Doug A
Established
I bulk-load 12-exposures of 35mm B&W. I try to develop one roll a week. I seldom expose all 12 frames before I take the film out of the camera and develop it. On average I print about half of the images as 4x6 for friends and family. And of those "keeper" images I print about one a month in a larger size for display.
JohnWolf
Well-known
That's pretty interesting, Doug. 12-shot rolls. It sometimes takes me forever to finish a 36-exposure roll and I also occasionally process before completion. Of course, your method uses a lot more chemistry. Not a big deal with some developers.
John
Evergreen States
Pierre Saget (they/them)
I don't keep track, but I'm quite confident that my hit rate when shooting digital is well under 1%. My hit rate shooting film seems to be higher but varies.
oldwino
Well-known
I shoot digital the same way I shoot film, so the keeper rate should be pretty close to the same, but for some reason I am keeping a higher percentage of my digital shots.
ChrisPlatt
Thread Killer
My keeper rate is 200% - I always order double prints! 
But seriously, if I get one or two negatives per roll that I consider worthy of spending the time to print I'm happy...
Chris
But seriously, if I get one or two negatives per roll that I consider worthy of spending the time to print I'm happy...
Chris
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
FINALLY!! Someone has the courage to say it...
jsrockit, I give you a thousand 'likes' for this.
My second 'like' to Yokosuka_Mike for having gone even further, and put into posted words what I'm sure many of us have long thought.
You are both two very brave men.
I will now join you in the To Be Vilified List, and go further and say - a pox on anyone who takes 1,482 photos of last weekend's family picnic, and then posts the entire lot.
I am trying to be nice now. This poster is sensible. Minimalism in photography is good in the everything-so-expensive analog era. In fact this is what I have been doing since the 1980s - in the darkroom I cut one 8x10 sheet of paper into four 4/5 sheets, and print my images on those. A sort of new dimension to the once-popular contact sheet phenomenon we all once upon a time did. Mind you, storing the 50,000 or so prints I've made over the decades is not easy, but now I will let you all in on a secret - every few years I go thru the accumulation of prints, and shred like mad.
Seriously, we all have our own ways of going about our photography. Keeping everything in this day and age when many of us are ageing and have to downsize, is no longer a viable option. If pushed to the wall, I would go for keeping negatives more than prints. After all, many of us now scan everything rather than make paper prints.
An interesting thread. Let us agree to disagree on all this...
steveyork
Well-known
Definitely get more keepers when I'm out with just one focal length or camera system. It makes me concentrate one the one, and I need all the help I can get!
Doug A
Established
It's dead cheap with Rodinal, plain water stop bath, generic rapid fixer, and no Photo-Flo. I do splurge on distilled water though. 1.5 liter for a roll of 35mm with the Ilford Wash Method @ $1.15 a gallon for the last jug.
olakiril
Well-known
The way that we shoot at different situations results in vastly different keeper rates. When I take a photo walk, keeper rate is much much higher than when shooting my unstoppable children where many of the frames are missed.
My working definition of "1 - keeper rate" is when looking back at the pictures that I have taken during a whole year, how many can I delete without fear of loosing something?
My working definition of "1 - keeper rate" is when looking back at the pictures that I have taken during a whole year, how many can I delete without fear of loosing something?
BillBingham2
Registered User
With Film I had a 10% rate of keepers or higher. I was a lot pickier in pressing the shutter button. Now, with digital I find myself pushing the button, and looking, trying different perspectives, lenses, etc. Now that I think about it my keepers might be 5% or lower if I kept all the trashed images. My pictures of subjects feels like 30%, but I fear that I've fallen into what my father called the National Geographic mindset (burn the film and then pick the best one, based upon watching a couple of NatGeo photographers shot some stuff at Kodak over the years).
Editing on my iPad is a LOT easier than on a contact sheet.
B2 (;->
Editing on my iPad is a LOT easier than on a contact sheet.
B2 (;->
Yokosuka_Mike
Abstract Clarity
Bill, it was early in the morning when I read your post, I guess my vision was a little blurry, at first glance I thought you wrote:
"With Film I had a 100% rate of keepers or higher."
It put a big smile on my face. It was a bit of a disappointment when I realized it was only "10%" that you wrote.
All the best,
Mike
robert blu
quiet photographer
Valid observation, interesting thought.
Now I give you an example of my editing routine (for editing I intend to make a selection, post processing is a different thing).
A few days ago coming back home I notice the small tree in the garden of building where I live was hit by a nice light and specially framed by the piloting it was an interesting subject, of course in my opinion. The colours, the light, ther contrapposition between nature and urban environment was what attracted me.
I went upstair, took my camera and came down . I shot a total of 6/8 frames : one was badly exposed (!) two had a banal framing, two where of a different subject and the others were technically and visually ok. From these I selected the one which was more similat to what I had thougt when I first saw the tree. I deleted the others.
But as you said the circumstances in which we work can influence very much the way to shoot, like if it is an unique event or moment I'll probably take many more photos...probably....
PS: if you are curious the picture is in the RFF gallery
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Yes. Sometimes I'm in an experimental mood and make a lot of exposures of a particular subject trying to see if I can capture what's in my mind. Other times, I see what I want and make just one exposure. It happens both ways with both film and digital capture cameras ... obviously, less with film cameras for the simple reason that there's a limit to how many exposures I can make before having to reload and the moment, the light, will likely have changed to something different after I do that.
I don't think about 'keeper rate' at all, really. I find it best just to try to make a good photo every time I release the shutter.
G
I don't think about 'keeper rate' at all, really. I find it best just to try to make a good photo every time I release the shutter.
G
Cyriljay
Leica Like
My photography skills were developed around shooting films. Although I shoot with a Leica M I never do machine gun spray shooting.
When I do photowalk I do more observations than shooting and I end up always getting right shoots that pleases me so they are my photography and not KEEPERS. So I am making my visions into photography and I let them cook for many months in a hard disk so when I look at them very late for processing all of my emotional attachments gone and I can easily edit my photos.
Anotherthing I do is I use very "small Ssd cards 8GB" so I have a very limited spaces of memory so I am careful about how to spare the limited spaced cards. So no spray shooting. Now a days you can't find 8Gb memory cards they only starts from 16GB. So I have some older cards that I use with lot of care !!!
When I do photowalk I do more observations than shooting and I end up always getting right shoots that pleases me so they are my photography and not KEEPERS. So I am making my visions into photography and I let them cook for many months in a hard disk so when I look at them very late for processing all of my emotional attachments gone and I can easily edit my photos.
Anotherthing I do is I use very "small Ssd cards 8GB" so I have a very limited spaces of memory so I am careful about how to spare the limited spaced cards. So no spray shooting. Now a days you can't find 8Gb memory cards they only starts from 16GB. So I have some older cards that I use with lot of care !!!
Bob Michaels
nobody special
The lifetime baseball record for being struck out the most times was held by Babe Ruth. It was broken by Mickey Mantle and now held by Reggie Jackson.
Who remembers them for being struck out so many times?
Who remembers them for being struck out so many times?
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
You reminded me I need to watch this soon.
And I miss the Reggie Bar - great candy bar! I think it's back though.
Reggie Bar is back, Yankees fans
The Reggie Bar, a chocolate and caramel candy bar, was around from 1978 to 1981.
www.nj.com
Canyongazer
Canyongazer
Didn't St. Ansel say he found his "one a month" success rate satisfactory?
