What is your "failure" rate?

[Mark L]

And here was me thinking that was just the vodka

You need red wine to really appreciate it.

[mongo]

A more complex question than it originally seems. We all shoot certain subjects they way we do. That is not likely to change except to the extend we may learn how to possibly do that better

In the days of 36 roll of slide film, Mongo would be lucky to keep, say, 4 frames. These days, at a guess, 10 % - 15%. It does not seem much has changed but read below, and maybe it has or at least the reasons have.

There may be many different reasons which may affect the keeper rate on any occasion but some of the real factors have nothing to do with the shoot or image quality itself. By this Mongo means it is very often up to us to decide the fate of an otherwise perfectly good image. EXPLANATION:-

You come back from a great shoot where everything went great. You have 40 to 60 frames of the same subject (and some multiple of virtually the same frame/image). Most of them are as good as you might ever hope to take. So what do you do with them ?? You of course instinctively start to toss the lesser of them even amungst quality of images that in other circumstances, you would not think to throw away. Again, this is to reduce the number and thereby increase the quality to its most concentrated form (like a well reduced sauce).

Even worse, picture the above cenario, and you throw them all away because 8 months earlier you had the opportunity somewhere else to have taken images of this subject that you never thought you could better and , indeed, they are th best you have of this subject. So, no need to keep any of the latest otherwise keeper images and they are trashed in their entirety.

Two thing:-
You are only as good as your last best shot of anything/subject. No matter how good it might be, unless you can better your last best, there is no need or purpose to keep your latest otherwise great shots.

It is Mongo's strong belief that the best way to reduce the overall quality/standard of our photo work, is to "water it down" with our lesser work. The minute you throw out the lesser work, your higher standard work becomes the benchmark to yourself and to others

[jim]

Mongo, a variant on this would be when you sort your photos for the day and wind up throwing away several perfectly decent images, because other similar shots were marginally better, but keep a couple of mediocre ones because they're the only shots you have of a worthwhile subject. Obviously you hope to improve on them, but in the meantime your sorting and editing actually reduces the overall quality of your work.

At least I sometimes find myself doing this...

[bobt]

Not exactly on topic, but I've always said that you need to look back at early photographs to see whether your photography has improved over time - it usually has.

I've also measured my own performance (and I guess this ties in with "failure rate) by evaluating how well I have done in club competitions over the years. I have a spreadsheet which records my "batting average" over time.

In the first 8 years 44% of my comp entries won some sort of an award. This crept up to around 50% and currently it's at 67%. This serves to tell me that I'm doing something right, and gives me an idea of how I'm travelling in the club scene. Of course there are many in my club better than me, but at least I feel I'm keeping up. Outside the club environment my stats would be nowhere near as good of course. In any event, I guess that means I must be getting more "keepers", or perhaps my post processing is getting better! 8*)

(I'm stopping competing next year because I'm a bit over it all now after competing for so long.)

[mongo]

Mongo, a variant on this would be when you sort your photos for the day and wind up throwing away several perfectly decent images, because other similar shots were marginally better, but keep a couple of mediocre ones because they're the only shots you have of a worthwhile subject. Obviously you hope to improve on them, but in the meantime your sorting and editing actually reduces the overall quality of your work.

At least I sometimes find myself doing this...

Have to agree with Jim. This is one other aspect of the whole thing

[Mark L]

A more complex question than it originally seems. We all shoot certain subjects they way we do. That is not likely to change except to the extend we may learn how to possibly do that better

In the days of 36 roll of slide film, Mongo would be lucky to keep, say, 4 frames. These days, at a guess, 10 % - 15%. It does not seem much has changed but read below, and maybe it has or at least the reasons have.
Maybe I'm a bit misguided her
There may be many different reasons which may affect the keeper rate on any occasion but some of the real factors have nothing to do with the shoot or image quality itself. By this Mongo means it is very often up to us to decide the fate of an otherwise perfectly good image. EXPLANATION:-

You come back from a great shoot where everything went great. You have 40 to 60 frames of the same subject (and some multiple of virtually the same frame/image). Most of them are as good as you might ever hope to take. So what do you do with them ?? You of course instinctively start to toss the lesser of them even amungst quality of images that in other circumstances, you would not think to throw away. Again, this is to reduce the number and thereby increase the quality to its most concentrated form (like a well reduced sauce).

Even worse, picture the above cenario, and you throw them all away because 8 months earlier you had the opportunity somewhere else to have taken images of this subject that you never thought you could better and , indeed, they are th best you have of this subject. So, no need to keep any of the latest otherwise keeper images and they are trashed in their entirety.

Two thing:-
You are only as good as your last best shot of anything/subject. No matter how good it might be, unless you can better your last best, there is no need or purpose to keep your latest otherwise great shots.

It is Mongo's strong belief that the best way to reduce the overall quality/standard of our photo work, is to "water it down" with our lesser work. The minute you throw out the lesser work, your higher standard work becomes the benchmark to yourself and to others

You're addressing your keeper rate and not failure rate.
And based on what you've said, we might not be posting our new photos here on AP because although they might be interesting they are not quite as good as what we have previously taken?

[Tannin]

a variant on this would be when you sort your photos for the day and wind up throwing away several perfectly decent images, because other similar shots were marginally better, but keep a couple of mediocre ones because they're the only shots you have of a worthwhile subject. Obviously you hope to improve on them, but in the meantime your sorting and editing actually reduces the overall quality of your work.

This would be like the day I graduated from my country high school and went to university, thus reducing the average student IQ in both institutions.

[mongo]

You're addressing your keeper rate and not failure rate.
And based on what you've said, we might not be posting our new photos here on AP because although they might be interesting they are not quite as good as what we have previously taken?

Mark, Mongo completely stands by what he has said. By subtracting the keepers from 100%, you cannot but get your failure rate. In any event, as Mongo has tried to relay, it is not just the numbers that determine this but rather the philosophy of how we get to the ratio. As far as posting, it is of no concern to Mongo . Whilst Mongo encourages and participates in the sharing of photography in hopefully broad and helpful terms, posting is not the reason he takes images. Of course you should consider posting what you think is different, informative, beautiful, rare, having photographic or other merit ... or just simply what you think is worth posting...... and only you can judge that.

[Mary Anne]

Failure rate well I never really count it as such these days, to me if I can get down the back ramp into the garden and press the shutter button on my camera that's a Plus.
Hubby calls me Hawk eyes as I can see little tiny Insects where he cannot see anything, sadly I cannot get down under plants like I used so don't see as much.
I really enjoy shooting macro especially Jumping Spiders and Bees, I am able to manage the Bees OK these days though those Cute Spiders don't play fair anymore.
All they want to do is jump on my left hand where years ago I could hold that heavy Canon gear with one hand and get good shots.
Where these days even with my lighter m4/3 macro gear and shooting with one hand does not get them in focus, so plenty of failures now.

We got 12mm of rain last evening I reckon that will bring out some Insects so I am now off now to see what's in the Garden.
If I take 300-400 RAW/jpeg shots this morning I will probably get about 250-300 failures. As long as I get 10 decent shots I can post on line I am Happy
Though I never get around to it these days, guess I will have to make more of an effort

[Brian500au]

Interesting subject. I don't shoot macro (scares the $h#t out of me), but I do shoot a lot of wildlife (being that mammals or birds), environmental portraits and the occasional landscape and architectural shot. As others have said, when shooting because I can, I do cover my ar$e with multiple shots of the same scene. When doing a portrait I would shoot off two, three or even four shots just in case the subject has blinked etc. My reason behind this is I find it very difficult in sunlight to check the back of the camera each time (and I wear bifocal glasses which I take off when putting my eye to the view finder). Also during those four shots the subject might move their head, body, arm etc. Equally after taking those four shots I might take a step to the left or right, maybe even ask the subject to angle their body, head, hand etc differently. I would then take another two, three or four shots.

When I come home I sort through looking for the most aesthetically pleasing photo and PP that one. To me that does not mean the others are failures - and in fact they could have some elements about them that are better than the one I picked to PP. In some cases the subject maybe better but the back ground is not as good and I am too lazy to work on the back ground to clean it up.

Wildlife, landscape and architecture, I use the same theory for one reason or another (multiple shots with different exposures etc). Once again in raw we can clean up under or over exposed shots - and sometimes this is a matter of opinion which one you want to work on. Certainly does not mean the others are failures.

Given my explanation above my "failure rate" is very low. I do have failures though. When doing environmental portraits, if I use too low shutter speed then I will get movement in the shot, alternatively I might have used a too shallow DOF for the focal length of the lens and therefore not all the subject in in focus. I find this mostly happens if I am using a new addition to my kit, but I quickly learn after I have gone through the days shoot, and try to adjust my technique for next time I am using the same lens.

Given that most people are using macro as examples of their biggest failure rate I really cannot comment. I suppose the closest I would come there would be when photographing birds in flight, but this can really depend on the type of bird you are trying to photograph (ducks vs swallows). I guess some of it too would depend on the type of equipment you using - a Canon 6D is great for portrait, landscape etc but would have a 99% failure rate trying to catch a swallow in flight.

[Liney]

Mark, Mongo completely stands by what he has said. By subtracting the keepers from 100%, you cannot but get your failure rate. In any event, as Mongo has tried to relay, it is not just the numbers that determine this but rather the philosophy of how we get to the ratio. As far as posting, it is of no concern to Mongo . Whilst Mongo encourages and participates in the sharing of photography in hopefully broad and helpful terms, posting is not the reason he takes images. Of course you should consider posting what you think is different, informative, beautiful, rare, having photographic or other merit ... or just simply what you think is worth posting...... and only you can judge that.

Well the simple question appears to have kicked over a can of worms!

When I originally posed the question I had not considered my personal standards would affect what I considered to be a failure, and I thank Mongo for explaining that so eloquently. Looking back on what I would consider great images from five years ago I notice that firstly I wasn't taking macro images, but secondly I wasn't trying too hard to push the envelope of what could be achieved.

I remember a talk by a local keen photographer many years and thousands of miles away, and they offered one piece of advice which was to make use of the automatic functions of the camera to get a couple of early shots in, just in case everything you do after that doesn't work. This may be echoed in some of the other comments, particularly around workflow. I find myself setting up the various settings, shooting off a couple of quick images then tweaking settings as I go along, perhaps even trying out some specific features such as HDR to see what the effect will be. But it isn't until I get home and start viewing the images that I find what works and what doesn't.

Thank you all for your contributions, it has been a very interesting read.