What is your "keeper ratio?"

[Sika]

I was just wondering what everyone's percentages are on keepers...assuming keepers are the ones you don't throw away.

Back in the days of film I was happy if I got 5 or 6 great shots off a roll. With digital I can delete duplicate shots and out of focus / poorly exposed shots as I go...but I still only process and share 10-30 for every 100 that I bring home... and only 1-2% of those ever make it to a print. I always thought that was acceptable but some guys are doing much better.

So, for every 100 shots how many do you keep in your portfolio?

[Hawg]

It depends on what I'm shooting. If I have the time to make the shot, like when shooting landscape or similar where the subject isn't going anywhere, the I'll have a higher ratio since I have time to get the composition, exposure, focus and all that right the first time. But, if it's fast action type stuff, my little point and shoot just sometimes isn't fast enough to catch what I'm shooting or wanting to shoot and the ratio will be lower.

With that said, I still don't have many photos that I think are great, and share very few with others. Out of 100 shots, I'll probably have 10 or so that I'll edit or make adjustments on. I don't print very many pics, my print ratio is probably 0.001%. I just don't have enough places to display them.

I do keep most of the photos I take in the digital archives. I really do need to go through and cull out the "random" pics but, I'm too lazy to do that.

[Hillary]

I would say about 10% if I am really lucky. More than likely I would love 1 out of 100, love enough to print.

I am a tough critic on myself

[Randy]

I would say about 10% if I am really lucky. More than likely I would love 1 out of 100, love enough to print.

I am a tough critic on myself

We in the same boat.

[AtTheWall]

I fire a lot of frames and only keep a few. They all look very much alike but I tweak through the F/stops (1/3 at a time) at the lowest ISO I can. If I can get away with it, I will kick the ISO up and go through it one more time.

Part of why I do this, I run through exposures covering dark - light zones. Somewhere in there I'm gonna hit the right balance and that balance point is where I want the mood to go. Light, color and contrast is the mood.

Some days I can shoot a lot of keepers, I find on overcast days, my keeper ratio is higher. Or on the same opposite, extremely bright days will give me a lot as long as I keep things on a long focal plane. BOKEH - that is an entirely different story....I can shoot a lot of marginal shots before I hit the keeper. The 50D fast fps has really helped me out with a lot of it as well. My slower 350D was a bear and as Scott is finding, you shoot and pray sometimes hoping you can cycle one in before the scene is gone.

One day I shot crap and kept noticing I had what I thought was zoom creep or a bad eyepiece. I focused for what I thought were perfectly focused shots and the results were too short and the main subject was slightly out of focus? Before thinking disaster, I double checked my eyepiece dial....found it was clicked off several notches short. Aimed the eyepiece at the closest object and dialed it all back in and resumed without further issue.

[Bluesman]

I would say about 10% if I am really lucky. More than likely I would love 1 out of 100, love enough to print.

I am a tough critic on myself

Same here.

[Shane]

Same for me. Lots of shots with a few keepers. It's really not an issue for me though with digital. I remember in the film days it was a BIG deal, but with digital you can intentionally take several throw-away shots just tinkering with the settings until you find what works for the final keeper shot.

Of course not all the shots that I think are going to be my final keeper shots end up as real keepers.

[Snakelover]

It depends on what the pictures are for. I take a lot of pictures for Mindy's antique business. In that case, it's about showing people the antiques, so I keep more pictures even if they're not very good from a photography standpoint. When I'm taking pictures just for the fun of it, I tend to keep fewer. I wouldn't venture a guess on the percentages. I know it varies widely.

[Kevin]

Mine is low. I have noticed that as I get better, my "keepers" get better too and I leave many on the table that I would have loved several years ago. I think Rob summed it up pretty well.

[TexaswBOWhunter]

I just got my first "good" camera and the ratio is very low right now, I am in the learning to shoot manual mode and I am getting a few decent one's but I would say less than one per 100 clicks...

My goal is to cut the number of clicks down and the number of keeper's to go up a little.

[gjennings]

Not as much as I wish.

[OPC Patrick]

I have heard that film photographers who switched have a better percentage than those who learned on digital. I believe Russel has stated his percentage is up there like 1:1
On the flip side I have read that some camera bodies only have a certain number of shutter slaps before it gives up the ghost. So I am starting to reconsider my spray and pray method.

Take 100 post 5 and print maybe 1-300 shots