Snow Geese are back in my area. I was shooting controlled bursts when geese were in flight. I thought I was shooting in a disciplined way, but somehow managed to fire off around 1000 shots. I would hate to think what that figure would be if I had taken photos at 20fps (2000?) or 30fps (3000?). I now have some culling to do. Gulp!
Thankful My D500 Has Only 10fps
- Thread starter Craig Yuill
- Start date
If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).
Cameron T
Well-known member
At the first day of the airshow here this year, I had 6k shots at 20fps. Way more than I need, but I always do it to myself
I fired off around 1200 shots at an airshow in August. That took 6 hours. The Snow Geese shoot took only 1.5 hours. I might have overdone it just a bit.
Cameron T
Well-known member
No kill like overkill. You got a few good shots you wouldn't have gotten at less fps I bet.
Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess...
Jamie Baker
Active member
I find ten frames per second to be about right, sometimes too much. My primary camera is still a D500.
I can easily shoot several thousand on a slow morning. Photomechanic is your friend. I can cull 3k shots in 10 minutes. Easy
How can you possibly see them at 100% to tell which ones are sharpest, especially on the eyes, all in 10 minutes?
I set my Z9 to have a maximum of 5 shot bursts--at 20 fps. If I see the bird has moved, then I take another burst of 5. It has taken me hours to carefully exam my photos of a trip to Sri Lanka at 100% to see what is the sharpest. There can be a huge variation especially if the lighting conditions are not good.
Photomechanic. Loads so fast you can just hold down your arrow button and watch a movie. It’s what sports photographers use and they have limited time between action to transmit their selects back to editors. The software is built around speed, meta data, captioning etc. I use 1% of its abilities. I tag my selects and import just those into Lightroom.
Strodav
Well-known member
When I first got it, I set the Z9 to 20fps. It only took a couple of shoots to back off to 10fps, same as my D500. Yes, I occasionally crank it up for specific situations. How many of you have found yourself looking at a dozen or more virtually identical images at 100% or 200% trying to decide which one to pick. The amount of time I was spending choosing the best shots was getting ridiculous.
Cameron T
Well-known member
I got better at culling, and there's also options like photo mechanic, etc. I tend to find one good photo and then skim thumbnails for anything else that might be good in that series. If not, onto the next one.
That's precisely my experience!
I recently adopted this method which is the reverse of how I've done it for years. Historically my first pass was to delete all of the images with obvious technical flaws, clipped wings, etc. Then continue to narrow down and zero in on the best of the best. I'd spend hours over multiple days. Now I do the reverse. I go through and pick those that are the best content first. I examine those in detail and if there are no issues with them the rest of that burst get deleted. Move on. Good enough is good enough. No need to compare two nearly identical images at 100 percent view to decide if one might be just a tad sharper than the other.
Also like others in this thread it didn't take me long to back off of 20 fps for other than special circumstances. It has its uses but not for everything.
I think I'll try your approach.
Cameron T
Well-known member
I always looked for best/most interesting shots first. It made adjusting to more fps easier for me.
Now, my process goes in the following order
1. Isolate series of of shots (eg one burst, one event, etc)
2. Skim thumbnails for unique/interesting poses for wildlife with good light or ones I personally like, or for airshows shots where the interesting thing happened (planes crossing, vapor cloud off the wings, etc)
3. Select interesting shots, verify basic sharpness (don't need to go to 100%, even at 50% it's easy to tell for me if it's worth processing at all).
4. Go to next event/subject/etc, repeat 1-3 until done culling
5. Import selected images
6. Now I'll look a little closer, comparing images if I have multiple from a set/subject if I want to keep them all
7. Once I've whittled down to the best ones, send through dxo pure raw (I use capture 1 for processing otherwise).
8. Import back into c1, finish processing.
My first trip out with my Z8 I shot 2000+ in less than an hour. Second trip was 4000+ in less than 2 hours. Needless to say, I have throttled back a whole lot recently.
When I'm in Bosque Del Apache shooting Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes I regularly get 3-4000 shots in a day at 10 fps on my D500. The birds make you do it. It's not under your control! 
StefanSC
Well-known member
I found that thinking ahead on the exact image that what I want to get helps a lot to reduce the number of frames.
For example, this past WE I wasn't out shooting cormorants... I was out trying to find a cormorant drying it's wings against a golden/yellow/reddish background.
Much less need to press that shutter button when you clearly have in mind what shot you want to take.
Also, take into consideration the light, if you already have better images of that subject and so on. You can do a lot of culling of images by just not pressing the shutter.
It has been my experience that when it comes to simple birds in flight, there are just a few good wing positions (depending on your angle to the birds) and after a point, because the wing motion is repetitive, you get the same shots.
So it doesn't make sense to shoot too much as you'll get same looking shots.
Finally, I must say that for most applications, D500s 10fps are more than enough. But there are some situations (e.g: Heron's fishing or Bee-eaters trying to steal each-other's lunch mid-air) where something that goes 20fps or more (and can do pre-capture) comes very handy.
Jim DeLuco
Active member
I do not download all images before culling. I cull directly on the card. I find it alot faster.
I shoot a Sony A1 and Sony A7R5 and never go beyond 10 to 15 frames per second. I just don’t need it and don’t want to sit there for an hour culling through the images lol. I find that even shooting swallows can be done easily at 15 frames per second. I did go up to 20 fps photographing eagles last year and ended up with 3700 images in less than an hour lol. Most were completely redundant so that was enough for me to know I just don’t care for going that high with frame rate.
O
Well-known member
Not what my girlfriend says
O
Well-known member
Every ones different and it depends greatly on what you doing, that said, for my self i use 5 to 10 fps generally is plenty, if i am shooting birds that are lightening fast obviously i crank it to 20 fps.
When i look at the frames one at a time say out of 20 there may be 2 or 3 that are unique choices, the rest are to similar, taking a video and selecting a unique frame can be also done i am told. This pathway is becoming more and more the direction things are heading in anyway.
Only an opinion
TCzPhotos
Member
I typically set my Z8 to 20fps. FN2 on the lens bumps me to single shot (could be 5fps or anything else).
I cull and protect images in the camera. Pick the best image from a burst if there is something good and maybe one or two on either side. Delete the rest. This is a good way to fill down time in the field and saves download time and card space as well.
Also, an Android tablet handles files much faster than a PC for a second culling before moving to Lightroom.
I cull and protect images in the camera. Pick the best image from a burst if there is something good and maybe one or two on either side. Delete the rest. This is a good way to fill down time in the field and saves download time and card space as well.
Also, an Android tablet handles files much faster than a PC for a second culling before moving to Lightroom.
Went to Maryland International Raceway yesterday and was at 1800+ after just a couple of hours shooting footbrake drag racers. It was my first time at a track and first time doing some actual shooting with my new Z8. I was basically grabbing a quick burst at launch and then panning bursts as they passed in front of me. Thankfully, I had set my fps to 12 and was limiting my shots to the more interesting cars. This almost half the shots I got from many of my DSLRs in the entire time I owned them, from my D1X onward! Now, to sort through them… may look into Photomechanic, as others have, to pair with my LR. (I’m hoping I can apply this experience with the eagles at Conowingo soon…)