Clarification. I do carry a very small USB-C card reader. It is so small as to be essentially unnoticeable. For travel, I don't usually shoot more frames in a day than what one battery will support. However, sometimes I have backpacked with the XT5 for several days at a stretch, and extra batteries are lighter than a charging setup.
chez wrote:
I travel for a couple months each year. During those travels I can easily shoot thousands of images spanning many cards. What exactly do you see so bizarre with this?
And why do you feel battery charging is the least of my problems. I’ve travelled to countries where electricity is off more than on. I always carry 3 batteries for times when I don’t have the luxury of recharging my battery. I always leave my charger plugged in with a battery hoping the power comes on when I’m out so the spare gets charged.
Yes, if I shoot at the local park…then things are simple…but I don’t always shoot at the local park....Show more →
It seemed as if this was a frequent experience, rather than an annual one. A power bank would ease the charging issues when travelling. I used to carry a RavPower one which also did backups to an SSD, but they are defunct now..
chez wrote:
I travel for a couple months each year. During those travels I can easily shoot thousands of images spanning many cards. What exactly do you see so bizarre with this?
And why do you feel battery charging is the least of my problems. I’ve travelled to countries where electricity is off more than on. I always carry 3 batteries for times when I don’t have the luxury of recharging my battery. I always leave my charger plugged in with a battery hoping the power comes on when I’m out so the spare gets charged.
Yes, if I shoot at the local park…then things are simple…but I don’t always shoot at the local park....Show more →
I have a question that is not intended as critical: how many keepers do you retain after culling "thousands of images spanning many cards" after a single two-month trip?
I believe you are not a wildlife photographer (who can shoot thousands of images in a single day); thus, the number you mentioned is interesting from my perspective. For example, I have recently returned from a seven-week trip to Japan, that was split between Okinawa and Shikoku. From this trip, I brought about a thousand of GFX100S II raw files on two cards. I am culling these now, with the goal of selecting 200-300 photos to keep (some for artistic reasons, that I may want to share, and some for personal sentimental reasons).
I am interested in the experience of others, who like you go on extended trips. How images do you keep after culling?
Regarding the batteries, like Dan, I seem to never need more than one a day. Although I travel with a spare, it isn't used.
ruthenium wrote:
I have a question that is not intended as critical: how many keepers do you retain after culling "thousands of images spanning many cards" after a single two-month trip?
I believe you are not a wildlife photographer (who can shoot thousands of images in a single day); thus, the number you mentioned is interesting from my perspective. For example, I have recently returned from a seven-week trip to Japan, that was split between Okinawa and Shikoku. From this trip, I brought about a thousand of GFX100S II raw files on two cards. I am culling these now, with the goal of selecting 200-300 photos to keep (some for artistic reasons, that I may want to share, and some for personal sentimental reasons).
I am interested in the experience of others, who like you go on extended trips. How images do you keep after culling?
Regarding the batteries, like Dan, I seem to never need more than one a day. Although I travel with a spare, it isn't used....Show more →
It really does not take much effort to create thousands of images during extended travel. Let’s say you take 10 images and hour while walking about. I’m typically out 12 hours a day so that’s 120 images a day. On a 50 day trip that gives you 6,000 images.
As far as culling goes, I delete obvious ones right away and then rate others based on what I want to do. I rate images into 3 catagories, memories, books and prints. Most images end up as just memories that most likely only I and maybe my wife will see. A smaller amount end up as being part of coffee table books and a smaller number yet will be printed to various sizes.
If I travel to shoot landscapes the number of images drops quite drastically, but if traveling to photograph culture, I have no problem coming back with many thousands of images from an extended trip.
Batteries really depends on what cameras one shoots with. The latest batteries last a lot longer than previous models. I usually go through at least one battery in a day…always travel with at least 3. I’ve encountered extended power outages in Tanzania and Cuba so having spares is something I carry.
chez wrote:
There are times when I need to charge 3 batteries over night…hard to do with just a camera. I come back with 5 or more cards of images from a trip. Using my built in reader in my Mac Studio allows me to transfer the images much quicker than using my camera.
Sure, but I think you are in a very small minority and that doesn't really justify every camera coming with a (for most people useless) charger.
Personally I shoot 10-20 images in a day or so, which is most likely in the other end of the spectrum of users.
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Edit: And if I don't edit my images the same day, I will probably never ever look at them. I just hate editing so much that it alone is a good reason to shoot very few frames.
I would probably consider quitting photography if I had hundreds (let alone thousands) of images to edit at a time.
ruthenium wrote:
I have a question that is not intended as critical: how many keepers do you retain after culling "thousands of images spanning many cards" after a single two-month trip?
I believe you are not a wildlife photographer (who can shoot thousands of images in a single day); thus, the number you mentioned is interesting from my perspective. For example, I have recently returned from a seven-week trip to Japan, that was split between Okinawa and Shikoku. From this trip, I brought about a thousand of GFX100S II raw files on two cards. I am culling these now, with the goal of selecting 200-300 photos to keep (some for artistic reasons, that I may want to share, and some for personal sentimental reasons).
I am interested in the experience of others, who like you go on extended trips. How images do you keep after culling?
Regarding the batteries, like Dan, I seem to never need more than one a day. Although I travel with a spare, it isn't used....Show more →
I think there is going to be a lot of variation among photographers here. It depends on what you photograph and how you photograph and more.
For example, if a lot of what you are photographing is people, particularly not in formal portrait settings, you are often reacting quickly to what is happening… or even to what you hope may happen. A lot of those shots are going to be “misses,” and among the good ones you’ll probably end up dismissing more than you keep. (I’m thinking right now of some particular Paris street scenes I staked out, watching for the right combination of “urban landscape” and passing people — I might have made 20 or more exposures to get the one that I’ll share.
By its nature — for the great majority of photographers — there’s a strong reactive aspect to photography. Things happen, and you try to photograph them. You see a subject, and you may try multiple ways of working with it.
About a month ago I came back from a six-week trip to Ireland, Scotland, and England with about 1400 frames. (Not counting additional images on an iPhone.) I’m still working my way through them. The great majority are not worthy of sharing publicly, and I’ll never work them up. A smaller percentage are interesting enough to spend some time working with them, but not all of those make the cut. An even smaller number are worth taking through the full post-processing workflow to completion. I’ll guess that number might be 30-40. These are photographs that I think are worth sharing, but not necessarily my best work. In the end, a handful might make that cut.
As Ansel is reputed to have said: “I think a dozen good images in a year is a pretty good haul.” (paraphrased.)
gdanmitchell wrote:
I think there is going to be a lot of variation among photographers here. It depends on what you photograph and how you photograph and more.
For example, if a lot of what you are photographing is people, particularly not in formal portrait settings, you are often reacting quickly to what is happening… or even to what you hope may happen. A lot of those shots are going to be “misses,” and among the good ones you’ll probably end up dismissing more than you keep. (I’m thinking right now of some particular Paris street scenes I staked out, watching for the right combination of “urban landscape” and passing people — I might have made 20 or more exposures to get the one that I’ll share.
By its nature — for the great majority of photographers — there’s a strong reactive aspect to photography. Things happen, and you try to photograph them. You see a subject, and you may try multiple ways of working with it.
About a month ago I came back from a six-week trip to Ireland, Scotland, and England with about 1400 frames. (Not counting additional images on an iPhone.) I’m still working my way through them. The great majority are not worthy of sharing publicly, and I’ll never work them up. A smaller percentage are interesting enough to spend some time working with them, but not all of those make the cut. An even smaller number are worth taking through the full post-processing workflow to completion. I’ll guess that number might be 30-40. These are photographs that I think are worth sharing, but not necessarily my best work. In the end, a handful might make that cut.
As Ansel is reputed to have said: “I think a dozen good images in a year is a pretty good haul.” (paraphrased.) ...Show more →
I understand "reacting quickly to what is happening… . A lot of those shots are going to be “misses"
This happens to me. I have a habit of reviewing the images taken during a day, at the end of the day, and would try to remove the obvious (apparent from viewing even on the camera screen) misses. A serious culling happens later.
To me, finally keeping 200 or so (but no more than 300) photos after a trip is a reasonable number, and often I feel that keeping fewer images is better than keeping more (“...a dozen good images in a year is a pretty good haul" - is my thinking as well). For final culling, I call my wife. The photos that she wouldn't find interesting, I usually delete without much further thinking.
It is from this point of view, that I was surprised by the "thousands of images spanning many cards" mentioned earlier in this thread. To me, a reasonable ratio of total images on cards to the final keepers is somewhere around 3:1; hence the total number I would try to keep within a thousand, not thousands. For a two-month trip, this means about 17 images per day (on average) - no surprise one battery is enough for a day of shooting, in my use. What I shoot is a mix of street/candid and handheld landscape photography. I can imagine that other uses can work differently, and I don't mean that my way of shooting is "better" than what others do.
Makten wrote:
Sure, but I think you are in a very small minority and that doesn't really justify every camera coming with a (for most people useless) charger.
Personally I shoot 10-20 images in a day or so, which is most likely in the other end of the spectrum of users.
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Edit: And if I don't edit my images the same day, I will probably never ever look at them. I just hate editing so much that it alone is a good reason to shoot very few frames.
I would probably consider quitting photography if I had hundreds (let alone thousands) of images to edit at a time. ...Show more →
I never implied all cameras must come with a charger…only that I need a charger when traveling for the stated reasons.
As far as culling and editing images…I feel that’s a big part of photography for me. Not only do I learn by viewing my mistakes, post processing is where the final steps are applied to the vision I seen through the viewfinder when I pressed the shutter.
ruthenium wrote:
I understand "reacting quickly to what is happening… . A lot of those shots are going to be “misses"
This happens to me. I have a habit of reviewing the images taken during a day, at the end of the day, and would try to remove the obvious (apparent from viewing even on the camera screen) misses. A serious culling happens later.
To me, finally keeping 200 or so (but no more than 300) photos after a trip is a reasonable number, and often I feel that keeping fewer images is better than keeping more (“...a dozen good images in a year is a pretty good haul" - is my thinking as well). For final culling, I call my wife. The photos that she wouldn't find interesting, I usually delete without much further thinking.
It is from this point of view, that I was surprised by the "thousands of images spanning many cards" mentioned earlier in this thread. To me, a reasonable ratio of total images on cards to the final keepers is somewhere around 3:1; hence the total number I would try to keep within a thousand, not thousands. For a two-month trip, this means about 17 images per day (on average) - no surprise one battery is enough for a day of shooting, in my use. What I shoot is a mix of street/candid and handheld landscape photography. I can imagine that other uses can work differently, and I don't mean that my way of shooting is "better" than what others do....Show more →
I do delete a very small number of images in camera as I shoot, but that’s only a tiny handful of obvious blunders and fails.
I delete very few raw files. File storage is cheap these days, and there are many examples where I have “rediscovered” good files that I missed right after the shoot. I have some theories about this, and I’m not the only one who thinks we sometimes “see differently” after time has passed. It is my practice to review the year’s raw files at least annually and to occasionally go back through even older raw file archives.
Bottom line: I’m very conservative about deleting raw files.
Because my workflow is ACR and Photoshop, only a relatively small subset of the raw files move through ACR post and then to Photoshop. Consequently, the images that emerge from my Photoshop workflow as .psd files are far fewer in number.
Unlike some folks, I regard the post-processing phase to be an equally important part of photography, and I spend a lot of time on it. I regard it as creative work and most certainly not drudgery. (Though I’ll confess that sometimes the initial pass through the raw files after a day of bird photography can be less that fun.)
How many files I come back with really depends a lot on the subject. For example, a day of winter bird photography might net 1500 or more raw files. At the other extreme, I headed down to Big Sur last week for a morning of landscape/seascape photography and came back with hardly more than a dozen frames.
ruthenium wrote:
I understand "reacting quickly to what is happening… . A lot of those shots are going to be “misses"
This happens to me. I have a habit of reviewing the images taken during a day, at the end of the day, and would try to remove the obvious (apparent from viewing even on the camera screen) misses. A serious culling happens later.
To me, finally keeping 200 or so (but no more than 300) photos after a trip is a reasonable number, and often I feel that keeping fewer images is better than keeping more (“...a dozen good images in a year is a pretty good haul" - is my thinking as well). For final culling, I call my wife. The photos that she wouldn't find interesting, I usually delete without much further thinking.
It is from this point of view, that I was surprised by the "thousands of images spanning many cards" mentioned earlier in this thread. To me, a reasonable ratio of total images on cards to the final keepers is somewhere around 3:1; hence the total number I would try to keep within a thousand, not thousands. For a two-month trip, this means about 17 images per day (on average) - no surprise one battery is enough for a day of shooting, in my use. What I shoot is a mix of street/candid and handheld landscape photography. I can imagine that other uses can work differently, and I don't mean that my way of shooting is "better" than what others do....Show more →
Why limit the number of images taken to the number of keepers you want in the end? Why not shoot what interests you and just see what results when you get home? I find trying to capture moments in time that depict what’s happening around me to be a very challenging yet relaxing activity and never count the number of times I pressed the shutter.
chez wrote:
Why limit the number of images taken to the number of keepers you want in the end? Why not shoot what interests you and just see what results when you get home? I find trying to capture moments in time that depict what’s happening around me to be a very challenging yet relaxing activity and never count the number of times I pressed the shutter.
This is all personal, and I am not arguing. My reasons for limiting the number of images are relatively simple.
First, I like the experience of observing a scene as much as photographing it. I very rarely shoot something important that requires fast shooting. Thus, my numbers are limited naturally by me stopping to observe a scene and sometimes deciding against pushing the shutter, rather than taking pictures and thinking later.
Second, is the very real problem of the time that culling and post-processing take (especially when considering that my raw files are 102MP and are around 120-130MB on average). I have the latest and very powerful M3 Ultra Mac Studio with 96GB RAM and 2TB storage, but even then the amount of storage and processing for thousands such raw files may become unreasonable at some point.
In the days of slide shows you could reckon 200 was the maximum you could use, in a show lasting a couple of hours, before audience gets fidgety or goes to sleep. I try to aim for absolute max of that in an 'album' to show the story of a trip, if it's a long one then will be broken down into logical sections.
It takes quite a while to select 200 from say 1500, and then process those. Most I ever took in film days was 27 x36exp in a 5 week trip to South Pacific and New Zealand. Digital was about the same in a 3 week trip, spraying around as ever you tend to miss the best moments by not looking hard enough. IMHO of course. Can't see any point in giving myself hours of work rejecting poorly thought out trigger happy stuff.
ruthenium wrote:
First, I like the experience of observing a scene as much as photographing it. I very rarely shoot something important that requires fast shooting. Thus, my numbers are limited naturally by me stopping to observe a scene and sometimes deciding against pushing the shutter, rather than taking pictures and thinking later.
That's what I mean about this being quite variable depending on subject, approach to photographing, and more.
In some situations I work very slowly, often taking a long time to photograph a single subject, though I may expose for it several times. Often for landscape work I first consider a scene/subject by looking at it through a framing card, a pseudo-frame formed by my hands, or even th viewfinder... and then decide whether or not to go further. (See my previous comment about a recent visit to Big Sur.)
In other cases, I work quickly and intuitively — because to stop and think too much means missing shots entirely. That certainly true of my approach to street photography. It is often true when photographing people. It is obviously the case with certain kinds of wildlife photography.
(Sometimes with street photography it is a combination: Careful consideration of a setting and the basic composition, then lying in wait and quick, intuitive decision about whom and when to shoot as people populate the scene.)
Bottom line: There's no one "right" way to do this. Sometimes a single carefully-considered shot that takes a long time to make is the right option. Sometimes firing off a sequence of frames in burst mode is the right way. Sometimes shooting quickly when it looks like something _may_ be about to happen is the only way to go.
In any case, unless one only works in the "take only a few carefully considered frames a day" mode, sometimes you'll come back with lots of frames. And only a small subset will be worthy.
gyoung143 wrote:
In the days of slide shows you could reckon 200 was the maximum you could use, in a show lasting a couple of hours, before audience gets fidgety or goes to sleep. I try to aim for absolute max of that in an 'album' to show the story of a trip, if it's a long one then will be broken down into logical sections.
It takes quite a while to select 200 from say 1500, and then process those. Most I ever took in film days was 27 x36exp in a 5 week trip to South Pacific and New Zealand. Digital was about the same in a 3 week trip, spraying around as ever you tend to miss the best moments by not looking hard enough. IMHO of course. Can't see any point in giving myself hours of work rejecting poorly thought out trigger happy stuff.
Depends on what you photograph. Static scenic…then yeh, one and done. Life happening in front of you, ever changing…then you continue shooting as things evolve around you. Calling trying to get that impact image of the changing scenes in front of you “trigger happy” is totally ignorant speak.
chez wrote:
Depends on what you photograph. Static scenic…then yeh, one and done. Life happening in front of you, ever changing…then you continue shooting as things evolve around you. Calling trying to get that impact image of the changing scenes in front of you “trigger happy” is totally ignorant speak.
Lol, spent years doing that sometimes as a pro, having only 12 exposures or even 36, teaches you to know the right moments.
