What’s Your Hit Rate?

Following a link through from Donncha’s Photo Blog to Digital Photography School, buried back somewhere from the beginning of this month is 11 tips for Better Candid Photography.

CandidI don’t know about you, but I love candid photography. If I’m shooting a wedding then I try to convince the couple that I don’t do formals. This doesn’t always work and I have on a couple of occasions had no choice. If you’ve ever shot a wedding then you will understand perfectly how difficult it is to try and arrange up to 100 people for the full group shot or find Auntie Dot and Uncle Pete who disappeared to the bar.

While the DPS tips are more aimed at the hobby photographer, they work for any situation where you’re taking candid photos. One of my favourite tips is

4. Shoot lots

I’ve written about this before on this site but when you shoot multiple images quickly of a person you can sometimes get some surprising and spontaneous shots that you’d have never gotten if you shot just one. Switch your camera to continuous shooting mode and shoot in bursts of images and in doing so you’ll increase your chances of that perfect shot.

I couldn’t agree with this more. When I was shooting film I was always concerned about the cost of taking 5 or 6 of the very same scene. Switching to digital has enabled me to shoot many many more and not worry about it. When I’m shooting a wedding now I will take in the region of 700 shots in about 4 hours to enable me to select the best 100 or 125 to provide to the couple. This gives me a hit rate (on average) of 35%.

CandidThe hit rate is defined as a shot that I am happy with. As a photographer I am so fussy about my photos that something that a viewer might really like I will reject for the stupidest reasons. A piece of clothing or hair obscuring a face, a car half a mile away in the background, the focus point is on the nose of the subject and not their eyes. As a photographer these things are important.

I was at my brother-in-law’s wedding a week ago and they had asked me to take some candid shots. Because I was shooting video as well I didn’t manage to take as many as I wanted. I took 165 photos in all and after processing ended up with 85 that I was happy with. Much better!

So, what I would like to know is what is your hit rate?

Collin on May 29, 2007 | Filed Under Words

3 Comments

Adcuz  on May 29th, 2007

On average, I take about 200 per session, I end up with about 20 usable ones after discarding them for minimal motion blur or the focus point being a bit off.

I am also very fussy.

David Biesse  on June 1st, 2007

Hi Collin,

For a 6 hour wedding, I typically shoot around 800-1000, and sometimes as many as 1200 if the couple are energetic (I find my energy increases too!). I usually edit to around 300-350 from that, so I’m guessing that’s about 25-30% of them being images I LOVE.

I also wanted to comment on the aspect of simply shooting MORE images. While I do shoot 2 or 3 frame burst in key moments, I am finding that more and more, I benefit from simply WAITING : ) Just because it’s “free” to shoot digitally, doesn’t mean the couple want 5 average shots! They do just want that winner, so I have often had to catch myself and spend a little longer waiting for THE moment.

I’ve subscribed to your blog, so I’ll be back again! Cheers.

Collin  on June 2nd, 2007

Hi David, thanks for the comment!

I always feel that time “waiting” is time I could be shooting a shot. With your explanation above, perhaps I *should* just wait! Keep an eye on proceedings and choose my moment.

Look forward to hearing from you again soon.

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