What to do when you get lucky ?

heartyfisher

I was patient and got some nice bird photos ... but I shot heaps I mean like they are all very similar. each of them are quite nice by themselves but you don't want to process and display 30 photos of of the same bird doing similar things right? of course you can chose the best of the lot but you still have 10 pretty darn good ones of the same bird doing the same thing ... boring ? so you chuck these otherwise darn good photos ?

cbg

To answer your question - Yes, delete them. I have started to be ruthless when I go through my bird photos. Like you I almost always have some that are very similar and each could be kept, but I've started keeping the one(s) that I think are the best and deleting the rest.

paulr

Buy a PhaseOne IQ3 XF100 million pixel camera and a computer to keep up

Ironheart

I never delete anything. How big is a raw file? 20MB? 30MB? You can get 4TB for $100, so that makes each photo 5/100ths of a cent.

manhattanboy

If you are really attached to them, show them to an honest friend. S/he would have no stake in keeping the pics and can give honest feedback about which ones to keep or toss.

PB_PM

For stuff like that I used to delete the photos. Now days I just cannot be bothered, although I should since it is a waste of disk space, regardless of the price of drives.

spraynpray

For me the old saying 'the harder I try the luckier I get' seems to be true. I don't get any other kind of luck.

As for rejects (that is what any image that is not a holiday memory or a frame quality print), they get deleted. For me it isn't about the cost of a hard drive, it is about not wanting bad photos. There will be no magic software that turns rubbish into images I'm proud of, they will always be rubbish so I just don't want to see them. I want to look through my library and only see good images (as good as I can make anyway). An advantage of deleting is that you can find stuff much easier too.

heartyfisher

The thing is they are "frame quality" just a dozen of them of very similar "everything"

NSXTypeR

That's just like your opinion man...

heartyfisher

That's just like your opinion man...

??

NSXTypeR

That's just like your opinion man...

??

Sorry, that was a joke. Sarcasm doesn't translate well over text, haha.

Rx4Photo

Cull down to 3-5 of the best. Process one as extensively as you'd like then think if you'd have time to do that to the others. If they're so similar, the answer's probably No. You're done.

Coastalconn

I run into this problem a lot. Wait until the D500 comes out, you will have 40% more images to choose from over a D7200, lol. Anyways I am way too lazy to delete all the rejects. I can easily hit 1000 clicks a day. Like today I had a Robin in a pine tree and probably took 150 shoots. I chose 3 keepers, based on cool things, like tongue out and berry in mouth. https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastalconn/24631310070/in/dateposted-public/
Pre flight https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastalconn/24296180104/in/dateposted-public/ and a balancing act https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastalconn/24296180334/in/dateposted-public/
The rest were very nice images, but nothing out of the ordinary, so that is how I choose them. I also look for certain head angles especially when you can see both eyes.. https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastalconn/24926769935/in/dateposted-public/
So storage is cheap and I now have about 12 TB of images just hanging out, lol...

heartyfisher

@coastalconn :-) I was hoping you would drop by :-)

PS: as always nice pics :-) sigh ... maybe the 200-500 is looking like a nice get ... (Oh no .. I feel NAS!)

heartyfisher

Ok so keep the ones with some special interest .. ? I dunno I think I will process them all !! I love the little birdy! after all I have been chasing it for years ... !! well maybe not all of the pics but more than 10 :-) maybe ..

Male Superb Fairy Wren.


D7200 70-200F4+TC17 F7.1 1/500 ISO1000

dissent

Cull down to 3-5 of the best. Process one as extensively as you'd like then think if you'd have time to do that to the others. If they're so similar, the answer's probably No. You're done.

This is typically my goal, at least. Getting better at it, but still needs work.

pictureted

I delete moderately. Storage is cheap, but not free. Part of the cost is money, part is having more photos to weed through. As time goes by I've been deleting more.

Vipmediastar_JZ

I know you guys are talking about birds. I run into the same issue with cars, architecture and recently portraits. At least with portraits once the bad ones are deleted I let the person choose their top ones that will be delivered and delete the rest. I don't even look at the other ones anymore.

I do have a special place for architecture though. I have deleted most of my BIF photos and only kept 5/200 from each BIF session.