On average what would you say is your success rate when you go out to shoot? And what’s your experience level?
For myself who has a passion for photography but zero formal training and only purchased my first real camera less than a year ago, I’d say 1% of the pictures that I take are “good” or at least to the point to where I’d share them.
I know a lot comes from just going out and taking pictures but I feel like the gaps between when I go out and take pictures and actually sit at the computer and look at them is so spread out that I can never remember what I did or was thinking last time I was out shooting
When shooting portraits, I would say I typically end up keeping around 10% of the photos.
Bought my first camera about 2 years ago and did mostly landscapes since then. I had to learn a lot of basic photography, which reduced the pictures with actually nice compositions and correct exposure to a bare minimum of below 1%. Even now I push the button a dozen times just to get a feeling for how different a scene looks through the camera compared to how I see it.
Overall, I had hiking vacations with about 1000 pictures and i used 150 of them for stitching panoramas and out of the rest, I kept about 30 for a photo book. But the quality that I would print them big and hang them on my wall? Maybe 5 of them.
I don’t shoot much outside of the studio. I’ve never been that good on my feet like that.
Even with the complete control over studio conditions it can still vary a lot, like maybe the hair isn’t right, or wardrobe is problematic because it doesn’t fit or whatever. Biggest determinant for what I shoot is usually how comfortable someone is (and experienced at) being in front of the camera.
Experience level: idk. I’ve done a lot of commercial work by happenstance, but I’m only really good in very specific situations. So I’d probably two myself at like a neutral number in the middle.
Photo degree / 15 years experience / committed amateur level of involvement
For my landscape stuff, barring some unforseen malfunction or thing moving through the shot, it’s as close to 1:1 for shots to keepers as I can manage. Once you know what your settings / lens can give you, there’s not really a reason to set up for a shot unless you see the potential.
For my concert stuff, especially since I only use available stage and ambient lighting, I usually average around 20 - 30 sellable quality images out of 500 - 750 shots.
studio photographer here 7 plus year experience shooting professionally ( been shooting as a hobby for way longer tthan that… since i have moved back to film i would say 98 percent because there is always room for some technical issue with sync using old camera and strobes. but depending on what you shoot there could be very different result, the camera i used was designed for sport and can burn through a full 36 exposure film roll in just about 8 second so i guess back in the day when using it for sport it would be normal to shoot a hundred rolls and only have a 2 or 3 picture published so it really depends on what you do
P.s as you progress through your photography journey your eyes will develop and what you might consider amazing today will become very ordinary in the future the opposite is also true … when i started i though film photography was inferior now i cannot shoot anything else than film photography
Snapshots.of just whatever, like strolling the streets? 5 or 6 an hour. Shooting weddings? 5 or 6 a minute. Landscapes devoid of glass or concrete? 5 or 6 a day is phenomenal.
The more you learn, the less successful you’ll experience. It’s a great little frustration hobby.
I just spent two weeks in Japan. We were in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara.
I took 3000 photos. I shared 600 of those. I whittled down about 100 that I’m proud enough to put into a book.
So that’s about a 20% “facebook worthy” rate and 3.3% “portfolio worthy” rate.
Now that’s also keeping in mind that you can point at basically anything in Japan and capture something worth printing, with enough patience.
I live in South Carolina, so… not so much here.
Same, same. Two weeks in Japan, took around 4000 shots. Maybe 10% worth sharing. Japan is very photogenic!
I mainly do macro work on insects and plants in the wild. 1 in 1000 is my rough estimate. But I also shot like 4000 pictures in a 2-3 hours time frame.
But in the end I usualy end up with at least 2-8 Keepers and one realy good picture.
When I did do product shootings in the studio almost 100% after setup.
Portait work depends on the model. Simple Business Headshots 9 in 10 workable 1 in 10 great.
Events 3 out of 5. Workable. 1 out of 10 great.
I actually calculated this success rate for my internship report in 2017 after I finished my mandatory internship with a national newspaper.
I dont have the numbers on my phone but it was around 10 % overall that were submitted after the assignments, and 10 % of that were printed (1 % of the RAWs make it into the paper)
There was a slight deviation between zooms (politics, breaking news, spray and pray) and primes (reportage, portraits, landscapes) that underlined the differnent shooting styles of the lenses. I suppose this should still holds for my news work these days.
I also started collecting the data for weddings because I felt that an 8h wedding didnt yield double the pictures of a 4h wedding The „success“ (send) rate sits at 13,2 % for 12 weddings in 2022/2023.
I’m a newbie. Just got my first real camera two weeks ago…
I went out and shot 238 photos in the woods the other day… and I’ve kept 100 that I’m willing to spend time editing… I’ll probably lose another 20 during that stage…
I’ve been shooting on my phone for a couple years now, but I don’t think I ever really kept a tally of shots taken versus shots saved…
I’m not sure what my experience level is. I get told I’m experienced but there’s always more to learn and develop upon.
At the moment I mostly photograph gigs. Sometimes I have a decent strike rate and sometimes I don’t. On average I’ll process somewhere around 10% to 20% of what I take and from that I’ll provide 20 photos per gig.
At the moment I’m taking too many photos. The last gig I took somewhere around 1,100. Trying to keep it at 800 at most.
For this year, off the top of my head there’re two photos I’m really happy with. Maybe three, and all are from the same gig. In a year or so I might not feel the same way, but we’ll see.
I am happy with about 10% of my photos but narrow that down another 10% as great so 1% overall. For a wedding or family event, if I can give them about 100+ edited pictures that is great, with 10 or so I would edit the raw photos another round that I would consider posting.
My usual estimate is around 10%. I’m just an amateur, usually doing street and landscape shooting. I pretty much always fire off at least 2 or 3 shots just to make sure one is sharp or to try different settings. So a lot of the 90% rejects are just duplicates, not necessarily “bad” (by my standards anyway).
Nature and architecture, 20 years amateur: 90+% are technically good; of those, probably 10% are aesthetically good; of those, 1% I really like. So 1/1000 overall that I really like.
I shoot found subjects, so I take some shots immediately so that I have a shot of the subject; these have a very high failure rate. Then I compose a few different ways, to get different framings, backgrounds and exposures. Some of these are deliberately not what I want, so I am always pushing the envelope and trying new things. Then occasionally there is a shot that I want (typically due to lighting, as I shoot only natural light), and it may take me a dozen frames to nail it.
I also do street and wildlife photography, but have much less practice at either of these. Street I can do technically, but like others have said, it’s 1/1000 aesthetically (most shots are just boring). Wildlife I have not yet figured out technically, so I have yet to take a good photo.