How many keepers on a roll?

[willy_boots]

<p>So, how many really good shots do you usually get on a roll? I realize that how you determine a good shot is based, y'know, what you're trying to do.. Like sorry I don't want to see any photos of your kids. At all. Lately I've been getting what I consider a keeper per roll -- actually maybe a little less than that, and I'm pretty satisfied with that. I'm just curious to the people out there, how many keepers do you get out of a roll usually? How about pros?</p>

[vincent_peri]

<p>I'm very selective in what I shoot. My keeper rate per roll of 36 is about 33 or more. Your mileage may vary.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>"So, how many really good shots do you usually get on a roll?"<br>

I'm not a Pro but Keepers rates depend allot on different factors IMHO. What is the subject matter, stationary or fast moving action ? what type of camera ? what type of lens wide angle telephot, zoom ? AF or manual focus ? what type of film, ISO, What is the atmosphere like ?<br>

On average with a Nikon FM2 manual camera I would say I had 25%-35+% keeper rate. Which was higher than I would get with my Canon Elan II AF. Maybe because with manual focus you tend to pick your subjects a little more carefully. You also refrain from hitting the shutter until you got everything right. </p>

[SCL]

<p>Non pro - but if I wasn't getting at least 28-30 keepers on a 36 exposure roll, I'd be really, really concerned. Seriously, if you're not getting close to that number, you need to concentrate on what you're doing, and how you're doing it, or what you're trying to capture and why it isn't working. Unless you have no knowledge of how to use a camera - ie expose properly, frame, focus, or what's interesting to capture, you should be doing much better. If you haven't yet developed the technical skills don't despair, take some time to study how to improve your keepers ratio, by learning the basics of photography. And good luck!</p>

[railphotog]

<p>Well I gave up on rolls of film about 8-10 years ago, and shoot way more digital images these days, probably more in a week than I did in several months back then. Since they don't cost me anything, I often shoot a lot, just to be sure I get something I like. Following our 19 month old grandson around the house doesn't always produce great shots, but I do get plenty that do make us all smile. </p>

<p>I can recall my earlier days of film shooting, I'd often get comments from non photographers that my photos were real sharp and clear. Of course I was using an SLR, and most of them were taking photos with Instamatics and the like, and were used to getting only a few per roll that were indeed sharp. I'd tell them that I'd better be getting good photos with my $300.00 camera. That was a lot of money in the mid-late 1960's!</p>

<p> </p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>It depends on the subject and shooting conditions. On average, I'm happy with 3-6 keepers per 36exp roll.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>On a roll of 36 exp., usually just 5-6 are throwaways. Others are all keepers for sure.<br>

(Ektar 100 lately and rarely)</p>

[starvy]

<p>I call myself an amateur enthusiast. I am not just looking for exposure, focus and composition in each frame, I am looking for something very special that makes the still frame appear to represent something out of the ordinary. So I am happy getting 10 our of a roll of 36. Usually, it is more like 5.</p>

[dan_south]

If every shot you take is a keeper, that means that you're not taking enough chances or trying anything new. Or you're

not very critical.

 

When we experiment, mistakes happen. Mistakes identify possibilities that can be studied and transformed into new

ideas. Sometimes we have to throw away five, ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred shots before we capture that one magic

moment, that one fresh, new, creative idea that we could not have preconceivd and that makes the whole day worth

the trip.

[nathangardner]

<p>Not enough. Thats one reason I shoot digital now, film and processing is so much money, especially when you don't even know what you'll get. With digi, you can shoot, adjust, repeat, until you've got the shot you want. Anyways, when I did shoot film, I'd get 3 or 4 keepers per roll, but that was then; if I were to look today at a roll I shot 5 years ago, I would probably think they're all crap and none would be keepers. </p>

[jim_j2]

<p>On an average, about 2-3 keepers for 36 exposures. When I was doing underwater photography in the 70's with Kodachrome & Ektachromes, it was more like 1 keeper slide out of 72 exposures!</p>

<p>I seem to have a much better success rate nowadays with digital, probably more like 5-8 keepers for each set of 36 shots, but hey, . . . that's the nice part about digital!</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Yess, vot ist dis "roll" ding?</p>

<p>All of mine pictures are keepers, because I never throw anything away. :)</p>

<p>Aren't multiple terabyte drives wonderful?</p>

[denniswms]

<blockquote>

<p>Sometimes we have to throw away five, ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred shots before we capture that one magic moment, that one fresh, new, creative idea that we could not have preconceivd and that makes the whole day worth the trip.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p> That must be the most self indulgent methodology I've ever come across. I feel sorry for <em>our</em> clients.<br>

<em><br /></em></p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Sports Illustrated goes through over 10,000 frames (probably closer to 20,000) to get the Super Bowl cover shot.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Another data point - Nobuyoshi Araki shot 6000 frames of film for 100 images used in fashion designer Yoshiki Hishinuma's 100 Flowers, 100 Butterflies campaign.</p>

<p>Even better, Robert Frank shot 28,000 frames of film for 83 "keepers" published as The Americans. All you 90+% guys should have been around to teach him how to shoot.</p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>I won't venture to guess at any average keeper rate, but I'm sure that it's nowhere near 90%. I will say that I do get a much higher rate with my older manual focus film cameras than I do with digital, but that has nothing to do with the camera. I just take more time with film and make sure that I'm actually taking something worth taking. I don't have the money to throw away on a lot of "what if" shots. </p>

[Sanford]

<p>Three % with film, less than one % with digital.</p>

[Ray House]

<p>It depends, when I would go to a family or informal event I would only throw away OOF or bad exposure shots. When I try to get serious and am on a specialized shoot for myself, I would be happy with one keeper per roll. Now days I can immediately check the histogram and preview and just hit the delete button.</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>my wife's digicam can take abut 500 shots, and this tends to make us "click more"<br>

film? REAL photography? fron a 36 exposure roll, capable of 47-38 shots if one is careful?<br>

kids like to twist their faced close their eyes and others canot help blinking<br>

so there are some throw-aways. a careful persom may ge 30+ from a 36 exp roll.<br>

but most of use can only find 24 exp rolls.<br>

imaging when there were only 12 exp 120/620 and 127 rolls. and color film cost possibly $10.00 developed.</p>

<p> </p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Keepers? I'm not sure how to define that. That's up to someone else to worry about. I keep a lot of technically flawed photos I'd be inclined to throw away, but someone else liked 'em for some reason. Many of the photos I like, other viewers are indifferent to.</p>

<p>I may get two or three photos I wouldn't be embarrassed to show someone, per roll of film or for roughly every 100 digital shots. Exposures are cheap, even with film, compared with having missed a priceless moment due to hesitation prompted by some arbitrary notion of economical photography or worrying about what some other photographer does. If I had any sense of decency I'd probably be embarrassed to show even those two or three per roll. But in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#cite_note-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Total_Perspective_Vortex">"an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."</a> </a></p>

[chris_waller]

<p>Being one of nature's hoarders I keep the lot, but I would say that, over the entirety of my collection, one in ten is worth printing.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>This question comes up a bit an I don't usually respond because it is frankly impossible for anyone to learn anything from another persons answer. Certainly its not a remotely good indicator of how good a photographer you're getting to be. </p>

<p>Imagine, I come across a wonderful scene, I take a full roll of photographs (for me 12) of slightly different interpretations. They may well be all technically competent but they are for me too similar to justify keeping all of them. I might decide to keep 6. Someone else would pick only one. Others would keep all 12 because they are technically OK. So, nothing to do with how good a photographer. Plenty to do with the attitude of the photographer to covering off an opportunity and storing the results. </p>

<p>But then the same photographer - ie me- can be confronted with an opportunity that I'm not used to or is technically difficult. Lets say first time photographing the Northern Lights for example. Here unlike the first example i'm not sure that every shot I take will be technically good, so I take lots to cover off exposure variations as well as different interpretations. I do this knowing that most will be incompetent and thrown away. My "keeper" ratio will be far different.</p>

<p>Most experienced photographers grow to understand this , and I don't know any good photographers who worry one bit about their keeper proportions.</p>

[doug grosjean]

<p>I'd define a keeper as a shot so good, you'd spend money to frame it, and want to look at it often.</p>

<p>My own success rate is all over the map. And it depends on when you ask. A week after I've shot them, or 10 years out? Some shots I thought really mundane 30 years ago, I now value because they show my daily life, back then. But I wasn't thrilled with them at the time I shot them.</p>

<p>Once in a while, on a 12-exposure roll of medium-format film, all are good, at least at first. But then a year later, which ones have I actually looked at frequently in the time since?</p>

<p>So initially, once in a great while I'll shoot an entire roll that is worth keeping, technically. Well composed, focussed, exposed. But a year or so later, it's quite rare that more than one photo from that roll will still be a keeper to me, and 10 years later they might all be keepers again.</p>

<p>Example: a day in the country with my father and my son, in my dad's Model T Ford. I arrive home with an entire roll of good photos, all worth keeping. But after a month I realize I don't need 12 photos of that one subject. and I start to pare them down, and realize that maybe 2 shots really capture that day together.</p>

<p>But let's suppose that 20 years out, my dad sells the Model T Ford. Or 30 years out, he dies. Suddenly, the whole roll is valuable again, documenting a sort of Paradise Lost.</p>

<p>I'd humbly submit that perhaps a better measure of your skill as a photographer is to ask how many great photos you take in a year. 1, 10, 20, 100, 1000? Almost anybody can get lucky once or twice, but very few can get lucky over 100 times a year.</p>

<p>My most recent high-success rolls have been a 12-exposure roll for a project in Color Photography at school, where I needed 9 shots, and every shot I needed turned out. I didn't car about, nor do I even remember, the last 3 shots. I may not have even used them. More recently, I took 2 35mm Widelux photos (of a nude live model in a drawing class at school), and processed the roll at that point. Both are keepers, but one is a hair better, so that's the one I printed.</p>

[dan_south]

So much depends on the circumstances. At an event where I'm working conservatively and not trying to be

experimental, probably one in five is a keeper. Of the rejects, many will be due to people blinking or having their

mouth open or moving before I could get the shot that I wanted.

 

At a sporting event it's probably more like one in twenty or thirty.

 

If I am traveling in an unfamiliar location and I don't expect to return anytime soon, if ever, I'll take lots and lots of

shots of different exposures, compositions, f-stops, focus points, etc. When I return home I would rather have options

than regrets.

 

Even if I am shooting in a familiar location I can't always tell when the moment of highest impact is going to strike, the

best light, the most interesting cloud formation, etc. Better to fill up memory cards with multiple variations than miss

that peak moment.

 

Of course, this all changes when I shoot large format and only have a dozen or so sheets of film loaded. Then you

have to take your BEST shot every time. I'll be the firstbto admit that I miss a lot of opportunities under these

circumstances.

[jpo3136b]

<p><strong>10/80/10% +1</strong>. Complete errors: down below 5 to 10%. About 80% will be okay photos; exposure's alright, but not bringin' that "good" feeling. Maybe a few good photos per three dozen, the high 10%. The only way to get from okay to good is with some ideas, for me. Really good photos to keep, the plus one, maybe once every five years. 10/80/10% +1.</p>

<p>I think the complete errors are just the price of operating the equipment; I found it to be more productive to try to make a better average to good photo than to worry about the very best or very worst. Staying with a good flow of camera operation that works for me yielded better results overall. Every so often I ask myself, "John, what the hell are you taking a picture of here?" Or, maybe admit to myself, "Okay, you don't know what you're doing right now." This self-coaching seems to surface when it's time to contain errors. That's what provides the rate for me. I prefer a deliberate approach, but what works for me will not work for someone else; topic and method vary; and, let's not forget: hey, it's just camera operation. Not everything has to be a big deal. It may be better to have fun and skip the metrics.</p>

<p>For some projects, I have found that I end up picking that top ten percent, and then refusing everything else. Yet, I think that's more descriptive. If there was a good formula for this, you can bet someone would have automated it by now. You get what you make.</p>