How merciless are you?

[TheFlyingScotsman]

Today I went to the IPG (International Peace Gardens) close to where I live. I shot for about two and a half hours and had 82 exposures when I finished. I was shooting the gardens, so no moving animals or people (well, my wife).

While I at the gardens, I concentrated on three things: framing my shots, composing my shots, and exposing (using the light with the f/stops and shutter speed - I kept the ISO firmly at 100) my shots. Still, I found myself shooting at least 3 and sometimes 8 exposures of a different scene, trying different shutter speed and f/stop combinations.

I came home and loaded the images in Lightroom and began deleting. Some shots were underexposed, another series was over-exposed, and out of the 82 shots I maybe kept eight or nine. (One reason: I shoot with the LCD monitor closed, particularly outside. I find looking at the images constantly distracting and in any kind of sunlight the viewfinder on my Nikkon is hard to see anyway).

My wife came in later and wanted to know where all the shots were. I told her and she was like: "Really? Why do you do that? You might need them someday."

When I teach students writing, I tell them to edit mercilessly. If the word, sentence, paragraph doesn't feel right for any reason, you cut it. I've taken the same approach to my pictures because it's what I know. But maybe I should be keeping them?

Am I on the wrong track here? Does everyone cut images like this?

Edit: Fixed the reference to viewfinder to avoid confusion.

[metallion58]

I believe you're on the right track.
I'm a pretty harsh critic of my work and, unless there's a particular reason like capturing a special moment, I delete mercilessly!
There's no point in keeping bad pics.
However, It could be a good idea to review those you're about to reject just to see what went wrong and learn from that.

[RichardTaylor]

It depends on what I am shooting.
Now days the technical failures are rare, unless I am experimenting.
So most of the decisions are compositions and/or catching the moment and near duplicates.

For vacation pics, where I am very conservative when shooting, the keeper rate will be 80%+

For flower pics etc it will be 40-50%.

For motor sport it will be approx 5% final keepers (that will be after a year or so).
In this case it is what I am really happy with, however drivers and some race fans like a lot more than 5%.

[jdepould]

I'm confused about the shooting with your viewfinder closed bit. Do you mean you turn off the LCD? How do you compose without seeing what you're doing?

I agree on the edit ruthlessly bit, but I generally don't delete unless it's out of focus or so far over/under that you can't see anything. Hard drives are cheap, and still don't take up that much room.

Exposure is a funny thing ... the camera wants to make 18% grey images, which is all well and good, but sometimes you don't want the image to be evenly lit. Often, the more interesting images rely less on "correct" metering, and more on using light creatively. Rimlight/strong sidelight is a good example of underexposing for dramatic effect:

[autofocus]

The short answer is no. If you are having trouble viewing through your viewfinder in bright light you may want to consider one of the following:
Amazon.com: Hoodman H-EYEC18 HoodEYE for most of the Canon 18mm SLR models: Camera & Photo
They are made for most camera models, and are also available for those who wear glasses. My goal when shooting is to always try to get the composition, exposure and focus right. I suppose shooting film for many years has influenced that quite a bit. So, I typically don't have to discard too many images. If you are only keeping around 10% of your shots you may want to work on improving the 90%. Some of those 90% may have been great shots and keepers.

[Doug Sundseth]

Photography is a bit different than writing. If you delete something in a piece you've written and decide that the deletion was a mistake, it's generally trivial to rewrite it. Not so much with photography.

My process is to go through the photos from a trip/walk/session/whatever and reject all the photos that are obviously and forever useless (blurry, badly under- or overexposed). At the same time, I'll tag photos that I think might have promise with one star. Usually this results in rejecting 5-10% and starring 40-50%.

Some time later I'll go back through the one-star photos and promote the ones that I still like to two stars. Two-star photos are those that are worth doing at least minimal post-processing. Fairly often, after a bit of post, I'll demote two-star photos as probably not worth more work. After this, I'm normally down to 15-25% of my initial number of photos. (For some sorts of fairly rote product photography, my hit rate is much higher, FWIW.)

If I was shooting for a client, the client will get a contact sheet with all of the photos that still have two stars. If I was shooting for myself, the number of those that will see the light of day will depend on how good a shooting day I had. It might be anywhere from 5-80% of the two-star photos.

After a year or so, I try to go back through my archives and decide whether to rescue any of the original cuts. Anything I still don't like after a year, I'll usually delete.

Storage is cheap. Photo trips are expensive, even if only in time.

[Hill Country Hack]

I fit in along with Richard. Vacation/family gathering type pics I'm pretty conservative and keep most. Since I'm a hobbyist and shoot a bunch of different stuff I cut mercilessly while examining my throw outs to learn from the mistakes. I go through two edits. The first is previewing prior to importing for the pure crap shots. The second is during editing. Near duplicates, and the ones I was sitting the fence on prior to import.

I've been shooting almost a year now and the technical errors are becoming fewer and fewer. I don't see a need to keep OOF or overly under/over exposed. I must admit I do have some I've yet to toss.

[TheFlyingScotsman]

Just to clarify quickly:

I was referring to the LCD monitor that flips open, not the viewfinder eyepiece. My mind crossed wires.

Sorry for confusion.

[RichardTaylor]

That screen on the back is called "the distractor" by some sports photographers I know. If you are not looking through the viewfinder then you cant capture it.

.

[autofocus]

Holding an SLR requires a pretty steady hand. The typical hand holding technique has the user cradle the lens in the left hand, elbows in tight to the body with the viewfinder tightly against your eye. Other than shooting on a tripod, or for shooting at less than normal positions, shooting while composing through the LCD is not the best way to hold a camera. This could be part of the reason why you are having so many rejects.