[mattyb]

So I'm going through every Aperture 2 tutorial that I can find, and I watch this one.

I know that he's a pro, but 3000 photos over three days, and he only gets 100 good photos? Or am I mis-understanding, and he has a 100 photo limit so he has to scale down to 100 photos.

Is this the norm for the pros out there?

[design219]

He says "I'm going to get those 100 images I need." Sounds like he has contracted with the couple to supply 100 images from the three day event.

But yes, with cost of digital photography, It's easy to justify shooting much more than you need. Especially with a photojournalist approach, as you are not controlling/choreographing the situation. It's much better to overshoot and edit, than the opposite.

[Spheric Harlot]

I remember being told in the analog days that getting a 1:10 ratio of good photos to those you can't use for one reason or another is pretty damn good.

IOW, getting three or four photos off a 36-image film was a great average.

[Demonhood]

Originally Posted by design219 

He says "I'm going to get those 100 images I need." Sounds like he has contracted with the couple to supply 100 images from the three day event.

that seems most likely. or at least, to supply 100 prints perhaps. that's what i do for certain events. people like hard copies, so i provide them with a few (100 from a wedding, let's say), while giving them all of the photographs that made the cut on a dvd.

for example, last wedding i post processed:

Photos taken - 1100
Photos deemed acceptable (1 star) - 800 (some pp in Aperture on these, but not much)
Photos deemed good (2 stars) - 450 (full pp in Aperture)
Photos retouched/tweaked in photoshop - 80-100

Combined (with photo partner) photos taken - 2500
Combined photos delivered on disc - 685
Combined photos delivered as prints to client - 85

that's probably higher than most events would warrant, but there were a lot of formal shots, and family members generally like to have lots of options for those.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

So I'm going through every Aperture 2 tutorial that I can find, and I watch this one.

I know that he's a pro, but 3000 photos over three days, and he only gets 100 good photos? Or am I mis-understanding, and he has a 100 photo limit so he has to scale down to 100 photos.

Is this the norm for the pros out there?

It's the same thing as doing a dozen or more takes for a film.

You can't control everything at the time of the shoot, but you have to deliver results. So you shoot much more than you need to be able to do that. Even when a lot of that good material cannot even be used.

My most recent portrait shoot: 320 images, of which 85 were good, and about 20 excellent. I'm sure the client will not use more than six images for his portfolio. So, even excellent images will get thrown out.

So, why did I shoot 320 images? I have to go through the full range of this clients abilities to map them out (he's an actor). With some people you just don't get that many shots, and you can't be sure until you see the images.

[mattyb]

I sort of asked this before, but what do you do in Aperture for PP? Do you go from the top of the adjustements inspector to the bottom? Do you start with exposure, then colour then whatever? Its this Aperture PP work flow that I'd like to know about, the order to do things.

Sorry if I'm not using the right terms, and thanks for posting your expereinces.

Matt

[Demonhood]

i first see if any adjustments need to be made outside of my normal palette. things like straightening or cropping. my defaults are:

White Balance
Exposure (most often used)
Enhance (second most often used)
Levels
Highlights & Shadows (least often used)
Sharpen

i typically hit up sharpen first (since i shoot raw). then contrast. then i adjust from top to bottom, tweaking as needed (since changing the contrast might necessitate a change in the exposure). oh, and remember to watch the histogram.

for most shots though, i only use - Exposure, Contrast, Levels, Sharpen.

and there are lots of ways to do the same thing in Aperture. or at least, get the same basic result. so play around with the relationship between brightness and contrast. or exposure and levels. or highlights and exposure.

[mattyb]

Exactly what I was looking for,cheers Demonhood.

[design219]

I work in Photoshop, but generally my basic flow is not set. I attack the most severe corrections first and work down to the least. Sometimes a lesser problem is removed before you even get to it.

[eyevaan]

Great insight into your experience Demonhood. Unfortunately, I find your numbers to be a little outrageous when compared against when a photographer shot film... [please no slam intended at all it is just the nature of our consumer culture - people who hire photographers have made your job impossible]
from 2500 clicks to 85 finished prints... *phew*
That is a crazy number of prints.
are they satisfied?

[Demonhood]

they are satisfied. but things are very different (from what i can tell) from the film days.

while it was 2500 --> 85 prints, the more important number for them is 2500 --> 685 photos delivered on disc.
fewer people seem to care about the prints. and if they do, they'll just get them done themselves. they want the digital copies. and we give it to them. full res. and since it's digital and not film, they expect a lot of things to be captured. there are still the choice moments that film could have captured, but now it's "awww, why didn't they get a picture of Uncle Teddy?" and that's fine. i can respect the need to cover as much as possible. and i think the clients understand that we try, but that we will still focus on the more important moments.

also , event photography is a bit different. when i've shot concerts or festivals, there is just so much going on, that it makes more sense for me to shoot and shoot and shoot and then sort thru it all later. i can't tell you how many times i've shot something, and not realized how terrific the moment was until i get back and look at it in aperture later. i spend very little time reviewing in my lcd, because i'm very comfortable with my equipment and my settings. to give another example with numbers, the last long concert (with 6 acts) that i shot was 9 hours long, and i shot 1300 photos. so about 2.5 a minute. but there's the bands, the crowds, the backstage crew, the vendors, the antics in the fields, etc. so much going on, i wanted to get a little piece of everything.

so things change. and i really enjoy (aside from the disc space issue) taking lots and lots of photos. i'd rather capture the moment AND the moment after, than miss it altogether.

[Timo]

7/10ths of one percent: my keepers

[design219]

25 years ago, I spent a couple years a working as an assistant for a fantastic portrait & wedding photographer. His control of lighting, exposure, posing and timing was so good, his "keep" ratio was about 99%. The only loses were usually blinks, which was one of my jobs to watch for. Even his candid shots had an amazing keep ratio. In the days of film, this was an ideal situation due to costs. We took polaroids tests to start, but usually just one per lighting setup.

The down side to this was his stress level was VERY high. We packed 5 Hasselblads and usually 3 35mm to every wedding just in case. We had at least two back-ups for every single piece of equipment, including the lights. Film was shipped registered mail. His basic shoot was around 100 images... portraits, groups, the ceremony (which we used the 35mm for), the reception. And this was with film, so no immediate feedback of a successful shot.

He died at an early age (50) just about the time digital was becoming feasible. Wedding photography has to be one of the most stressful fields there is. You deal with people at their emotional worst, you are pressured to hurry, hurry, hurry, and of course, if you screw up, you can't get everyone back for a re-shoot later.

[Veltliner]

It also depends on what you shoot.

With static objects, you can do few shots with a high keeper rate. Basically, the additional shots you do is just trying things out.

People are a different matter.

You shoot for the right expression and have no time to think, only to react (which is basically thinking and experience that has become a habit or a skill). You need more shots that way.

[OreoCookie]

I found that making the switch to digital, I take a lot, lot, lot more pictures and I don't think this is always for the better. When I think of the film days, I remember that I was working a lot more carefully, because I did not want to waste any film. And my camera was slower (1 fps and later 2.5 fps, less sophisticated AF system, I had `only' 5 AF points, one of them cross-type) as well. I'm eying to bid on a F90X on ebay, complete with a nice lens and grip.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by design219 

25 years ago, I spent a couple years a working as an assistant for a fantastic portrait & wedding photographer. His control of lighting, exposure, posing and timing was so good, his "keep" ratio was about 99%. The only loses were usually blinks, which was one of my jobs to watch for. Even his candid shots had an amazing keep ratio. In the days of film, this was an ideal situation due to costs. We took polaroids tests to start, but usually just one per lighting setup.

The down side to this was his stress level was VERY high. We packed 5 Hasselblads and usually 3 35mm to every wedding just in case. We had at least two back-ups for every single piece of equipment, including the lights. Film was shipped registered mail. His basic shoot was around 100 images... portraits, groups, the ceremony (which we used the 35mm for), the reception. And this was with film, so no immediate feedback of a successful shot.

He died at an early age (50) just about the time digital was becoming feasible. Wedding photography has to be one of the most stressful fields there is. You deal with people at their emotional worst, you are pressured to hurry, hurry, hurry, and of course, if you screw up, you can't get everyone back for a re-shoot later.

So this turned you off of wedding photography completely? I can see why.

I'm editing my final one right now. I'm focusing entirely on portraits for all of the reasons you listed above. I think clients have actually become even harder to please in the digital age. Last year I delivered 850+ images on disc to a bride, and she Emailed me the next day asking, "I was kind of hoping for more, soooo...can you edit all of them?" I had taken around 1,800 shots.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

So this turned you off of wedding photography completely? I can see why.

I'm editing my final one right now. I'm focusing entirely on portraits for all of the reasons you listed above. I think clients have actually become even harder to please in the digital age. Last year I delivered 850+ images on disc to a bride, and she Emailed me the next day asking, "I was kind of hoping for more, soooo...can you edit all of them?" I had taken around 1,800 shots.

She wanted more than 850 images of her wedding?!

When is she going to find the time to look at all these photos? Crazy people …

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

She wanted more than 850 images of her wedding?!

When is she going to find the time to look at all these photos? Crazy people …

Such is the world of wedding photography (at least from what I've seen).

Brides and mothers (from both sides of the family) lose their minds in the months before and weeks after the wedding.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Brides and mothers (from both sides of the family) lose their minds in the months before and weeks after the wedding.

QFT.

Before my marriage my father said the same thing. He gave me some money towards it and said that he wouldn't be involved in any decisions. I was involved in two decisions for my marriage : how much beer to buy (it was held in Bordeaux) and the suits that me and my best man wore.

Still, it was a great day. Can't say that I remember the photographer. We put a couple of throwaway cameras on each table - these gave some interesting results.

[design219]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

So this turned you off of wedding photography completely? I can see why.

Yes, definitely. I liked portraiture fine, but commercial photography is so much less stressful... and more rewarding.

Sounds like your disappointed bride was a bit of a nutter.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Such is the world of wedding photography (at least from what I've seen).

Brides and mothers (from both sides of the family) lose their minds in the months before and weeks after the wedding.

Insane. As far as I know, there are less than a dozen photos in existence from my parents’ (well, my dad and stepmum’s) wedding—there was no photographer, just whatever the guests happened to snap while there.

(This was in 1989, of course, so fewer people would ‘just’ happen to have cameras handy)

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

QFT.

Before my marriage my father said the same thing. He gave me some money towards it and said that he wouldn't be involved in any decisions. I was involved in two decisions for my marriage : how much beer to buy (it was held in Bordeaux) and the suits that me and my best man wore.

Still, it was a great day. Can't say that I remember the photographer. We put a couple of throwaway cameras on each table - these gave some interesting results.

I was "involved" in almost every decision. What that meant is that I stood/sat there at every appointment and nodded politely.

$20 says some of your favorite pictures from the day were taken with the throwaway cameras.

Originally Posted by design219 

Yes, definitely. I liked portraiture fine, but commercial photography is so much less stressful... and more rewarding.

Sounds like your disappointed bride was a bit of a nutter.

If photography was my only job, I'd try to eventually work my way into commercial stuff.

Are you in the "I Hate Dave Hill" or "I Love Dave Hill" crowd?

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Insane. As far as I know, there are less than a dozen photos in existence from my parents’ (well, my dad and stepmum’s) wedding—there was no photographer, just whatever the guests happened to snap while there.

(This was in 1989, of course, so fewer people would ‘just’ happen to have cameras handy)

Yeah, most of the old professional wedding photos I've come across, there only seem to be about 30 pictures in the wedding albums, if that. My parents had very few.

[design219]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Are you in the "I Hate Dave Hill" or "I Love Dave Hill" crowd?

Hmmm. Had not heard of him. I do not keep up much with the industry "stars." Looks like he puts a lot of post-processing effort into making photos look like illustrations. It's kind of cool, but all his images look very much the same. I'm sure he gets a lot of work because of his style.

[mattyb]

Sounds like a real pro.

[richwig83]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Sounds like a real pro.

Those photos are absolutely shocking!! I would expect better from a toddler with a Tomy "My First Camera"

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Last year I delivered 850+ images on disc to a bride, and she Emailed me the next day asking, "I was kind of hoping for more, soooo...can you edit all of them?" I had taken around 1,800 shots.

I treat wedding photography clients just like I treat design clients. I'm very clear about what will be delivered. I tell them that I'll give them all of the shots (anything blurry is deleted) and will edit the 50 best in Photoshop. Anything beyond that is more money.

[Eug]

What do you guys/gals use for denoise software? Maybe it's just because I'm not very good at it, but I find the denoise option in Aperture way worse than 3rd party plugins.

BTW, with regards to keepers:

I have more keepers in digital than I ever did in film. However, with digital I shoot probably 100X as many shots. I must admit I've become more of a spray and pray type of guy with digital, but I don't care, because it costs me nothing to "develop" the pictures. I'm definitely no pro though.

It definitely helps with learning though. I have no experience with long lenses and shooting birds... and then I bought a long lens for shooting birds. I went through a few hundred shots in the course of just a couple of hours. Very few were keepers, and even the keepers weren't great, just acceptable. However, I did learn some of the things NOT to do, and got to know the camera and lens better in a relatively short period of time. To learn the same thing on film it would have taken me much longer, and cost much more.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Eug 

BTW, with regards to keepers:

I have more keepers in digital than I ever did in film. However, with digital I shoot probably 100X as many shots. I must admit I've become more of a spray and pray type of guy with digital, but I don't care, because it costs me nothing to "develop" the pictures. I'm definitely no pro though.

It definitely helps with learning though. I have no experience with long lenses and shooting birds... and then I bought a long lens for shooting birds. I went through a few hundred shots in the course of just a couple of hours. Very few were keepers, and even the keepers weren't great, just acceptable. However, I did learn some of the things NOT to do, and got to know the camera and lens better in a relatively short period of time. To learn the same thing on film it would have taken me much longer, and cost much more.

Me 3. I haven't bought top spec kit yet so some of the low light or fast moving stuff is basically awful. But there are a few that are worth keeping. I bought a flash and TBH there are some things that still haven't 'clicked' yet when using some settings. Thats part of the expereince I suppose. The grandparents seem happy with my photographic efforts and they are the most important critics

[pra9ab0y]

This is true!

Take it from someone who knows! On an average studio day. I may spend 8 hours with 12 models. For each model I will take about 500 shots. Out of those 500 about half are focused or decent. (hair isn't covering face etc...)

out of the 200/300 that are left. I can get about 100 good photos for that particular model. I then batch process and retouch the pics, fixing skin and blemishes. Then export. Depending on what I promised the client I may only hand over 50% of those finished photos.

Out of a recent wedding I shot for a good friend I managed to take 1,000 shots on the day. I used about 400. and the couple only took about 80 or so to be printed. Obviously as it was a friend I gave them the 400 photos on the cd. The 80 they wanted printed I touched and made them perfect and those were also on the disc.

Fact is, always shoot more than you need. Photos will never be perfect and you need to compensate anyway you can, either by having different shots of the same thing or more shots of different things.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by design219 

He says "I'm going to get those 100 images I need." Sounds like he has contracted with the couple to supply 100 images from the three day event.

But yes, with cost of digital photography, It's easy to justify shooting much more than you need. Especially with a photojournalist approach, as you are not controlling/choreographing the situation. It's much better to overshoot and edit, than the opposite.

It's called 'entropy' - a tendency toward dissolution. In this case, dissolution in the skills of photographers. Back in the old days, if I came back with 5 out of a hand-rolled 50 I'd have to explain why not 15 or 20. The growth of digital photography (and cheap film processing & retouching I suppose) has made it much easier to just bang away and pray that you get something. "Composure" is a lost art.

Not that it's a bad thing, but photogs these days need different skills, that's all.

So, yeah, 100 out of 3000 might be right given some of the loser shooters I've seen going at it recently.

[pra9ab0y]

Originally Posted by finboy 

So, yeah, 100 out of 3000 might be right given some of the loser shooters I've seen going at it recently.

Wow! I so agree.. A guy I know recently shot a wedding and used the spray and pray technique! I must say he got the shots, with many blinks and bad re-touching in the finals! Too much glow. The dress even changed colour on a few!

My idea is that if you have to use that method all the time your not worthy to be a photog! I may use a 3 shot burst. Mainly to minimise blinks! Especially when shooting kids but apart from those if you can't get it right first time then you shouldn't be doing it at all!

[PortraitProAlex]

Originally Posted by pra9ab0y 

Wow! I so agree.. A guy I know recently shot a wedding and used the spray and pray technique! I must say he got the shots, with many blinks and bad re-touching in the finals! Too much glow. The dress even changed colour on a few!

My idea is that if you have to use that method all the time your not worthy to be a photog! I may use a 3 shot burst. Mainly to minimise blinks! Especially when shooting kids but apart from those if you can't get it right first time then you shouldn't be doing it at all!

I don't know, I think a 3 shot burst is generally fair enough on portraits. I agree overall though, spray and pray folk aren't photogs at all.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by finboy 

It's called 'entropy' - a tendency toward dissolution. In this case, dissolution in the skills of photographers. Back in the old days, if I came back with 5 out of a hand-rolled 50 I'd have to explain why not 15 or 20. The growth of digital photography (and cheap film processing & retouching I suppose) has made it much easier to just bang away and pray that you get something. "Composure" is a lost art.

It's hard to "compose" a bird in flight or a winning touchdown.

With portraits you can still compose it, but now it's easy for an advanced amateur to shoot hundreds of shots, whereas in the past it was only possible for a pro with a 5 digit budget to do it.

P.S. One thing that is also very interesting these days is high ISO performance. For the amateur it's so nice being able to actually use ISO 3200, instead of having to use ISO 800 and a $2000 lens.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by finboy 

It's called 'entropy' - a tendency toward dissolution. In this case, dissolution in the skills of photographers. Back in the old days, if I came back with 5 out of a hand-rolled 50 I'd have to explain why not 15 or 20. The growth of digital photography (and cheap film processing & retouching I suppose) has made it much easier to just bang away and pray that you get something. "Composure" is a lost art.

Not that it's a bad thing, but photogs these days need different skills, that's all.

So, yeah, 100 out of 3000 might be right given some of the loser shooters I've seen going at it recently.

I don't think there's a lot of difference when you shoot right.

I have shot film for many years, and I remember that shooting two rolls was quite a lot.

Now, with digital, you have to plan your shots equally well. Then you have more leeway to try out different things along your concept.

Those who just shoot like with a machine pistol - I wouldn't call them photographers.

I recently went on a hike and used up an old slide film. With it I had a Minolta from the seventies. Exactly 16 shots for two days.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by pra9ab0y 

Wow! I so agree.. A guy I know recently shot a wedding and used the spray and pray technique! I must say he got the shots, with many blinks and bad re-touching in the finals! Too much glow. The dress even changed colour on a few!

My idea is that if you have to use that method all the time your not worthy to be a photog! I may use a 3 shot burst. Mainly to minimise blinks! Especially when shooting kids but apart from those if you can't get it right first time then you shouldn't be doing it at all!

Bursts are for those who don't know what they want.

If you shoot single shots and know what you are shooting for you have a much higher chance of getting the right moment.

I couldn't imagine shooting bursts. Maybe it's necessary in some high velocity sports, but for portrait? Brrr... the thought alone gives me the shakes.

[pra9ab0y]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Bursts are for those who don't know what they want.

If you shoot single shots and know what you are shooting for you have a much higher chance of getting the right moment.

I couldn't imagine shooting bursts. Maybe it's necessary in some high velocity sports, but for portrait? Brrr... the thought alone gives me the shakes.

No! Not for portrait! Thats stupid.

I mean for either candid shots, wedding group shots or shooting children. Have found it to be very useful at eliminating blinks. Most of the time I can control my model/person being photographed but those times when you are not in full control or dont know the person your shooting - say street photography or even being a paparazzo.

I have only ever used digital SLR's, never had the chance to use an old film camera. So I have a different way of seeing it rather than being cheap and conserving my film. Never had to buy it, use it or develop it. Thats my problem.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Bursts are for those who don't know what they want.

There are plenty of situations when bursts can be useful. E. g. I was taking a shot on the beach of sky, a ship, the ocean and the shore. Since I couldn't exactly know in advance what the waves washing up on the shore would do and how far they would go, I took a `burst' of three shots. Even though I nailed it on the first shot, the second one was also nice (it was a matter of proportions of space).

Another situation where I find bursts of three shots useful is in very low light situations, e. g. in a church: the first and last shot tend to be more blurry, because my index finger pressed or released the shutter. In the middle picture I don't move the finger and it tends to be less blurry. Of course, I could do that by other means (e. g. by setting the timer), but that takes longer to set up in my camera.

[richwig83]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Bursts are for those who don't know what they want.

If you shoot single shots and know what you are shooting for you have a much higher chance of getting the right moment.

I couldn't imagine shooting bursts. Maybe it's necessary in some high velocity sports, but for portrait? Brrr... the thought alone gives me the shakes.

Try telling that to every single sports 'tog!!!

[Demonhood]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

I don't think there's a lot of difference when you shoot right.

I have shot film for many years, and I remember that shooting two rolls was quite a lot.

Now, with digital, you have to plan your shots equally well. Then you have more leeway to try out different things along your concept.

Those who just shoot like with a machine pistol - I wouldn't call them photographers.

I recently went on a hike and used up an old slide film. With it I had a Minolta from the seventies. Exactly 16 shots for two days.

as someone above mentioned, it's a matter of changed expectations now. many clients expect hundreds of shots, full coverage, a photo of Uncle Buck sipping his eighth cocktail, etc.

i'll also agree with what a few people have said above about burst shooting. blinks and unique situations (i've had that exact situation Oreo describes with waves crashing) make it quite handy. and honestly, you lose absolutely nothing by doing so. you get the shot, have to spend less time in photoshop, and can still claim to be a "real photographer". there's nothing amateur about not being able to predict when one person in a group of 12 will blink.

oh, and you can be sure i'm gonna be using burst when i shoot a roller derby match in a couple weeks. and some video, just for kicks (my 7D finally arrives today).

[OreoCookie]

Congrats, Demon, I am sure you'll like your new camera.
And yes, you're also right about group shots. Plus, in my experience, the best group shots are taken just before and just after people think they're being photographed.

[pra9ab0y]

The 7D is insane! I tested it last week and it is so fast. I held the shutter down for about a minute and it didn't pause. Just kept clicking. Sounded like a machine gun but that thing is a brilliant piece of kit. You'll like the level on it if your doing landscapes. Only thing I couldn't grasp was the focusing system. Completely different to anything i've seen on a canon before. I didn't have enough time to work it out completely but from what i could see it was good!

[Eug]

With the 7D, the continuous 8 fps for a long, long time is with JPEG only.

With RAW it's "limited" to about 20-21 shots, at about 27 MB each (for non-complex scenes). ie. For testing out my UDMA Compact Flash cards, I was able to shoot well over half a GB of data before the camera slowed down... in just 2.5 seconds. I guess the buffer size is somewhere around 0.5 GB.

Not that I personally have a real need for 20 shot bursts. It's nice having over 10 for action/bird shots, but for other purposes having just a few shots in succession is sufficient, and probably just at the lowered fps speed might be sufficient too, depending on the situation.

[art_director]

Success rates on shoots can vary depending upon the variables.

I once hired a photographer for a boat shoot. He got just shy of 13,000 images over nine days. We used a very small portion of those shots. The reason was the variables made many images undesirable. Our shots were taken from land, from another boat, from a helicopter or from the water. The number of people in each shot varied from one to six and the boats were traveling anywhere from 0 MPH to 70 MPH. In many cases there were multiple boats in the shots.

If you think through the scenario above (very real, btw) you can see where a low kill rate might be possible. Heck, I didn't even mention looking out for scum lines at the water level of all boats, prototype decals that were temporary at best (common practice), avoiding corporate spies from client competitors (again, very real), bikini slips and other wardrobe malfunctions, etc.

[Demonhood]

13,000 over 9 days seems fairly reasonable. so many variables.

i just shot some ballet for the first time. 955 photos. took me 10 minutes just to figure out where i should shoot from, 15 to get used to the the huge number of dancers, 20 to figure out timing. i have no idea how many i'll use. probably a couple dozen. but really, as long as it was fun & i learned something, it was worth it.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by Demonhood 

as long as it was fun & i learned something, it was worth it.

Agreed.

[Railroader]

Last two weddings I shot about 1700 images and my assistant shot about 1500. I presented both brides with about 800 digital proofs, and about 30 examples of finished post-processed shots. One bride said: "Is that all?" The other bride had a glazed look in her eyes and basically stated I had overwhelmed her.

I had told them both what to expect.

I ended up uploading another 1000 images for the first bride. The images were near identical of what I had already posted, including hundreds of shots of people just standing around.

I do a combination of photo-journalist/candid and standard formals for weddings.

I hate weddings.

[mattyb]

Digging up an old thread.

I'm watching Chase Jarvis give an interesting little presentation on this page. About 10 mins into the vid, he has some info about shooting for 5 days and having 2000 images. Only 6 to 10 will ever have a commercial or fine-art life.

[torsoboy]

In my experience, the more images that a photographer presents to the wedding couple, the less they (and their family/guests) purchase in the end. It just gets to be too overwhelming to look through all of the images for most people. If a photographer uploads 1500 images for their clients to review, by the time they are done reviewing the first couple couple hundred of the images, the images start to blur together and none of them look any better than the others. They end up with just settling on a few of them, just to get the process over with. The guests and extended family especially do not like this... they see 1500 images and run away almost immediately since they can't stand hunting through all of those images looking for the 10 images that they might want. The sweet spot for a wedding seems to be 400-650 images. Anything more than that and its an overkill, anything less than that and you're likely going to be missing something important. You may disagree, but as a part of my job I get to see the sales patterns for thousands of professional photographers, and this is what it looks like. You can't imagine how many weddings with 1000+ images never end up with a single print sale...

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

In my experience, the more images that a photographer presents to the wedding couple, the less they (and their family/guests) purchase in the end. It just gets to be too overwhelming to look through all of the images for most people. If a photographer uploads 1500 images for their clients to review, by the time they are done reviewing the first couple couple hundred of the images, the images start to blur together and none of them look any better than the others. They end up with just settling on a few of them, just to get the process over with. The guests and extended family especially do not like this... they see 1500 images and run away almost immediately since they can't stand hunting through all of those images looking for the 10 images that they might want. The sweet spot for a wedding seems to be 400-650 images. Anything more than that and its an overkill, anything less than that and you're likely going to be missing something important. You may disagree, but as a part of my job I get to see the sales patterns for thousands of professional photographers, and this is what it looks like. You can't imagine how many weddings with 1000+ images never end up with a single print sale...

I agree with you. When I recently did a senior portrait shoot I presented the family with 35 pictures. They bought every single one of them. Of the wedding I listed above where I uploaded about 1800 shots... they bought 20 of them.

I hate weddings.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

I agree with you. When I recently did a senior portrait shoot I presented the family with 35 pictures. They bought every single one of them. Of the wedding I listed above where I uploaded about 1800 shots... they bought 20 of them.

I hate weddings.

I agree with you agreeing with torsoboy. I've been presenting clients with 50 shots