What % of your shots are "keepers"?

[Anonymous Freak]

When you're out shooting and you take a bunch of shots, what % of your shots are ones you actually keep and use (be it for commercial or personal uses like posting on your photo page)?

I'm a believer in "take a bunch, sort them out later", so maybe 5% are 'keepers'.

Way back in the film days when I was in college, a few roommates and I took a day trip to the Grand Canyon (our college was in Northern Arizona, but it wasn't Northern Arizona University,) and on that trip, I took 288 pictures. My album from that trip has 40 pictures, and I consider only 4 of them to be truly "great" photos. I keep the 40, but I would only take active effort to 'promote' the 4, if I ever had a reason to do so.

Oh, but I do keep even the 'bad' ones, as long as they aren't so horribly bad that I can't even figure out what it's a picture of, because I'm a pack rat that way. I just put those in a box. For digital, I only toss ones that are so horrendously out of focus that I can't even tell what it's a picture of, or are outright aimed wrong (like an accidental picture of the ceiling or something.)

 

[jayb2000]

I chuck anything with bad exposure, bad focus, etc. Since I am still trying to learn more about my camera and what I like to shoot, it really depends. I went to my niece's christening last weekend and took 251. I parsed it down to 68 and could probably get to 50 if I wanted to.
Not that all of those are great shots, but they capture a moment pretty well.
Once I burn a CD and give it to my brother-in-law, I plan on keeping only the top 10 or so (I took some good flower shots I think, see POTD thread for some pretty rhododendrons).

But when I am taking time for something I am setting up, like a landscape or such, I am probably much closer to keeping 70% or so, as I try to get it right the first time, and then maybe fiddle about with WB or aperture.

 

[walangij]

I'm a believer in "take a bunch, sort them out later", so maybe 5% are 'keepers'.

x2
I have found myself in this same camp!

I find my keeper rate rises as I get more accustomed to my equipment. Right now I'm on a trip in Thailand and upgraded my camera body and lenses/filters before I left, but my keeper rate has dropped from my previous setup.

Out of the 3000 pictures I've taken so far, around 10-20 are excellent, and around 40 are great. Out of the total 75% are, bluntly, just boring compositions/subjects/lighting.
And then 10% are user error especially w/ the new filters I'm learning and the new metering system/AF in the camera that I'm not accustomed to.

I find that the more I take each day the better my shots get progressively, like I have to "warm up" with my eye.

 

[:DRS:Church]

I took 106 photos of my friend and her horse the other day. I liked 4 of them. She "really" liked about 35 of them. I guess its all just in the eye of the beholder

Church

 

[xsedrinam]

I take "keepers" to mean photos I actually use in publication or publicity and promotion. Honestly, that would be less than 5%. Naturally, friend's and family's "keepers" for keep sake would make the percentage closer to 25%.

 

[shieldyoureyes]

It depends on what you mean by keepers. If you mean photos you would publish or enter in a contest...maybe 5-10 per year. And that is out of thousands of shots. If you mean good photos of friends and things, that are correct composition, exposure and visually pleasing, I would say around 40-50%.

My percentage has gone up a lot since I started shooting medium format...when it costs a little over $1 per frame, you take your time and make sure it is a good photo before you release that shutter.

 

[stcanard]

I guess it depends on what you consider "keeper"

On my recent vacation I took about 850 pictures...

85% of them are well enough exposed, sharp, and at have at least a moderately interesting composition.

25% of them are sufficient to tell the story of the trip and are what I put into my slide show

5% of them I consider good enough to consider framing or putting as a wallpaper

Probably less than half of that will actually survive further inspection and actually be put somewhere.

 

[Overclocker]

Only about 5% - 10%

Good is never good enough.

 

[e²Studios]

For me i would say overall I am happy with a lot of the shots I take, I photoshop most of the ones i really like, but overall i would say its around a 20-30% keep rate. I am not a pro, i do this for fun so that may be why I am far less critical than a lot of the others on this site that are pro

For me photography is relaxing, its fun to wander off and just start taking photos of random things. Travel is another thing that i enjoy and to me travel and photography go hand-in-hand.

Some of my photos are here http://batou.org/gallery/index.php?cat=2 for anyone that is interested

Ed