Poll: What's Your Hit Rate?

[Rich Silfver]

Not that it *really* matters but just out of pure curiosity...

"What's your hit rate per roll of film?"

"Hit rate" - here defined as "% of shots per roll that you YOURSELF consider to be keepers.

Personally I seem to average about 20% pretty consistently.

[Kris]

Oh boy...mine is very low. Call me film waster but my hit rate is on average 1-2 frames per 36 roll. If I'm lucky, maybe 8 per rolls. Quite often, none out of a roll.

:(

[RML]

Well, I voted for "1-5% - I get 1, maybe 2 keepers on a 36 roll" before I read the definition. I keep almost ALL of my shots but the amount I think are worthy of "public" display is much less: sometimes none on a roll, sometimes half of the roll or more, but mostly 1 or 2. Mainly I just shoot because I like to. It gives me something to do when I'm out walking, it gives me a purpose when I'm on an excursion or such, and I find it helps me relax (probably because I'm no longer thinking of work, the bills, or such but instead focus my mind on taking the photo, looking around for opportunities and subjects, and making decisions on shutter speed, DOF, etc.). I often don't really shoot for posterity, so that may part of the reason why I have few "public" keepers.

[pvdhaar]

I voted for 0% because, despite that some of my pictures appeal to others, I always feel there's something amiss with them.

When I get the prints from the lab, I immediately sift througgh them and throw out all but three or four. But still, after this, I find objections to perfection, like composition not right, focus not entirely right on the intended point of attention, you name it.

Twentyfive years of photography have left me with about a single dozen pictures that I truely consider to have come out as intended. That's about 1 per two years....

[rover]

I think that my standards are low, as my subject mainly is my son, and I am looking to keep good shots. On average though I would agree with Richard's 20 percent, 4-6 shots on a roll of 24. Lately, unfortunately, I think all my cameras' meters are going at the same time. I think it is probably just batteries in my x-700 and Bessa R, the Canon 10s is getting on in years though. I was a little upset with this as I think I had a couple good rolls shot only to find that they were underexposed from these three members of my pack.

[SolaresLarrave]

I'm perfect! I throw away almost all my prints and consider only a dozen as decent out of 5 36-exposure rolls.

Ain't that great? :D

[taffer]

Oh, I enjoy so much the pure act of shooting that I don't care at all about results ! :D

Just kidding, but I guess I'm on the low part of the spectrum of that 5-20% :(

But I keep trying, it's fun anyway !

[Borghesia]

From all my 35mm camera's my score is low, 5-20 %. But when I'm shooting with a Rolleiflex (also a kind of rangefinder isn't it) my score is 90%.

[Peter]

I would get a 10 - 20% success rate per roll as I have this bad habit of shooting multiple frames for a scene.

[marksct]

I find that I don't appreciate my images right away. I might like one mmmmaaaaayyyyybbbbeee two our of a roll of 36 on the first review.

But if I put them away and look at them a few weeks or months later, I learn and like more of them.

I don't know if that is subject saturation at first but it has alway been that way for me.

I love going back to old work and reviewing them, I learn so much, but I appreciate them more too.

[JohnL]

Since a few years ago I m only shooting digital, so I take a lot of shots, varying viewpoint, framing, exposure etc. So what do we define as a keeper? On a recent holiday, I took about 2500 shots. After downloading, I kept about 1300 which I backed up to CDs and HD. As for printing, I'm in the process of making maybe 150 images - 5x4s for family. After that I'll make bigger prints of the best - maybe 10 or 20.
So is my hit rate 0.5%, 7% or 55%?
John

[lshofstra]

Just came across this thread, perhaps a shortlived revival... It came as a relief that many others consider only a couple of photographs per roll worth keeping....

[Damaso]

I believe in the one percent rule, that is at the end of the day only about one percent of the photos I take are really, really good, sometimes not even that...

[BNF]

1 to 2 per roll.

I'd also say with "unlimited digital" that my rate is similar.

[Maxapple88]

I do shoot with the lens cap on most of the time

[giovatony]

My hit rate is near 100% meaning they all come out within acceptable exposure tolerences. However the keeper rate is very low ,maybe 10%.
Your question needs to be re-defined as it is misleading.
John

[Ducky]

Since I started souping/scanning my own I shoot a bit loosely. But my keeper ration is about 10% (3-4 on a roll of 36). I still tend to duplicate ala my digital daze.

[chris000]

A difficult question:1. It depends entirely on what I'm shooting and how tricky the lighting is

2. It depends on how you define a keeper - I have a lot of shots that I 'keep' and that I like but whether I would hang them on a gallery wall is another matter.

I would say I keep 50%, how many of those are 'great' shots would be for others to decide, but certainly a lot less!

[varjag]

Keepers is a thing of perspective. I'd say 2-3 nice snaps per 36 for is common, but there are just 3 shots I've taken in last 5 years that I'd really hate to have missed.

[Ronald M]

15/20 per roll. Sometimes more. Believe digi Nikon D200 is the same.

I edit before I push the button. 4x5 film training

[ItsReallyDarren]

2-4 keepers per roll of film. Thats pretty good coming from digital where I got 2-4 keepers per hundred, using the good ol' spray and pray approach.

[raid]

I aim at 100% correct exposure hit rate, which is not difficult to attain. As for keepers per roll, I would say that somewhere between 25%-50% are for me good enough to want to keep them and to take a look at them again. I am experienced with slow slide film, which requires highly accurate exposure. Using negative film makes it much easier.

The 25% goal is reached [on average] for rolls that spend a long time in the camera, whereas when I have my subject in excellent condition for photography, I can get 50%-100%. When it comes to "really exceptional looking photos", if I get 1-3 images per 36 exposure roll, then I am [temporarily] satisfied.

[sirius]

My friend who is a professional once said that the difference between a pro and an amateur is that the pro gets more keepers off a role. I like his work that I see, but I don't know if that's true. What do the pros here think? Agree?

[Bob Michaels]

No category for less than 1%. I typically get about 15-20 "keepers" a year. Since I've been shooting at least half MF, my 3 rolls a week average is only about 2,500 frames per year. When I shot only 35mm it was about 5,000 frames per year but still that 15-20 "keepers".

For me, a "keeper" is something that ends up in an exhibit. Since that is typically 20-35 photos per exhibit, it's somewhat limiting.

[MickH]

I voted at the low end 1-5%. I'm my own biggest and critic. Mrs H is far less so and would rate me much higher. Still, she is biased.

[sepiareverb]

No category for less than 1%. I typically get about 15-20 "keepers" a year...

I'm in this category too, very picky when it comes to what makes it to a 1620 exhibition print.

[amateriat]

I agree with others that the question, as put, is a tad hazy. If we're talking about keepers based on technical merit, my "hit rate", on average, is about 75-90%. These days, I don't regard that to be extraordinary. If we're talking photos I'd gladly hang/exhibit/show to others without hesitation, I'd say it falls to around 15-40%, a rate which, I might add, went up when I switched from technologically well-endowed SLRs to RFs. We keep telling ourselves it's the eye and not the camera, but the type of camera used, IMO, has a more-than-casual influence on how one photographs, and how much (at any given moment).


- Barrett

[Steve Bellayr]

Hit rate? To paraphrase a great photographer who said to me when I asked that same question...one in twenty if I am really lucky. (However, if it is a photograph of someone's child that is in focus the parent will certainly say..."Its a keeper!")

[lewis44]

I've always been real happy if I got one or two per roll, but lately it's been up. I would like to think I'm the one who should get the credit, but I have to say that going back to an M3 (or any camera w/o a built in meter) makes me think about what I'm doing, not only exposure wise, but framing, etc. I got lazy and most of my images suffered from it.
The other thing is I found a lens that gives me what I have been wanting in my shots. I'm getting a look that I just love.
Thank you Zeiss for the C-Sonnar 50mm lens. The combo of that lens and the M3 just works for me. I haven't taken it off since I got it.

[FPjohn]

i say i shoot 100 to get 10. Of those perhaps 1 or 2 may be true keepers. So <1-10%.

yours
FPJ

[Jamie Pillers]

I'd put myself in the well-below-1% camp. That doesn't really bother me though. I think the world flies by much too fast to get exposure, composition, and interesting subject matter all right at the same time... even when I'm just chasing my 6-yr. old around the house, let alone being out on a busy street corner.

I've noticed when reading about photographers like Winogrand, Friedlander, Lyons, et.al, that they also appear to be in the well-below-1% camp. When you look at their contact sheets, they've circled VERY few images.

[pevelg]

I went with the 5% to 20%. When I first started RF with negatives, it was around 50%. When I went to slide positives, it went to around 75%. Now that I have been working with photography for a slightly longer time, I am heavily questioning my previous keepers, seeing the million areas in which I can improve. Thus, now I'm in the lower range. If I was more critical of myself, I'd just shoot with the lens cap on and call it emotional art!!! :D

[giellaleafapmu]

The question is a bit strange to me. It assumes that people just go out with a camera and shot...

If I shot still-life, products or food I might need sometimes a few hours to find a setup I really like but eventually I do get what I want (no, I am not being arrogant, of course many other people could have much better ideas given the same object to photograph but I do get what I had in mind, be that good or not in an absolute scale).

I guess that also people working with models do the same, otherwise they would go out of business quite fast.

If I go out with a camera "just in case" I most of the time get nothing really worth keeping. No, not bad shot but things which I would not hang in my living room... In fact even most "great pictures" which "catch the moment" spot on are usually forgot very fast (take any sports magazine, it is usually full or great shots but how many would you really keep forever?).

GLF

[MikeCassidy]

I voted zero; because one to two per roll is too many; its more like 1-2 for three rolls.
What I do find is that sometimes I get four or five in roll but then I can go for four or fivr and get nothing. Sometimes I force myself to shoot, when I go I will shoot at least one roll no matter what.

[spiderfrank]

Usually I like "very much" (that's my definition of "keeper") 5 or 6 slides per roll, but I keep everything, because I want to remember the errors and learn from them.

[giovatony]

I once asked a pro friend how is it that each and every one of his photos looked so impressive.
His reply was : I throw out all the bad ones before anyone sees them.

[charjohncarter]

I said 5-6, but those are keepers for everone else and me. Just me it would be 1.5 per roll of 36.

[gb hill]

On a 36 roll, which BTW I rarely shoot I guess I average 5 or 6. The thing being when I first see them I don't like none of them. Others say different but I feel like there just being polite. I have found that if I go back 6 months from now and view them again, I see my photos from a different perspective, and some are quite good. I don't know why! Recently I was contacted by a person that wanted to use one of my photos to submit to a publisher to use in a book. I didn't like the photo but she thought it was outstanding. So really what constitutes as a throwaway just might be a keeper.

[shimokita]

Like many, when I look back over time there are few that stand out. On the other hand the process makes every shot fun. Not too often that I take multiple shots at one time, unless I am trying different setups or testing for some reason.