How many images do you take in a normal outing?

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How many images do you normally take in a single outing?

  • 0-100

    Votes: 9 10.1%

  • 100-250

    Votes: 10 11.2%

  • 250-500

    Votes: 23 25.8%

  • 500-1000

    Votes: 26 29.2%

  • 1000 and above

    Votes: 21 23.6%
  • Total voters
    89
sh1209

sh1209

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I am pretty conservative with how many images I take most of the time. Usually I will go out for 2-3 hours early morning and most of the time come home with 200-600 images that I normally cull thru roughly right away after loading into Lightroom. I think the most I’ve ever taken in a single outing was a little over 2000 and that was mostly due to doing numerous photo stacking shots for macro. To me it’s just overwhelming coming home with so many images to cull. I normally delete everything I don’t edit but keep the raw file for the edit and the edited tiff so I am definitely heavy handed with deleting. I’m just curious if most folks are in the same boat or shoot far more images when out.
 
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bleirer said:
I don't seek out birds, but I imagine they are the card-fillers. For other scenes of nature, if the light isn't changing much then one "scene" might have a hundred shots. Different amounts of zoom, different angles, different distance from subject. I'm confident enough in exposure I don't need bracketing unless I'm going for an hdr. Shooting panorama would have more. But then I walk 100 feet down a trail and something else catches my eye, so another 100. So a 2-3 hour hike could have 1000 shots, of which ten might be seriously edited and one or two might make it to show others.
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Do you normally cull pretty heavy or keep lots of extras? I normally just keep the ones I edit as well as their raw original file.
 
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With my D850 / D500 combination I was fairly consistent between 500 and 700 an outing. Then I got a Z9, up'd the frame rate and got closer to 1000 / outing. I've landed at 12fps most of the time, but will up it in certain situations. Now I'm back to 500 to 700 during an outing.
 
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I'm usually between 700-800 is seems for a typical outing. If I'm in a really great location on a good morning or evening, just pop a "1" or "2" (or sometimes even a "3") in front of those numbers. Usually, only a handful of shots that I want to keep though - often, I'm shooting a scene and there are multiple poses and I just pick the one I like best.
 
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sh1209 said:
Do you normally cull pretty heavy or keep lots of extras? I normally just keep the ones I edit as well as their raw original file.
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With WL, usually do a three stage cull. First pass includes deleting all of the oof, obstructed, and poor shots. Next pass, I delete based most on best shot though I sometimes keep adjacent or similar images in case I need to clone wingtips, eyes, etc. Third cull occurs after edits.
 
sh1209 said:
Do you normally cull pretty heavy or keep lots of extras? I normally just keep the ones I edit as well as their raw original file.
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I'm very bad at keeping organized and often don't want to bother throwing stuff away, rather I just cherry pick those few that spark my imagination and end up eventual archiving a bunch of stuff I'll never look at again. But I know where to find it, maybe, if I did have a use.
 
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Strodav said:
With my D850 / D500 combination I was fairly consistent between 500 and 700 an outing. Then I got a Z9, up'd the frame rate and got closer to 1000 / outing. I've landed at 12fps most of the time, but will up it in certain situations. Now I'm back to 500 to 700 during an outing.
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Yeah for me 12-15FPS is about perfect
 
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ajrmd said:
With WL, usually do a three stage cull. First pass includes deleting all of the oof, obstructed, and poor shots. Next pass, I delete based most on best shot though I sometimes keep adjacent or similar images in case I need to clone wingtips, eyes, etc. Third cull occurs after edits.
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Thats pretty much the same as I do.
 
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It depends on the situation and on the camera. If a subject is not in motion then I do not see much to be gained by shooting a burst of shots at 20 fps. As cameras' autofocus capabilities have improved over the years my need to take "insurance" shots has decreased proportionately. This is a key difference with the Z9 where I do not need to use Group AF and then sort through all the images where the camera focused on something other than the primary subject.
 
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I don't do a lot of fps shooting and when I do I'm pretty conservative as I don't like a lot of culling of nearly identical photos. I also try to conserve memory on the computer and external hard drives. I know I miss many good shot opportunities this way but I guess I still kind of a miser regarding more than money.
 
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As a majority wildlife shooter, I'm surprised if I ever come back from an outing with less than 2,500 photos.

20FPS adds up quickly, and I rarely bother bringing a camera out unless I'm going to be there 2+ hours.
 
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nmerc_photos said:
As a majority wildlife shooter, I'm surprised if I ever come back from an outing with less than 2,500 photos.

20FPS adds up quickly, and I rarely bother bringing a camera out unless I'm going to be there 2+ hours.
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Just a little over 2k is the most I’ve ever shot tbh. I do a fair amount of video as well which certainly fills the cards quickly whenever doing 4K 60 or 120 but for stills I am pretty conservative.
 
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I am unsteady and tend to shake a bit. So, when not using a tripod or monopod, I will shoot at 6-8 fps. Even with the camera mounted I will shoot 4-5fpsbecause I still shake. Also same range when shooting flowers because a little bit of wind can move things around and change the shots.
When in Kearney, Nebraska for the Sandhill Cranes, I shot 9400 photos over one morning, one evening and one half-day driving around. In the morning you shoot from first available light to the last bird leaves which could be one hour or over 2 hours. In the evening you shoot from the first bird arrival until the guide makes you shut down. During the day, you chase birds in the fields and keep shooting.
I am a bit over the top but I am happy with the shots I kept and don't regret the time spent culling. I will typically cull 85-90% and process the rest. The keeper rate goes up if shooting focus shift stacks of flowers.
 
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I have been following the recommendations of Mentor Steve and I am quick to shoot bursts at 20fps in various situations. On one occasion I nearly filled a 165 GB card in one trip.

Lately I have been a little less heavy with shorter bursts and exercising some editorial judgment. I still can generate several hundred images in a three or four hour field trip.
 
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sh1209 said:
I am pretty conservative with how many images I take most of the time. Usually I will go out for 2-3 hours early morning and most of the time come home with 200-600 images that I normally cull thru roughly right away after loading into Lightroom. I think the most I’ve ever taken in a single outing was a little over 2000 and that was mostly due to doing numerous photo stacking shots for macro. To me it’s just overwhelming coming home with so many images to cull. I normally delete everything I don’t edit but keep the raw file for the edit and the edited tiff so I am definitely heavy handed with deleting. I’m just curious if most folks are in the same boat or shoot far more images when out.
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lol I can do that in 3 seconds now lol :)
 
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sh1209 said:
Just a little over 2k is the most I’ve ever shot tbh. I do a fair amount of video as well which certainly fills the cards quickly whenever doing 4K 60 or 120 but for stills I am pretty conservative.
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A lot of my stuff is right at sunrise or sunset, so I'm handholding a 400TC and trying to get sharp images at 1/25 or slower. Spray and pray is the name of the game.

I've never really done anything with video, but I tried for the first time the other day and got like 100GB of footage and burned through a battery faster than ever... so I can definitely understand how video helps cut down on shots taken
 
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Usually in a 3-4 hour outing I will average between 250-600. There have been times where I’ve shot less than 50 but not often. Sometimes , but not often I’ll get closer to 800-900. Of course when the opportunity presents itself it may be more. I normally will shoot in 4-5 frame burst unless BIF are involved . Then of course the burst will be larger. I shoot at 10 frames/sec
 
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When shooting birds I am always in burst mode at 7/sec, to guard against inaccurate focus, closed eyes, movement, etc. My bursts are very short but frequent. On a good outing of a couple/few hours I will come home with 400 shots. With flash (studio shooting or macro), I shoot about half that. I hate culling sequences of similar shots but do it anyway because it ensures getting a better end result.
 
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Archibald said:
When shooting birds I am always in burst mode at 7/sec, to guard against inaccurate focus, closed eyes, movement, etc. My bursts are very short but frequent. On a good outing of a couple/few hours I will come home with 400 shots. With flash (studio shooting or macro), I shoot about half that. I hate culling sequences of similar shots but do it anyway because it ensures getting a better end result.
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Yeah I hear ya with the culling, that's not something I want to spend hours doing. I like to be more methodical with what I photograph most of the time.
 
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For the purposes of this forum, I am a lower volume shooter as for insects and wild flowers 80 to 90% of the time is finding a specimen in pristine condition against a good background. I can be as low as 100 unless focus stacking.
For active birds my number goes up.
For cycle circuit racing my number can go well beyond 1000
 
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