I often get asked “What’s your keeper rate?” so I thought I’d share the statistics for a single shoot –the miner bee included with this post. There was a little wind, and I’m really picky about the composition of my images (that includes the area of sharp focus). So keep in mind as you read the numbers that I’ll delete images that are close to being the same, or if a photo is even slightly off I’ll can it. Someone once said that the difference between a professional photographer and an amateur is that a pro throws away more photos…
I posted a six image set of that miner bee on Flickr. I have another 31 images and some of those are duplicate compositions so I’ll end up deleting a few more. But I shot a total of 117 frames of that bee, recomposing for every image, before it got tired of me and flew off. I’ll probably end up with a 10% keeper ratio once I finish editing and or deleting the remaining images. But for an image like the one I’m including with this post I’ll gladly take a 1 in 20 keeper rate…
6 comments:
First off, your photos are AMAZING! I really can't stop looking through them.
But I was wondering... what kind of macro lens do you use? Because I'd love to take pictures of insects too but wouldn't want to get too close to them.
Thanks Mike :)
For the past year I've used an MPE-65mm macro lens but I don't recommend it if you are just starting out. It's best to get a standard macro lens, get use to focusing at life size, and then add extension tubes, a teleconverter (with and without the tubes) or a close-up filter like the 500D. I've seen too many people try to jump into macro by getting the MPE-65mm only to sell it on eBay after a few weeks of frustration...
I do have a 50mm macro lens but it won't let me get really close-up shots. Did you add extension tubes to get your really close-up bug shots?
I've used tubes in the past, but most of my images over the past year were taken with the MPE-65mm macro lens.
I just got my MPE 65, posted a single spider picture up on DGrin...I've been reading you're blog for religiously for a long while now, just wanted to thank you for all the info on your TTP's (Tactics Techniques and Procedures) ;b
Thanks Shane :)
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