Photography

On my normal work camera shooting for clients, I always get several good shots and 1 or 2 great shots. More than enough to complete the project. I've been photographing my niche for over 10 years and using my current camera for about 5 years.

But I recently bought a new camera for personal use and I am not getting great shots. I guess the frustration comes knowing I have the ability and the camera has the ability but we're not compatible yet. It takes practice to get your groove with a new camera so I'm trying not to be too hard on myself.

Regularly. It is usually the first one I take too. I try to shoot about 10 and if I can't get it by then I move on.

Back when I started shooting and digital wasn’t a thing yet, it was considered pretty normal to have one good/usable shot per roll of film. So I’d say that if around 5% of your photos are decent, you’re doing just fine.

If we’re talking about actual great photos, 10 to 12 a year/one a month. Is doing pretty damn good.

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I shoot a lot of college sports. 1500-2000 shots for volleyball. 1000 for basketball. 500-1000 for soccer.

In any of those there are 75-200 that are good enough to edit and give to the team. Of those, 2, maybe 3 make me say “wow.”

I got one this year and was helped to it by the Olympus 12-40 pro. In 2021 I had more, being helped by opportunity, the weather and the Samyang 7.5mm. I got a very nice portrait shot this year. In 2022 I didn’t get any. In 2021 I had more opportunity and I got more. The weather was fab.

I do occasional professional work and a lot of photo walks. And a photo trip somewhere a couple of times per year when possible. I'm rather addicted to photography. It depends on how good "great" is...I'll get a few shots that make me really happy each week as I shoot quite a lot. That might be a shot I post on social media or share with friends, like a great street portrait. But something truly great for the portfolio?...Probably 10-20 per year? Less? I haven't counted but it's not super high.

I do feel very fulfilled with my photography, though I also have so much more to learn. I can see my style even in my oldest images and I see it becoming more refined with each year. Because I snap every time I go out. Sometimes I just snap because I'm curious to see how my camera renders a patch of light or I want to play with a different aspect ratio. Each snap helps me better understand what compositions and subjects best match the feeling of inspiration that first caught my attention. It really is about just shooting more and more and more. Like any other skill.

1 in... 1000 maybe?

maybe like this

• 5% great shots
• 10% messing up settings (aperture, SS, focus etc)
• 15% standing on the wrong spot, having blocked view or being too slow to capture the action
• 70% bad lightning or being in mediocre environments, like friends places. Not a bad thing, but rarely do epic shots come out.

for me i obviously get the great photo each shoot but i can only name 4 photos over my three years of photography that truly deserve greatness.

Back in the film days (of 24 shots per roll) there was a saying: "If you have one good shot on a roll, then it was a good roll".

I recently had three weeks in Japan, I took 10,000+ photos and lots of them are good, but only a handful came out as great and worth sharing: https://flic.kr/p/2p8NTpb

Only been doing it for a few years...I have maybe 5 or 6 I'd consider printing.

My aim next year is to get 12 awesome ones for an end of year calendar for 2025

When this question comes up, I always remember the teacher from my photography class in high school. She always told us that if we get one shot that we consider amazing on a single roll of film, we should feel very blessed and that more realistic expectations would be to expect one amazing one from the class. It's something I still keep in mind years later.

To get a truly great shot that stands the test of time, it needs to be significant, captured with some degree of accuracy, and also a bonus if its lighting and composition are decent... Some have more weight than others, depending on what the subject is. (Tieninen Square, Mohamed Ali over Sonny Liston, Afghan Girl, and Half Dome to think of four examples.)

For most of us, that day may never come. However, I don't have any of those above four pictures hanging in my home. I have my family, that I shot with a remote trigger from my phone to my camera on a tripod at a local park. I have a large canvas of a beautiful tree that stands alone in a field not far from the house, in a snowstorm at Winter solstice. I have a rolling shot of my friends Ferrari 156 Sharknose that I took on a winding country road, from the back of a 2006 Chevy Cobalt, with the boot propped open with a snow shovel, that made it into Road & Track magazine.

Images might not be considered great to the masses, but they are great to us, and that's good enough for me. I look for the significance in the lives of both myself and those around me, and try my best to make them look as beautiful as possible. Shots people pay me for and proudly hang in their own homes, or use to represent themselves and their businesses, or to just be there simply because they are enjoyable to look at everyday. So I guess I do alright. Find the great in what's around you, but if you want to take great shots, it always helps to stand somewhere interesting with a full battery and an empty card.

Once a quarter

Something I think is good? somewhere south of 5%. Something I think is Great? Maybe 10 shots in 35 years.

I take photos everyday, at every situation, if I take my dog out I take my camera with me, I take my camera on Uber rides and take photos trough the window, on a date with my girl, going to the store and everyday I get at least one photo im happy with, plus I do weeding photography on weekends so I shoot a lot, maybe 4 great photos a month, and lots of photos I like

Over 20 years it's less than 10 that I'm really proud of.

I usually have a shot or two from most shoots that I like, but I can only think of a handful of shots from the past 10+ years that I consider "great". I can't even guess how many photos I've taken in that time, if I somehow did the math and realized that only one out of every 10,000 shots was genuinely great I wouldn't be surprised.

That said, as I've gained experience I do feel that I get consistently good shots much more often. I think part of why I haven't gotten many exceptional shots is because I have a deeper understanding of what a good shot even is. As I've become more capable as a photographer I am able to more consistently take good photos, but my standards for what I consider to be exceptional have also gone up.

The process is more important for me than results. I often don’t have time to edit, too.

I'd day 1 to 2 per 1 photoshoot. Usually 1 really nice.

On Saturday I took 1600 time-lapse frames of lightning and got one absolute cracker and 4 shots that were rubbish but had lightning in them .

Some people on here need to lower the bar on what’s considered ‘great’. A photo isn’t great only if it wouldn’t look out of place in Ansel Adams’ portfolio. You don’t have to cook a meal to Alain Ducasse’s standards to make it great. You don’t have to paint something to the same standards as Da Vinci to make it great. Photography is no different.

It’s great if you’re proud of it and want to do something with it/show it off to others.

I think I get one great shot every day.

However, each time I look back at my "great" shots, they look that little bit less great.

Once The Great Filter Of Time has done it's work, I reckon on 1-2 "Great" per year and a couple of dozen "I Really Like This One".

Plus 10,000 I can't quite bring myself to delete.

Maybe one in every 3-4 months.

As an 2 year into it amateur: till this day, would say 1-2 since I started. I find things that are not perfect in every of my pics, but that’s okay. I’ll just learn from this

Secret to getting great shots often? Take pictures often. Life's law of averages says increasing attempts at getting great pictures, you will eventually achieve success more regularly. In other words, there's ni substitute for going out, taking pictures, and evaluating one's work. Repeat the cycle.

I tend to have per job, that I look at and think ‘wow, I’m good at this’. Not to say there isn’t any that are high quality, there’s plenty. But they don’t make me go wow

Some of my favourite photos were taken on a whim with my phone lol

Once every 6 months maybe

All this has done is highlight differing standards for 'great'.

When I look at the 'greats' of photography I realise that I can be very competent technically, quite astute in my choice of subject and how I use it, but great?

It's very interesting to hear where people have put their personal bar for great.

Anyway who cares if you love your image that's enough. If others agree (even just one who isn't your Mother) then that's a bonus.

Per shoot I am for 1 or 2 that the client considers great, as long as you have something they can lead with in the usage or campaign. The rest have to be up to your own professional standards.

But any photographer will get a bunch of "safety" shots which are bread and butter that hit the brief then you can start being more creative, different angles, apertures, shutter speeds etc.

How many shots do I get per year that I consider great?

None haha - my favourite shots are usually pretty technically imperfect or revolve around a technique that won't garner mainstream appeal. I work in commercial photography and technical imperfections are only really allowed within certain constraints.

At my prime of shooting lava in Hawaii, I'd go out and take over 1200 photos in a day. Overall, maybe 60 of those are any good (we have to also factor in the fact that I'd be shooting in sports mode, so maybe 4 or 5 of "the same shot" per shot) and out of those 60, maybe 20 were actually considered GOOD. All I'm saying is, shooting digital allows you to just keep going until you figure it out.

I took one great photo this year. So far I have shot 13k images (way below the norm for a year) with 60% being published in various magazines and books, but only one truly great image. I'm happy with that ratio.

one or two a month

I’m a pleb, so I take thousands, and maybe I’ll end up with one or two. Being focused in the moment helps, but still feels like a game of chance.

People occasionally give compliments for saying “oh your pictures are so good!” But that just hurts me inside because I know for a fact none of my photos were perfectly planned and intentional.

100% hobbyist here.

A shot I think was great ten years ago might look pretty average now. But a shot I took ten years ago that I still think is great? Then it's great.

I couldn't put an exact number on it, but it's certainly less than ten percent of the shots I've ever taken, and that's quite a lot of photos. That doesn't mean that 90-plus percent of my shots are garbage (those get deleted). They're OK, they may even be good, but just not "great".

Joe McNally has a great phrase. If I remember right, he called it the "pucker factor" (try saying that fast). It's the feeling you get when you absolutely know beyond all doubt that you've taken a real cracker of a shot, and by that definition it is rare.

And if you evaluate too many of your shots as "great", then you have to raise your game to make "great" harder to get...

if you shoot film 90 percent of the time

Like maybe 3 great shots from nearly a decade of shooting including 5 years of it full time.

Thousands of good shots, but ones I see as truly great are rare.

About 1:1000 I think

Some of my best shots only came to be in post-production, having thought that I’d not necessarily got what I’d wanted while shooting. For me, i learnt to get as close as possible to the ideal final image while out with the camera to help speed up the editing process and to reassure myself that the photography skills were there instead of the editing skills. So when i took some of my best shots i was probably being hard on myself. That being said, I would take great shots very regularly whilst i was very new to photography because skills develop much more quickly at that point. Now, i can almost guarantee the photos i take will be good, and it’s often a matter of balancing various external factors to then get those great shots.