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A couple of questions that I have been wanting to ask some members for a little while now.
Firstly, I read about how the large number of photos people are taking at events / outings etc. For some members a 1Gig card does not seem enough for a couple of hours shooting.
My question is how come?
Taking my D70 as an example that equates to about 170 photos in the RAW format.
That is a lot of pictures! I shot stills for projects we work on, and have been in front of a camera for professional shoots. And I can say that I have never even come close to filling up my card, and the studio guys may have a hundred photos after an 8hr day.
When I take a picture then look at the result, make aperture / shutter adjustments, snap again readjust and then take the shot I want. Three or four adjustments to get one or two good shots. Total of six at the most. Are we losing the skill of evaluating our work in the field because it is easier to change it in post production?
My second question is how do folks fill up 2 or 4 gig cards?
Thanks for reading my little rant 

I guess it's a bit different in a studio where you have an objective in mind when you start out, and a limited range of subjects. On a photomeet, you have many more possibilities to point your camera at.

With memory and hard disk space being so cheap, I guess most people go by the theory that it's better to take more than you need and simply delete the superfluous ones afterwards. Especially those with D2Xs and D2Hs, which have high speed burst modes!!

That said though, I tend not to use burst mode myself. Last weekend, I went out with a few others all day to Boat Harbour/Stockton Beach (8am to 8pm), and came back with "only" 219 shots.

It really depends on what you are shooting.

If you're in the studio or in an environment where you can chimp to your heart's content, then I guess you can be a bit more controlled.

If you're in a situation where you absolutely have bugger all chance to chimp, then you snap away and chimp later.

Mal, on my recent trip we did a couple of different joy flights. In 30 minutes I took about 300 shots. Any angle I could get, as fast as I could poit the camera. Took many shots of similar views - due to the movement of the plane/helicopter. Some of the shots ended up keepers (for me and most will end up being deleted - if my wife allows me to. I was happy to have a large card - we got out of the plane at one spot, drove a short distance and were taking shots of animals, then a bit further down the road taking panos and then birds and more panos. I would spend the evening copying the shots to my laptop, format the card and start all over again next day.
Yes, I'm oonly a novice photographer but we got some keepers each day using that procedure.

Do you have a few spare 4gb cards?
Cheers,
Mick

Good rant Mal

I tend to be at your end of the scale. Maybe in part because I started off way back when using film, and although you still blazed away (particularly in BW when doing your own processing, then you'd print a contact sheet and enlarge the selections) you would always be conscious of not wasting film.

Of course, many people here have the same background.

Taking lots of exposures costs nothing (unless you factor in wear and tear on the shutter, which actually can be an issue) although it may reduce the consideration we give to our shots, and result in the "go for lots of shots, one will have to be OK approach." (Which is fine if it gets a result!)

I have a 4 gig card with my d200 (holds about 240 NEFS)

Mal - one small point re evaluating in the field - with film this was never possible plus it was expensive to take numerous shots of the one subject.

With digital we can at least take as many as we like then evaluate in PP.

Back in the ’70’s I spent a day with a pro photographer art directing for a Dick Smith catalogue. What with moving lights, taking a polaroid or two and then the final shot, he managed 3 shots in 6 hours.

I have just shot 200 pics for the new UHU range in 2 hours plus another 2 hours on the computer

sirhc55 wrote:Back in the ’70’s I spent a day with a pro photographer art directing for a Dick Smith catalogue. What with moving lights, taking a polaroid or two and then the final shot, he managed 3 shots in 6 hours.

I did a Dolmio shot last month, 10 hours, 5 shots! Things have not changed

Thanks for your comments

Mal wrote:

sirhc55 wrote:Back in the ’70’s I spent a day with a pro photographer art directing for a Dick Smith catalogue. What with moving lights, taking a polaroid or two and then the final shot, he managed 3 shots in 6 hours.

I did a Dolmio shot last month, 10 hours, 5 shots! Things have not changed

Thanks for your comments

Yeah, it all depends on what you shoot and your subjects.

If you already have a shot in mind and everything is under your control, subject, and light, then you can take all the time you need to just get a few shot at 'their bests'

While you're out there, conditions are not under your control (at least most of them). Light changes during the day, subjects move around and weather can be after you. Thanks to the maravous DSLR and cheap memory, its easy to forget the counts. Back then in the film time, I DO COUNT my shots because film cost me alot when I was a kid (and still now).
Say if you're shooting sports, you'd rather go home with 400+ shots and pick from them than 40 shot and regret on the missed one. The shot will not come back nor wait for you to take it. So every shot counts.

Good point Mal.

I was thinking just yesterday how people used to get on when using film.
I've only just entered the DSLR world and find I'm taking 5-10 shots of the same thing to get one decent result. I thought it was just because I'm new to it, and I'm sure that's a big component but it's good to know alot of others are taking many shots to get a few good ones.

You see some fantastic images posted here, but it's good to know what goes on behind the scenes.

I tend to be a bit on the conservative side with the shutter activations as well - I'll usually shoot no more than a couple of hundred frames over the course of a weekend with my D70. Despite the D70 being well travelled and regularly used, I only have about 10K activations on it (purchased May 2004)

However... last weekend at the Stockton dunes meet, I opened the taps a bit more on my recently acquired D2H with 890 frames for the weekend... but this was using a 3 frame exposure bracketing in 8fps mode. I've found that I'm doing a fair bit of bracketing with the H as I'm still getting used to the slightly different metering and the need to have a far more accurate exposure with it (limited testing so far is suggesting that I have less RAW exposure correction latitude than with the D70)

Whatever the case, neither of my bodies chewed through as much CF as Stubbsy's D2x

One has to also remember that pro film photographers also shot off many frames for one subject so that at least one of them would be OK.

And with four rolls of film processed and scanned to CD costing $83.50, there is a dis-incentive to shoot a lot of film!

I took 4000 photos on a 4 week Europe trip, deleted half on the way and am still trying to wade through the 2000 left...

i'll quite happily take 10 shots of the same thing from slightly different angles ... 9 may be acceptable, 5 may be really good and i might use one.
in the old days any one of the 9 was used because you didn't have all the other ones to compare it to so maybe in the overall scheme of things people are producing better pic with digital.

Interesting thoughts.
I have found that bursts are the best thing for shooting people with. They tend to relax after the first click of the lens.
The more people there are, the more photos it takes to get one that they all look good in. Eventually you get so many people that it doesn't matter how many you take as you won't be able to see them all clearly. (Now you know why they take so few big group shots )

One thing that has become apparent to me is the different styles of shooting based on previous experience. I had a girlfriend who is an exceptional photographer. If you have to save for two weeks to develop 12 photos, you tend to preshoot in your head.
She still does it with her digital camera, hence her discards are minimal and her quality is WAY up. Really educational to go out with her.

Meanwhile, I'll fill my cards.
I was quite happy with my 1 gig card until I almost ran out of space at a christening. A few minutes judicious deleting of crap saved things, but I bought a 4 gig card the next day.
I didn't like that feeling....

Excellent question Mal.
5 months ago when I first purchased my DSLR I clicked at everthing. It was not uncommon for me to take 1.5G in two hrs. I soon discovered that I lacked time to wade through all of the images as it left me with no time for taking more. I started to think to myself that maybe I was approaching my photography the wrong way. I have since decided to spend more time composing the image and less time at my computer deciding which of the many average images was the "best of a bad bunch"
My personal observation has been that my photography has improved considerably and I have way more time to take less photos.
Just last week on Thursday I was really proud of myself. I spent 10-15 minutes composing just one shot and after giving the composition and metering due consideration. One click and I now have what I consider to be my best image to-date.
IMHO the point and shoot mentality simply does not work for me anymore. I don't really want to luck into good photos some of the time. I want to make great photos all of the time.