How many good shots is good

[Lori Hill]

I've always "liked" a fair bit of my shots, but now that I'm actually learning I find I like less than before. If I go out now and take 150 photos, I find myself getting more critical and only loving about 20 or 30 of them. Now mind you I may take 5 of the same shot but sometimes if there is even an inch difference I'll pick one over the other. Is being picky a natural progression when learning. Thank goodness it's digital and isn't costing me anything for the throw aways.

[faeriegodess612]

Yep,...this is normal.



As you learn more, you get more critical with your photos. You move from taking what you think are excellent snapshots, to actually using the RoT, and understanding what WB is,...etc, etc.

[milosh]

Originally Posted by Lori Hill

I've always "liked" a fair bit of my shots, but now that I'm actually learning I find I like less than before. If I go out now and take 150 photos, I find myself getting more critical and only loving about 20 or 30 of them. Now mind you I may take 5 of the same shot but sometimes if there is even an inch difference I'll pick one over the other. Is being picky a natural progression when learning. Thank goodness it's digital and isn't costing me anything for the throw aways.

Yeah, being picky is a natural course of things as you progress. It's logical, as you learn more, you begin to see more of the mistakes you make and find more flaws in your (and other's) photos.

[katia]

out of 150 shots i like about 5, if i'm lucky!

so yep, completely normal. you're beginning to be more critical on yourself, which can be a really good thing.

[digirebelva]

make sure you go back from time to time & look at your earlier shots to remind yourself how far you have come, and where you started...

[Lori Hill]

thanks everyone your comments make me feel better. I was worried that maybe I started using too many wrong settings and my photos were getting worse rather than better because I now like so few of them. I think I may be my worst critic because when other people see the ones I want to toss they tell me I'm crazy but I see errors in lighting or composition and I never really saw those before.

[dlambert]

Originally Posted by faeriegodess612

Yep,...this is normal..

I love that graph....

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by Lori Hill

I've always "liked" a fair bit of my shots, but now that I'm actually learning I find I like less than before. If I go out now and take 150 photos, I find myself getting more critical and only loving about 20 or 30 of them. Now mind you I may take 5 of the same shot but sometimes if there is even an inch difference I'll pick one over the other. Is being picky a natural progression when learning. Thank goodness it's digital and isn't costing me anything for the throw aways.

Yup......and I throw away only the out of focus ones. Because an editor somewhere might like a different view or angle than what I submitted.

[Biomech]

Taking the multi shots out, I've worked up from 1% to looking for around 5% of my shots to be exceptional.
If I shoot 1,000, I'll probably have 300-500 that are "good" and 20-50 that I look at and an get a little bit excited about

Like everyone else here I imagine, I'm overly critical of my work

If you aren't getting a genuine keeper rate (it's a real thing!) of %68.927, then you clearly failing.