1,000 shots a day {the National Geographic photographer}
I can’t remember the last time I read something about photography that wasn’t online. I picked up National Geographic’s recent 50 Greatest Pictures issue recently and was totally enthralled by reading about the behind-the-scenes on some of their most iconic images. One line jumped out at me massively:
“A photographer shoots 20,000 to 60,000 images on assignment. Of those, perhaps a dozen will see the published light of day”
Well, if that doesn’t fly in the face of the calculated-shots-theory, I don’t know what does! With the {relatively} recent proliferation of digital cameras under every Christmas tree, the new brand of photographer tends to go crazy with their trigger finger. As we move forward in our photographic education, we learn the importance of tapping into our ‘inner yes’. Those decisive moments that tell us when to hit the trigger and, of equal importance, when not to.
And so with this exercise, I’ve found myself playing the game where I pretend that my memory card is just a 24 frame roll of film. I tell myself that I don’t, indeed, have room to hold my finger down and hope for the best. And with this, I’ve learned so much about framing a shot, waiting for the decisive moment, taking a deep breath and just…well…hunting.
But when I read that, I was amazed. We can take this one of two ways:
We can allow ourselves to believe that even National Geographic photographers go on shooting sprees once in a while.
-or-
We can take this to mean that during the average 8 week assignment, the photographer feels their inner yes an average of 350 to 1,000 times a day.
What do you think?
62 Responses to “1,000 shots a day {the National Geographic photographer}” - Add Yours
February 13th, 2012 at 1:43 am
I like your hunting idea. Normally when I shoot I have HUNDREDS of images and it is really overwhelming winnowing through them, trying to find good shots.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:45 am
people use the phrase ‘Decisive Moment’ Waaaaaay to much in my opinion… I average 200/300 shots a day on assignments, plus considering the subjects they usually photograph such as live animals or environmental hazards they wouldn’t have time to be specific with there shot just instinct and a fast shutter count to make sure they got the shot (most of these shots would be very similar) as missing it isn’t in the question.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:46 am
in today’s digital age, i can definitely see them taking 350-1000 photos a day considering that they are there with the specific purpose of shooting the life and culture around them. im sure being in such amazing locations makes it a lot more interesting to shoot as well. i think it would be interesting to see how many images they took before the advent of digital cameras. if those same numbers correlate, then that would equal over 1500 rolls of 36 exposure film per assignment… yowza.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:47 am
Well, I use “autofire” only on rare occasions.
I found that I’m much better of with a maximum of attention and passion and a minimum of exposures.
And given the fact that many DSLR shutters have a lifetime of about 100000 clicks, 20 to 60 thousand per assignment could get quite expensive.
And sometimes I have a hard time to make a decision which shot out of 10 will be allowed to stay on my disk.
I can’t imagine to select 1 out of 1000s.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:48 am
It is indeed a tendency for professional photographers to go on shooting sprees. I have seen a lot of both amateurs and professionals making sure they shoot gigabytes of pictures to insure they can have a few good ones.
Although I am a defender of the “ask questions, shoot later” method (I shoot film most of the time and I am an amateur), I do understand that assignments require results and therefore some do not leave the chance to miss the good picture.
This however should not be understood as a fact that more picture will yield at least a few good one. In my early days, I was shooting 400/500 picture a day and none of them would be good enough for printing.
What we have to understand from this tendency is that good photographers will indeed sometime shoot a lot of pictures in one day as a complement to their talent and as an insurance policy to get the sharpest, best angled and most dramatic picture and give more choice to editors.
As an amateur, I have the luxury to take all the time I need to take a picture and can afford to take come home with no good ones. I just enjoy the kind of meditation of the scene before I press the shutter. This would probably not be the case if I were a professional and I would unleash my trigger happy finger to ensure the right capture.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:09 am
I think that National Geographic photographers are simply taking photos of different subjects than we are. Weeks of wildlife photography SHOULD result in thousands of shots a day. Whereas landscape or portrait photography probably should not.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:22 am
I am the trigger happy type by instinct. Even during his talk I clicked as many as I could without getting thrown out
The second picture is not clicked by me though!
http://blogs.gonomad.com/traveltalesfromindia/2012/02/meeting-sir-chris-bonington.html
February 13th, 2012 at 2:24 am
I travel full time for a living and run a travel blog. I have been doing so for 5 years now.
Shooting 350-1,000 images a day doesn’t shock me in the slightest bit. I just got back from a trip to South Georgia Island and Antarctica where I was easily doing that much. I’ve done the same when I’ve visited other sites like Angkor in Cambodia.
I take a lot of chances. You never know what combination of images is going to tell the best story. You never know what you are going to capture until you get there.
In most travel and wildlife photography, the subject is out of your control. You can’t set up lighting conditions, you can’t control the weather and you can’t always control what you are going to see.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:35 am
First, the professional dslr has a life cycle of about 350,000 cycles, not 100,000. That being said, just because a image does not get published, does not mean they are garbage images. It just means the editor has something in mind that all the other images didn’t fit. After all, a National Geographic mag has to have space for actual words, not just a picture book. That also does not mean that the other images won’t be used at a later date.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:45 am
I’d always heard (back in film days) that the NG ratio was about 1000 shots/1 published. In a digital world, I could see that number jumping quite a bit. At 20,000/dozen, that’s just under 1700/published image. 60,000 is 5000/published image so only 5 times what you’d expect with film.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:46 am
I think you have to take into account the number of hours and different situations they have to face during a single day. And also maybe the triple to quintuple shots if they do HDR (do they?).
When I shoot a set of clothes for our online sales website, I rarely come back with less than 300 photos for a single afternoon. Fortunately for my shutter we only shoot once a week!
At the end of the day, their standards must be incredibly high, and it’s better to have shot everything than miss the best moment by saving a click (or a hundred clicks..).
February 13th, 2012 at 2:47 am
first of all opinion differs.
We may like one picture, others may not.
Nothing wrong in taking too many shots and we can find them which is best.
Other hand if u take only one shot YOU may come to conclusion that this is the best shot!
http://raghavendra-mobilephotography.blogspot.in/2010/10/dragon-fly.html
February 13th, 2012 at 2:50 am
I use a 256 megabyte card.
February 13th, 2012 at 3:18 am
MY OPINION: NG is a large corporation whose sole purpose is to help each of earthly inhabitants understand and appreciate how interdependent we are for us to appreciate how little we actually know, They do a great service for us through those monthly publications (I won’t dare refer to them as magazines as they have a life ad infinitum unto themselves!). The bread-and-butter or their bottom-line is achieved through narratives and fine-photography, which, of course, attract readers, who in turn are the magnets for advertisers and profit.
Even if their photographers’ published-to-shot ratio was 1 in 10,000 or as few as 1 in100, the bottom-line is quality. If we actually used some of the NG’s best photographs and rated them as “5-stars” as many PP programs allow us to do the same, could I honestly and say my 5-stars are equivalent? Can you?
The cost per unit (actual shot) cannot be ignored. I grew up with film. In an average month I would use about 100-125 rolls of B and W (24 exp–I disliked 36′s). I also developed, printed, captioned, exposed myself to chemicals in a small room for hours only to have about 250 prints published monthly in two community weeklies. I enjoyed it obviously. I know the color of my bottom-line had a light red-hue! Costs were high.
Today, the cost of pressing a shutter on a D-SLR of very high quality is measured in pennies. Is the NG success ratio wasteful–most unlikely,
Ray
February 13th, 2012 at 3:26 am
Errata: from my previous reply: line 1 help each of “us” earthy
February 13th, 2012 at 4:16 am
I find that if I have a genuine assignment, not a self-assigned assignment, I shot a lot of pictures. Regardless of my “inner yes”, I’m shooting for somebody else’s inner yes and I’m never sure I totally understand them. So, how do I do it” Volume.
February 13th, 2012 at 4:29 am
I like to use a 256 megabyte card on my 6mp Nikon. It forces me to concentrate on each shot, and saves tons of time uploading and sifting through thousands of useless pics.
February 13th, 2012 at 5:33 am
I think, it depends on the situation. If you shoot something like a still, landscape or portrait you can (or must) plan each your shot carefully and it makes no sense to make a huge batch. On the other hand, if you document an event, sports, or wildlife you have to take everything you can.
My rule of thumb; if the subject, or scene is more important than the moment – look more and shoot less. If the moments are changing quickly – don’t hesitate and shoot everything you can.
February 13th, 2012 at 7:01 am
I have to agree with Gary Arndt:
“In most travel and wildlife photography, the subject is out of your control. You can’t set up lighting conditions, you can’t control the weather and you can’t always control what you are going to see.”
I’m not a pro but I recently completed a 4 month/14k mile tour of 14 US/CN National Parks plus another dozen preserves/forests/monuments. I found it was difficult to get a grizzly bear to pay attention to lighting cues and that even though the sun is always shining somewhere I was not necessarily at the ‘where’ on any given day. I rarely ever use burst modes when I shoot since most of the subjects are stationary (grant the bear an exception – or anything he wants) but even so I discovered at the end of every day of shooting I had collected more than 500 shots. Had I been covering something like the Kentucky Derby I could see the daily number easily exceeding 5000 shots, possibly double that amount, horses and jockeys being no more cooperative than bears you see. I was shooting RAW with a 7D and a 16GB card so I could get a day in on one card with a few shots to spare. I parsed my shots at the end of every day because I knew what would happen if I didn’t. I’d normally wind up keeping about 20% for later editing. That percentage has held now that I’m further along in the workflow: post-processing is eliminating all but another 20%.
I also found that in reviewing the images later the shots that I thought would be the best when I took them didn’t necessarily fill the bill and ones that I was sure would be throwaways turned out to be sheer “genius”. Go figure. If I were using film and having to underswrite all the processing costs I might try to modifiy the approach somewhat but I’m not so it’s really a moot point. Getting everything right in the camera to begin with is a noble endeavor (and an interesting exercise) but adjustting effectively to the situation is also a skill worth honing. Digital photography allows the development of that skill – encourtages it even. I’m happy to take advantage of that allowance. Having said that Elizabeth, I follow your activities religiously and admire your sense of form and curiosity. Keep at it.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
When using my Canon I only am allowed to shoot 51 shots on the memory card which I have in it and that’s in Raw. I find that if i am out looking for something to shoot I take a few cards with me. When I take my Nikon with me I am quick to click but with the Canon I look for the best shot because I know my space is limited…
February 13th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
350-1000 photos a day on travel work is really nothing out of the ordinary. If you’re moving around all day there are tons of opportunities at each location for images. Add situations like village portraits and you could easily hit your 350 mark in an hour or two.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Funny reading this, I’ve just started my course of photography at uni and our lecturer had a friend that worked for national geographic. He also gave us these big numbers, but what got me the most was that it was all expenses paid! What an amazing job that would be (and this was back in the days of film)
February 13th, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I can’t go out without making 200-300 shots of birds and other wildlife. Animals don’t pose on command. When I was in Yellowstone National Park, I averaged over thousand images a day.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Planning your shots when you have a static subject is excellent, and something everybody should aspire to. But when you have a fluid situation, such as wildlife, or horse racing, and many public events, the need is to spot the potential moment. The old adage is very true in these cases, “If you see it, you missed it.” When I’m shooting at the local speedway, it’s very easy to come home with hundreds of photos after only about four hours. I’ve learned since to shoot RAW and JPG both, so that I don’t have to worry too much about post-processing unless I get a gem. Out of these several hundred photos… only the racers themselves see the bulk of the best… and the newspaper gets the top one or two for publication. I guess I’m lucky with it… and have the benefit of knowing how to anticipate THIS subject, at least. Now… consider the situations that the NG photographers may come across. And how often are they going to be extremely familiar with their subjects? Kudos to them… and no wonder they wear cameras out!
February 13th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Have this 256MB card that i use to train my eye. It only takes 16 raw files from my d90
February 13th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
The article referenced sounds like a short form of this book I received recently & am loving:
http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Photographs-Collectors/dp/1426202911/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329104406&sr=1-1
February 13th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
This idea bothers me. It seems to be saying that if one takes enough pictures, a very few of them are bound to be good. Somewhat like the apocryphal monkeys typing out the works of Shakespeare.
February 13th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I have had too many trips where I thought I got the shot only to resign myself to “if only I’d tried X or Y” it would have been so much better – a kind of travellers remorse. I am now much happier to shoot away (not machine-gun by any means) and be a little profligate in my snapping rather than miss out on a shot that does justice to a location I may never visit again. Admittedly this happened more when I used my 20D with its 1.8″ screen than the current camera with its 3″ screen.
February 13th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
It also shows you need to be ruthless in your appraisal of what you’ve taken.
February 13th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Shooting almost exlcusively landscapes I have time to consider, unlike a sports shooter who has to rapid-fire.
I will take about 8 hours to shoot maybe 30-40 shots. I learned that the more shots I took the less I learned. I would come home with a 750 shots a day and I would just take a handful that might be OK, but I had so many I never felt the bitter taste of defeat of missing a key shot.
I started shooting less and the less I shot the number of times I screwed up increased dramatically until I started to learn why I screwed up, then I started missing key shots less and less as I learned what I needed to do to fix things on location.
February 13th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
My Canon XSI shutter died after only 2 years of usage in Uganda at trigger mark +50.000 clicks. Does that count?
February 13th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
I’m fairly new to photography, about 3 years now. I find that when I’m shooting around town I don’t shoot as many pictures. When I go somewhere distant and get into the tourist activities or going to historical locations, I easily shoot 300-500 pics in a day (especially at historic sites or very scenic byways). I got laid off last summer and took a three month, 16,000 mile, 10,000 picture trip around the United States. Admittedly, I shot way more than I normally would to share with FB friends who may never have the opportunity to visit the locations I did on my trip (various National Parks and historic locales, scenic byways through Wyoming, Blue Ridge Parkway). I think people with easier access to these locations absolutely take less pictures as they can afford to, as they can afford to only shoot during the golden hours.
Given all that, I would assume going on a photo assignment to a foreign land would absolutely lead to a lot of picture taking. Like Craig said above, nature photography where the animals don’t ‘pose’ absolutely leads to more ‘point and pray’ shots (no, not automagic settings – just hoping to get the right ‘pose’).
February 13th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
I found that when I first became interested in photography as a hobby and decided to get myself a DSLR instead of a handy point and shoot I was extremely trigger happy because of the amount of room available on memory cards. I have since acquired a number of film cameras from my father in law that he bought in the 70s. I decided that it would be fun to experiment with them and have taken some very good shots with them (Olympus OM1n, Nikon FE, Monolta ST100). With the film cameras I was more aware that firing away was going to get very expensive very quickly.
The result is that I now spend more time thinking about the shot, framing, light, exposure and so on. The knock on effect is now that when I am using a digital camera I now think more, take less shots and keep a much higher percentage.
For those that have moved from film to digital, this lesson has already been learnt. For anyone starting out with digital, I cannot recomment highly enough getting hold of an older film camera, have a play around with it and see what the experience will do to your technique once you pick up the digital camera again.
February 13th, 2012 at 10:46 pm
When I was a lad I was taught “Take one picture and make it count”. So If you were a good photographer you got the work.
Sadly, today there are not many photographers, but what we have now is button pushers.
It reminds me of the maxim that, if you have an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters they will eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare.
February 13th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
It seems to me that the article mentioned is validation for taking loads of shots. I don’t get your question here. If those top notch photographers need to take that many to get a few good ones, we, the masses, probably need to take even more!
February 14th, 2012 at 12:00 am
Wow. I’m totally with you on that one. That’s quite a shocking piece of information, since I too have been cutting down on the amount of images I take during a shoot. In fact, I went as far as switching back to film for some things, just to fully limit myself back to the days when it wasn’t an option… Y’know, photography the way it should be!
Maybe some photographers do just work on probability and hoping for the best. But I’ve personally found a VAST improvement in taking less and working harder at perfecting each shot.
It’d be interesting to know how they’re controlling their camera with so many shots. Are they going as far as automatic shooting to be able to take so many? Or are they just that skilled that they know exactly how to handle their camera for a whole 1000 shots per day!?
Maybe the editors are just that particular about a range of photos to choose from.
February 14th, 2012 at 12:47 am
To me, that depends on the subject. Some times I am satisfied with one shot, sometimes I have to take more shots, then the results is satisfactory. sometimes I realize I don’t like this subject or frame and give up on it after 2 or 3 shots.
I think marketing is a slightly different issue, being famous is not completely about your skills or art, there are other factors involved!
February 14th, 2012 at 1:29 am
One thing I hate is when I take shots of something, think they look good, believe I need no further, get home, upload the images, and find out I failed, when maybe I wouldn’t have with just a few more shots…
February 14th, 2012 at 1:47 am
The 20k – 60k is over the space of 8 weeks, and while only 12 “see the published light of day”, my guess is that other shots are brilliant and just don’t fit the story in the same way, or don’t fit due to page restrictions. Many of the images are amazing and show up in later multimedia presentations, books, or stock, but these photographers aren’t just “holding the shutter release down”, they’re working the subject to tell the best possible story, and it’s possible with what they shoot, that they could tell to parallel stories. They aren’t being sloppy, they’re being thorough.
February 14th, 2012 at 2:23 am
I do photography for work and for fun. Some days I make 1000+ exposures. Other days I carry the camera all day and don’t even make one. Most days it’s somewhere in between. Since switching to digital I do make more exposures, but I always made a lot of exposures even when I shot film. I love it when photo exhibitions include contact sheets. Very often they show that the photographer explored the subject quite thoroughly; making many similar exposures in an attempt to find perfection.
The only place I’ve ever heard anyone discuss how many exposures are made compared to finished photographs is on amateur dominated photo websites. In the real world people are usually only concerned with the finished photograph they are viewing.
I think people should do what works for them. What works for the next photog has absolutely no bearing on my work. If you manage to create a great photo it is very unlikely that anyone is going to care whether it took you 1000 tries or just one.
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” -Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” -Ansel Adams
February 14th, 2012 at 3:21 am
Couple things: In many cases, your editor or client may have a fairly specific idea or layout in mind when you’re assigned – but it’s very rare that you’ll be told WHAT that idea is. They know what they want, but you’re shooting in the dark. Even if you ARE told, there’s a better than even chance that idea will change between the time you’re sent and the time the layout people get cranked up, or that .
And you’re not being paid for “almost.”
Also – let’s suppose, hypothetically, that someone’s paying your way to the Back of Beyond for a week. This is solidly four or five figures of out-of-pocket. Think they’re going to get snarky because you ran through TWO $25 memory cards instead of just one?
February 14th, 2012 at 4:06 am
I decided to post my response on my blog since it was kind of long. I think the decisive moment is very important, but I use that knowledge and shoot many images. Check out my full explanation: http://bit.ly/wirLqI
February 14th, 2012 at 5:34 am
If budgets were the way that they were 20 years ago- yeah, sure, I’ll believe it. Just as NG doesnt shoot hardly any film now and the average assignment is no where as long as it used to be.
Sad story….
February 14th, 2012 at 5:52 am
If you take an average working day of around 8 hours, that’s 480 minutes, call it 500 minutes. On that basis hte NG photographer is taking a picture approx every 30 seconds, nonstop while he is working!
Staistics!
February 14th, 2012 at 6:35 am
Those numbers also made me think of the number of actuations even the best, most durable DSLRs are rated for, like the Nikon D4 that was recently released being rated for 400,000. The D3 before that was 150,000. My own Nikon, the D300 has a rating of only 150,000. Number the rated number of actuations does make me click shy as my DSLR ages. A few years ago I went and took 600 shots of pelicans approaching a rookery near my house. I would never do that now.
I also just subscribed to the print version of National Geogrpahic last month. There is still nothing like getting pieces of paper in the mail.
February 14th, 2012 at 8:56 am
Saying Nat Geo photographers go on shooting sprees is a little insulting, and this has nothing to do with the digital workflow. Photographers in the 80s and 90s usually went through 20 rolls of film a day. Which falls right in line with your numbers.
Secondly, professional photojournalists do not shoot like most amateurs. Even in portrait sessions, we work differently. We find a composition we like and shoot it several times wait for the right moment. We work through a lot of small composition changes. We bracket. If the action is fast we do work in the continuous mode.
As a previous commenter stated, that’s one photo every thirty second for 8 hours a day. One, Nat Geo photographers don’t work eight hour days, ever. But let’s assume their actually shooting for 8 hours a day and traveling and editing the other 12 they’re awake. A photo every 30 seconds is slow.
Ask a wedding photographer or a newspaper photographer about their frame count.
The inner yes comment is also a little weird. When you’re doing photojournalism or wildlife photography, you’re literally trying to predict the precise movements of another living thing. Are they going to smile or laugh or scowl? Is the lion going to pounce now… no, wait… now… or maybe… now? Maybe we have an inner maybe. The bottom line is we get paid to produce. We don’t get paid for not getting the shot.
February 14th, 2012 at 11:08 am
I can easily understand shooting a lot of photos with unpredictable subjects in unpredictable situations, especially if it’s a job.
I do it sometimes, but I don’t shoot for a living and the sorting and post processing taught me to slow down a long time ago.
I do shoot more photos when I travel, maybe for the same reasons even though there’s not a job on the line.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lendog64/sets/72157626181080349/
February 14th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Nearly 40 years ago, I worked in the camera department at a local department store while in high school. One day, a customer was browsing and commented on the broad selection of dark room supplies (we had a local junior college with a great photojournalism program so my manager stocked a lot more than a typical department store). Anyway, we spent time chatting and it turned out he was a Nat Geo photographer in town visiting his daughter and her family. In sharing with him my own fascination with photography, he had a few tips:
1. Be prepared for sacrifice. He said he’d missed a lot of time with his family over the years.
2. If I thought I wanted to be a Nat Geo photographer, spend the summer after graduating from high school backpacking through someplace, Europe, the west coast, Canada, any place away from home, and shoot at least 1-2 rolls of film a day. Out of the whole summer, with constant attention to my craft, I might come out at then end with 2, maybe 3 shots where everything – the color, light, composition – tells the story just right.
He said if I still felt like Nat Geo was what I wanted to do after that, take my portfolio to them and see how it worked out.
Of course, I was 17 and although I loved photography (I was school photographer my senior year) I had too many distractions. In fact, it took about 20 years for me to get beyond shooting snapshots of my family and get back to really enjoying photography.
Anyway, based on this article, it sounds like the ratio hasn’t changed much. I suspect the higher shutter counts today come with the freedom digital gives us to occasionally hold the shutter down for a few seconds without worrying about missing something else because we just ran through 24 exposures and need to reload before we’re ready to go again.
February 14th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
I don’t know what the big deal is really. It’s common sense to take more shots especially if you’re being paid for a final product. You aren’t going to masterully (in your mind) take a single shot of a subject where the client is going to say “almost man.. almost but we’ll use it.” That is not what they are paying you for and you are wasting your time and theirs. They want something and often, these things aren’t easy to convey and it’s just simply not professional to say “well, I think it looks great!” It doesn’t matter what you think, only if you achieved their objectives.
Even personally, if everything feels right, I’ll keep shooting til I get bored but I learned a terrible lesson last night. Last night, the sky was right, the clouds were right, the lamp lights were right, the crowd was right, the boats in the water were active and filled with people. I carefully composed and steadied myself, taking time with each shot and took what looked like 6 exceptional shots. When I got home, only one was just “servicable”…as a desktop wallpaper…. The rest were junk. Missed opportunity even for personal use just because I was trying to be masterful about it. In the last 6 months I’ve gone there (nearly every night after work before I head home), this was the first time it all came together and i blew it.
February 15th, 2012 at 4:06 am
I suppose it all comes down to those of us that instinctively know when we have taken a good shot and those that wouldn’t know a good shot if it bit them on the arse.
February 15th, 2012 at 9:09 am
Personally, I’ll shoot more images than I intend to simply because I forget my camera is still set to continuous high from a previous shoot. Since I shoot a lot of high action concert events, I definitely end up with hundreds of shots when I’m trying to capture a rapper going through break dance moves or a rocker stage diving into the crowd. The events happen so quickly that autofiring increases the likelihood I’ll get a usable shot.
February 16th, 2012 at 1:20 am
I had a chance meeting with Geographic photographer, Bruce Dale last year. He was in Northern Michigan testing a new camera for Panasonic.. My jaw dropped as he scrolled through the shots he took on the back of his camera. I think over time you develop a skill of knowing what to shoot and, therefore, limit the amount of waste. Bruce had great shots in camera. I’m sure his editing process isn’t too difficult.
You can see some of the images Here
February 16th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
LOL, I shot more than 5000 pictures per day for the first few months after i bought my first camera June last year. But now, i only shot less than 10 pictures per day… a great difference…
February 16th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
But i need to say, i don’t take photos for living, just for fun.
February 17th, 2012 at 3:06 am
I find it goes both ways depending on the subject. When photographing wildlife, birds mostly, I’ve shot 1,500 plus a day to get that dozen or so keepers. When out doing scenics, several clicks while making adjustments seems to work just fine. But one must realize how fast the evening light changes and that shooting both East & West are necessary as well as catching that 30 minutes after sun down, so one can shoot a lot during those times as well while working the adjustments for that soft light capture.
I learned on film, so with digital I enjoy being able to relax knowing I have that advantage of shooting as much as I like without concern for cost of film and processing. And with HDR one is going pop off lots of frames. So when out shooting, the amount of clicks I take is my least concern. Framing and seeing come natural from learning with film.
February 17th, 2012 at 3:40 am
That sounds like amazing photographic fun but a post processing nightmare!
February 17th, 2012 at 4:54 am
While the photos published to photos taken ratio of NatGeo photographers may be extremely low, they aren’t taking Hipstamatic photos of magazine text.
February 17th, 2012 at 5:06 am
Shooting wildlife “action” shots I find that I must shoot in bursts. When you consider the cost of a trip to a location for specific reasons, you must get a few keepers to be worth it. Way too many times I would think that I had a great shot of an eagle flying only to find out that it had blinked its inner transparent eyelid at the prime moment. I would then have to use the one before or the one after in the burst. If I had only taken one shot, it would be lost. You cannot see that kind of detail on the camera’s screen. You find it when you upload to the computer with a good size monitor. I shoot RAW+JPG and can get about 500 shots on my 16gb CF card. I usually fill a card in the morning and another in the evening. How can I justify gas plus wear and tear on my car plus motel and meals without being sure of capturing the shots? It is risky enough to know if you will even see any animals worth shooting or if the weather will cooperate! And I am an amateur. These National Geographic guys are often in the far reaches of the arctic or somewhere deep in the tropics. Thousands of dollars just to get there and set up base camp — what is a shutter life compared to that??? And yes even shooting in bursts, I have improved my keeper rate over time. Burst shooting is not really spray and pray like too many assume. It can be that with beginners, but it is also a respected method in some fields of photography for the pros! Can you imagine a photographer shooting the Super Bowl professionally? I would bet those few hours produce thousands of shots as well.
February 17th, 2012 at 11:03 am
I´ve done jobs for publishers where I shot 25 – 100 images. Presented 12 – 20…2 – 5 will see the light of day. Everyone happy.
Actually not too different from when I shot film!
Research…look…think…shoot. It´s not that difficult!
February 17th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
There has to be a sense of ‘seeing’ the photograph in the mind before mindlessly shooting, just for the ‘hope’ that one of the photographs will come out good enough for the publication.
Yes, may be in wildlife cases, the photographer may have to go for the burst mode with a fast lens, but not otherwise.
February 21st, 2012 at 2:05 pm
It means that when they were shooting film, it was the cheapest part of the expedition. Going back isn’t always an option. Don’t go back to the office empty handed.
March 4th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
There are times to be conservative and plan your shots and there are times to let loose
As far a national geographic goes, I’m sure they have situation where continuous shooting is mandatory. Imagine trying to shoot and eagle in flight or catch the moment the lion clamps down it’s jaws on the zebra. Sometimes you just can’t truly anticipate the moment. It’s even more important to make each shot count when this is the case. Imagine getting ‘the shot’ and its burnt or blurred. Can you say ‘kick yourself’.
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