Shooting - Whats your style

Hi all,

I am always seeing amazing pictures on here from all the members and it got me wondering how many shots where taken to achieve them.

I mean do we go out and fire off 2-300 at a time and pick the best and delete the rest or is it a bit more controlled (Like I imaging womble is with his large format) ?

So out of curiosity I made this poll.

What I am asking is number of shots per subject of scene, not total ammount of shots on an entire expedition.

Regards
PaulM

I don't seem to take that many shots, and then find that I do actually PP the majority of them and think they have merit (to my mind, I should add), so I have gone for "small number, most good". That said I do sometimes cull weak shots as I go in camera... Certainly if I am photographing a single scene I will not fire off loads of shots. Normally just one or two.

Mat

I'll start,

I chose "I shoot quite a few images some of which are good"

As something catches my eye I will shoot and move around where ever possible it until I am happy I have something that looks good or at least looks close to what I had visualised before I pressed the shutter.
I am still learning so I like to try different angles to see what works for a given subject

Regards
PaulM

EDIT:- Matt beat me to it

It does depend on the circumstances - if there's an opportunity, I'll try and take a few with different settings, using slight variations in perspective / framing.

this is a good question

on a sitting I will take as many shoot that is necessary to have the subject relaxed that could be anything from 10 shots to 60 or from one minuet to two hour.
if i'm out and about I will take one or two shots of say a sky line or a sun set.

If I go out with a theme in mind around 30 shots

This shot linkwas taken with around 8 shots just to get the leaves right

where as thislink shot was taken in one

James

As an expedition/short break/city visit record I take quite a few, usually though I seem to find a subject(s) I like and take several of it(them).

When it comes to PP I'm lazy so I prefer to have 3 or 4 good shots rather than one perfect one.

Now I'm back on film as well as digital it's making me more critical when composing, thus making the digital shots better.

I think it varies. Sometimes I will know what I want to shoot for a particular subject, so one shot would do it. In this case I usually take two anyway, just to make sure that I have a sharp shot without camera shake.

If it's an experimental subject I'm not familiar with I might take any number until satisfied. There will be lots with minor differences but just one might stand out. This can happen especially where something is unfolding such as changing weather or the final gasp of a sunset.

Not every shot will be a masterpiece, nor does it need to be. Some are just illustrating a point or, for example, purely records of an item.

I have however found enough images that I like to put one a day on ePHOTOzine for the past five years!

Unfortunately there is not the option that I use.....

A small number of images most of which are not any good!

Andy

I don't take shots by accident or just come across them - I'm far too rubbish for that. I have to plan what I do.

I take specific ideas/locations, visit them once before, take a few testshots from various angles and with various lenses, look at them at home and then go back when I've worked out what I consider the ideal composition.

When I'm back, I bracket the hell out of the shot and take duplicates, to make sure focus is on and I've got the right light.

If the conditions arn't right for the final shot I stow it away in my memory and set it against a list of specific light and weather conditions to come back to.

I find this a difficult question to put a single answer to, it all depends on what i'm shooting and the circumstances, if I'm shooting wildlife I just keep snapping away as the subjects present themselves,
If I'm taking holiday snaps its just one or two shots and as long as the esposures OK thats it, if I'm trying to be creative I'll take a snap then walk around the subject and try several compositions.

I rarely make changes to shutter or aperture other than to suit the subject or maintain a healthy shutter speed, I usually know what DoF I need before I even press the shutter.

Today I'm feeling creative so I've ticked the second option

this is a good question and just to throw a tin of worms at it would your answer be the same if you was shooting in film mmmmmm??

James

Does depend on what I'm shooting.

For instance, I was on Broadway in June trying to get a picture of the Shubert Theatre sign (with a non-Pentax compact), to frame alongside the signed Playbill for Blithe Spirit we had just seen. It was night-time, the lights were glaring, there were thousands of people moving around, and there was a lot of background distraction. I took loads of shots (25+), and I'm happy with 1 or 2.

Compare that with recently, I posted a few shallow DOF shots from around my house in the "My Photos" section of this forum. I'm not suggesting that all great (or any are great for that matter), but I took maybe 11 and posted up 9. As the subject matter was static, conditions and lighting were more favourable and I could work at my own pace, I was able to get it right first time.

Generally though I'm probably a mid-volume shooter, and thin them out to perhaps 20% when they're on the computer. Far fewer then would actually get shown to anyone.

When I'm setting off on a shoot I have a broad idea of what I want but when I get there I work instinctly and try to react to situations as they arise. It means I sometimes come back with pictures quite different from those I visualised at the start of the day.
I don't erase photos from the camera very often because sometimes a picture that looks poor on the camera screen improves with a bit of work on the computer back home. That's where I dump the rubbish. Even so I tend to keep far more pictures than I should and much, much later go back through them to edit out the poor ones, and there are a lot of those.
I suppose I take an average number of pictures when I'm out. Pink asks if we would answer that one differently if we were shooting in film. My answer is yes, with film I used to take far fewer pictures.
david

I'd concur with most of the above. Again, it all depends with me. I might take an awful lot if I feel I've hit upon a good subject - to make sure I've made optimal use of the circumstances. I can end up with several 'good' shots with minimal difference between them in this case. At other times I'll take one or two and get it right.

Generally, though, I'd say I find 1 out of 5-10 images are worth pp-ing. Of the rejects often some will be similar, but perhaps slightly inferior compositionally. Shots with people tend to be like that because the blighters never stay still, so you'll find that while images might be similar one will stand out because of the position of people in the frame. Of the ones I pp, I perhaps end up reasonably happy with about 2 out of 3 - perhaps higher.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Pros would usually be taking 10 or more shots for each keeper - and this was using film. Though it depends on the style of the photographer and the subject matter of the shots.

And isn't that the truth! (At least for what happens when I come back.)