What is your "failure" rate?

[Liney]

A bit of a potentially controversial title I know, but now I've got your attention perhaps you can hang around and answer the question...

When I say "failure" rate what I mean is how many good images do you get to blurred, out of focus, "where did the subject go?" shots? The thought came to me when I was trying out a new flash set up for macro and was chasing bees around the cherry tree. Every time one landed I moved into a relatively close position, desperately find the right focus distance, set the aperture (manual lens, I need to see enough detail to focus then wind up the aperture to get a decent depth of view...) and shutter!.

Trouble was after a number of shots that would have exceeded the maximum number of images on two rolls of 35mm film (thank you whoever made digital photography) I got maybe one decent image and a couple that weren't that bad if I worked on them. Not to mention the number of times I got to step three or four and the bee decided he'd move on elsewhere...

Which made me wonder how everyone else got on? Obviously there are photo-gods and goddesses out there who get great shots every time, so maybe the question is what would you class as a "successful" shoot in terms of the good to bad ratio? I'd be particularly interested in any other macro enthusiasts and see how they get on.

Cheers

[nardes]

From the top of my head, if I take say, 300-400 shots during a day's outing, I can usually delete maybe 100 or so immediately (technical, composition errors, etc.) and then of the remainder, cull them down to around 50 and from that 50, perhaps 10 or 15 are worth taking further with maybe 5 or 6 as standouts that I might consider for posting here.

Cheers

Dennis

[Geoff79]

Funny timing for this thread. I had the single worst macro session so far yesterday afternoon. I went to some local bushland to hopefully capture some native bees on the flowers. I got there and although it wasn't an overly windy day, it was in the bush and I couldn't escape it. Finally got deep enough in the scrub to escape the breeze a bit, but then I just couldn't find anything other than flies. There was a gigantic blue fly that I was dying to capture, though. Didn't get anything close to a keeper out of many efforts. I ended up with one last final shot that would have been useable, if he wasn't on the outer edge of the frame with half a wing cut off. So that was 0 keepers.

Then all I could find other than that fly, were a dozen sand fly type things hovering around my legs. I assume it was because I got some cuts on my legs somewhere along the way and the blood was attracting them? Anyway, so I sat down and got a couple of awful shots of flies on my skin and shorts and shoes. Unusable, really. I got a few bites, but I guess one got me in a bad state because I was already frustrated and I swatted and killed it. Turned out to be the only subject that stayed still enough for me all afternoon. But photos of a dead fly appeal 0 to me - so there's still no keepers.

After about an hour and a half of this I went back to the car, attached the wide-angle lens to try and get some nice landscape shots. As happened at the end of my recent holiday, the AF is gone - completely shot now. Later that afternoon at home I resigned to the fact I might have to now use this as a Manual lens from now on, but at the time and in my frustration I got two photos of the dusty road and that was it as the lens was a dead weight to me in that state of mind.

Anyway, the whole outing was a complete waste of time with possibly no keepers at all. I'll review and confirm, but it was awful.

Ironically, later that afternoon I got some nice shots of a jumping spider and lady beetle in the comfort of my backyard. Got some keepers there, at least.

But yes, I really like when Macro photography goes well - getting a great shot is quite thrilling. But holy goodness it can be frustrating too. Really frustrating. The worst thing about it for me is that I only get such limited windows to spend time on macro photography, and it's so disheartening when you're all set up and ready to go and there's no subjects to capture, or the potential subjects just make it impossible for you to capture any keepers.

Anyway, a successful shoot for me personally would be to get maybe about five true keepers in an hour? Much, much easier said than done.

[Mark L]

Keeper rates might go up if photogs thought a bit more before pressing the shutter button. Digital makes its so cheap and easy to press the shutter button though.
Thinking keeper rates depend on the type of photo you are after or taking. Macro would have a less keeper rate than people portraits or photos of flowers I'd think.
There's been an astounding amount of woodswallows around here lately so I took 19 photos of them flitting around high in the sky this arvo. I could have used the cameras 8 frames per secound ability and have 160 frames out of focus to delete. I'll post the only useful photo I got. Not even a keeper really.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2axr7D3][/url

[jim]

Interesting question. As it happens I posted a photo of a bird in here today, and while it's still fresh in my memory card I'm in a position to do a bit of a count up. I see that I took 111 photos of it, of which 47 remain as yet undeleted. Ultimately I'll probably keep fewer than half a dozen, and I got one that I think is reasonably good.

Tht's probably about average for me.

[Tannin]

From the top of my head, if I take say, 300-400 shots during a day's outing, I can usually delete maybe 100 or so immediately (technical, composition errors, etc.) and then of the remainder, cull them down to around 50 and from that 50, perhaps 10 or 15 are worth taking further with maybe 5 or 6 as standouts that I might consider for posting here.

To the extent that there is such a thing as a "normal' day (which there isn't), that's about where I stand too, though a day which produces 5 or 6 keepers worth posting here is a pretty good day. Some days, you work hard all day and battle to find even one good picture. Other days, everything works for you and you wind up with a whole series of good shots - sometimes more than 50 - all of the same subject. You could pick a couple at random and they would be fine, but you trawl through looking for the very best one and feeling annoyed because there are dozens of perfectly good other shots you are never going to use.

(But you take them anyway, because with birds, you so seldom get a really good opportunity that you never, ever waste one.)

[farmmax]

Totally depends on what I'm taking. If it is flowers which stay pretty still, there are very few duds. If I'm chasing some insects round and round a plant stem and in and out of leaves, I'm happy if I get a couple of decent shots out of 100.

[Hawthy]

On a one week trip to Tasmania, I took 612 photos of which I kept 40. Most of these were landscapes where I had plenty of time to organise myself, so that's a sad indictment on my abilities. Some were just not interesting photos but on others I hadn't turned the autofocus back on and that type of thing.

[Gazza]

Dennis & Jim sum it up well for me. Thanks guys -

From the top of my head, if I take say, 300-400 shots during a day's outing, I can usually delete maybe 100 or so immediately (technical, composition errors, etc.) and then of the remainder, cull them down to around 50 and from that 50, perhaps 10 or 15 are worth taking further with maybe 5 or 6 as standouts that I might consider for posting here.

Cheers

Dennis

Geez, Dennis...you've bin lookin' over my shoulder!




I'll also add...I've been experimenting with different genres/ideas lately and find myself getting more-n-more cynical/critical. Keeping one reasonable image a week from this becomes very satisfying.




^{Great topic...Cheers -}

[ricktas]

Depends.. on the subject!

Take me out to shoot a dawn sunrise and I will likely take 20 photos and fairly much every one is a keeper. I take it slow, do my setup, and move around for different foreground interest.

Put me in the backyard trying to get a photo of the dogs playing in water and shaking it off, to freeze the action and the number of keepers drops, as I run around the yard trying to get a good angle, that doesn't include dog butt. Same thing with chasing kids for portraits.

Then moving right along to Macro, where I am trying to get that bee in flight, well most are trash and I might get a keeper.. maybe.. if I am lucky.

So I don't have a keeper rate that I could quote here, because my subjects keep changing and with that so does my success.

I get why people who shoot film, don't generally go in for bee-in-flight photos, and rather tend to be posed portraiture or landscapes. It is really nice that the landscape doesn't just take off and fly to somewhere else, because that would just plain pi... annoy me.

[Glenda]

Definitely depends on the subject. Also with the more difficult subjects eg birds, macro, quickly moving grandchildren, I will always take lots of shots and get a very low percentage of keepers. However, with landscapes, astro I take less shots and get a higher percentage of keepers.

[Tannin]

It is really nice that the landscape doesn't just take off and fly to somewhere else, because that would just plain pi... annoy me.

Well ... maybe ....

But that's leading me a bit off-topic so I replied here: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...blood-pressure

[Liney]

Thanks for the responses, and a pretty good selection they were.

Mark L, an interesting point about not being so quick to press the shutter. Certainly if I was still shooting film I would not be trying to take macro shots of bees unless I was pretty certain I would get something I could keep out of a roll. And of course it depends on how you class a "keeper", I don't sell my images and the only public exposure they get is the good ones get to become my computer wallpaper at work.

Some interesting comments made about different genres of photography, and I suppose you could split them into stuff that moves and stuff that doesn't (or at least moves slowly!).

Thanks again, hopefully anyone new to photography will get the idea that getting a fair number of bad images is par for the course, and happens to the best of us.

[landyvlad]

My failure rate? Up in the region of 100%

But it's largely my fault due to a lack of practice / knowledge.

[Liney]

My failure rate? Up in the region of 100%

But it's largely my fault due to a lack of practice / knowledge.

Landyvlad

Never give up, just keep practicing

[JimmyCat]

I reckon if I get a couple of bird shots that I'm happy enough to keep and maybe push up to Flickr then I've had a pretty good day - in terms of failure rate that could be anywhere between 80 - 100%. For example yesterday I grabeed 5 quick shots of a honeyeater high up in the topmost of a flowering gum and had a couple of keepers, the day before I scrapped all bar one of more than 100.

Thank God for digital photography and large SD cards!

[martycon]

G'day Liney, when I started macro I posted a similar thread. My success rate then was one in nine. And yes in the "good old days" I could not have afforded to do macro. As you say, getting enough light to be able to focus can be a problem. When using a full manual older lens, I use the viewfinder brightness boost for focus facility which is independent of the lens, perhaps your camera also has this.
Focus distance, like focusing on the subject, comes with practise. As many macro subjects are 10 t0 20mm long I start with magnification 1:2 to have the subject occupy half the frame. This also gives better DOF, and allows a crop. If a small insect stays in place, then I can go to magnification 1:1. Magnification 0.7:1 or greater is almost always impracticable hand held.
Practise helps and if nothing presents, focus on anything. My current success (think positive) rate is about one in two or three.
hope this is useful, regards marty

[landyvlad]

Obviously there are photo-gods and goddesses out there who get great shots every time,

Don't you believe it! They say the difference between a professional and amateur photographer, is that the professional doesn't show anyone his mistakes.

Extremely good photographers would have a lower failure rate but they will certainly have a failure rate.
And those photos that are really famous and have become integrally associated with a photographer are often the 'best in career' shot as opposed to their typical work.

As I quoted elsewhere don't compare yourself to other photographers, only to the photographer you were.

Depends.. on the subject!

It is really nice that the landscape doesn't just take off and fly to somewhere else, because that would just plain pi... annoy me.

Well, it does move. It's hurtling through space at 29.783 kilometres/second, while also spinning at 465 meters/second.

So well done you !

[ricktas]

Well, it does move. It's hurtling through space at 29.783 kilometres/second, while also spinning at 465 meters/second.

So well done you !

And here was me thinking that was just the vodka

[Nick Cliff]

Interesting topic really because the more you learn with macro photography the higher standards you set yourself for composition, sharpness, white balance, lighting and OOF background the workflow just grows. However it does become easier once you work out a workflow and practice often and close observations of insects helps too.
Now if I am thinking I will take note of which flowers are freshest and seem to being visited the most and just enjoy the view. Just set up comfortably and wait and see if the little critters will return. There are times too of course through the day when native bees are more active and I personally try and avoid macro photography in windy conditions.
Using a longer focal length macro lens makes life easier too of course.
The other thing is with insects I recall an entomologist saying try and move smoothly and quite slowly when you are close to the little guys, particularly the wasps
Personally I grow plants native and introduced that are attractive to insects and birds and that shortens the odds quite a bit at home
Sometimes half the insect photos will be good, it is just waiting for something spectacular composition wise to occur. For instance a few days ago I was photographing flowers when I noticed one spider catch another jumping spider and eat the little guy, I took heaps of photos and really far too many yet you are thinking at the time this may be a once in a lifetime thing to observe.
Personally I do not stress out too much if insects do not co operate, when they do it is a bonus the days of chasing butterflies are over for me. I wait and watch to see if they have particular resting spots in the daytime or especially late in the afternoon see were they camp for the night and may have an early start the next morning to grab a few photos before the little guys warm up and leave for their days feeding routine.
With landscapes composition is key and having the picture planned helps re ND grad filters, tripods etc and a good weather eye (BOM) for the conditions you want if the subject is fairly local, so that you can get the photo first go especially with sunrise or sunset photos so most photos should be OK, it comes down to the changing conditions re god rays, lightning and that bit too if you are fortunate
Other guys have said this stuff before on the site particularly Rick and Mary-Anne, no doubt other photographers may want to add a few pearls of wisdom to help newer photographers shorten their learning curve in relation to this conversation

cheers Nick