good. Maybe 10 are great? Maybe. I consider that to be a good shoot.
This is quite subjective!
I’m a full time portrait and wedding photographer, and my goal is to always get the best shots I can. I have developed my brand and style over the years by practicing my skills and experience. I’ve always had an eye for art and photography/framing an image. Art and creativity runs in my family in many ways including my mom paints and my dad used to do black and white film photography. I used to want to be a cinemaphotogroaher but the film industry is way harder to get into and you have to know people and basically live in Hollywood.
Sooo I gravitated towards photography in my youth, and pushed myself out of my comfort zone to learn more! My growth has led me to know how to line up and image to try to get the most flattering image as possible. Of course my favorites so edit will differ from my clients favorites. I get a good variety of poses, candids, backgrounds, etc. so I feel I do a great job every time I go out and photograph. I get repeat clients and clients who compliment their images they receive with awesome feedback.
Bought my first camera about 2 years ago and did mostly landscapes since then. I had to learn a lot of basic photography, which reduced the pictures with actually nice compositions and correct exposure to a bare minimum of below 1%. Even now I push the button a dozen times just to get a feeling for how different a scene looks through the camera compared to how I see it.
Overall, I had hiking vacations with about 1000 pictures and i used 150 of them for stitching panoramas and out of the rest, I kept about 30 for a photo book. But the quality that I would print them big and hang them on my wall? Maybe 5 of them.