How many pictures do you shoot?

[codewize]

I only put the best of the best to paper. Mostly for the ease of showing them to other people. Some people just don't get the usefulness of the Internet.

 

I just noticed you did a back-to-back sailing. I wanted to do that next year. I was going to do the Explorer Bermuda and Eastern Caribbean. Then I started looking at cost and time away.

 

I've been to Bermuda twice so I thought for the money, the 12 day Southern Caribbean was a better choice for almost the same length of time. I'd still like to do a back-to-back in the future just for the thrill.

[mjt2890]

Memory cards are dirt cheap now, so there is no reason why everyone doesn't have atleast 1gb of memory. I'm up to 4gb and thinking about another 2gb card. I hope to take atleast 500 pics this next cruise.

 

[zackiedawg]

On a cruise, I'm probably in the 100-per day average...I come home from a 7-day cruise with 650-800 or so...10-day cruises will exceed 1000. Trips to Disney where I go every few months, I usually shoot 350-400. Around my house or in my backyard on the average weekend, I'll do 150-200.

 

Many mentions about 'take all you can' versus 'good photographers take their time and don't snap as many', etc. But sometimes these generalizations obscure some of the folks in between. For example, some of us also love to shoot in Manual mode, bring tripods, line up shots, and really plan out every detail of our shots. Yet we can still rack up over 1,000 shots, just like the folks who are more snapshooters and just take alot of photos in case any are bad. Why? Well...vacation snapshooters want a memory - places they've been, people enjoying themselves, things they bought, and a few scenics mixed in. But many photographers enjoy taking pictures of the many little details...sources of inspiration, moments of just the right magic...mixed in with their vacation memories. So in between pictures of my buddy and I hoisting tropical drinks by the pool...I might take shots of a waterdrop on a handrail, a bird, the sunset, a cloud, the reflection of the ship's lights in the pool, a leaf, a flower macro, sun through the trees on an island, etc.

 

So that means I'm taking the usual 300-400 vacation snapshots and family memories, AND 300-400 artistic or photographic subjects which I found interesting. Volume of shots doesn't always mean you aren't a true photography enthusiast, or are less adept with controlling your shots.

 

I have bought a fair number of memory cards - but I also bring a portable CD burner (Mine is by Addonics...same device as the Roadstor). I actually like this better than a bunch of memory cards, because I like to burn multiple copies of all my shots...I feel better knowing I've got 2 or 3 CDs with the same photos on it before erasing them from the cards for more space.

 

I usually bring 3 cameras along - all digital. One camera is for good low light capabilities and night shots, one is for the telephoto work, being image-stabilized and delivering up to 732mm optically, and the third is an ultra-compact point&shoot that I can string around my neck or throw in a pocket for anytime snaps. I usually bring my tripod, CD burner, and all the kit (filters, batteries, chargers, etc)...and 20 blank CDs so I can burn duplicates of all my shots, and bring some spares so I can burn shots for friends on the cruise too (like tablemates who you end up bonding with).

[pierces]

Well said zackiedawg! I don't "fire away and fix it in Photoshop", but I still amassed 2,400 photos on our last trip (10 days). If you meter, bracket, compose and capture several angles of a subject, it can add up quick.

 

I used to haul a laptop with a CD/DVD burner along on trips but my wife put her foot down and sait "NO MORE"! Of course, she said it in the nicest possible way by giving me an Epson P2000 photo viewer to replace it. The 40 GB hard drive is more than enough for even a two week cruise. Like zackiedawg (again), I am concerned about redundancy so I carry enough memory to make it unnecessary to clear my cards after I transfer the images to the Epson for review. On our recent Alaska trip, I filled 12 of the 16GB that I brought over a ten day period. As I stated back a ways in this thread, it's not a contest to see how many you can take, but I try to be prepared to take as many as I want if the opportunity and the right subject present themselves.

 

I noticed in some of the posts that people are taking pictures at lower resolutions to fit more on the cards:eek: Bad photographer! Bad bad! Please take a moment to read this article I wrote about that very subject. With the price of a GB of memory less than a bottle of good vodka, there's no reason to cheat yourself on the quality of your pictures!

 

I approach my travel photography as a "job" and work hard at bringing back a visual storybook of each trip. Before I get flamed for the "job" reference, I'll state for the record that I love that "job" and wouldn't enjoy travel if I couldn't take photos back with me! Perhaps "labor of love" would be more accurate.

 

Wow! More than I wanted to write! I guess I'm just passionate about the subject!;)

 

Dave

[irisheileen]

Dave,

Yes, thanks alot for the user-friendly explaination! We have a new 20" monitor and some of my pictures look pixely-even my text. When shooting the pics, I did use the full 6M and the hightest compresssion. Why do my pictures look pixely? Even if I just did photoshops "auto fix" one time, they look pixely even more.

 

Will they also look this way if I print some? How about when I post them on webshots or the like? Will they look bad? I've spent alot of time on them and don't want to post themif they're going to be "bad"!

Eileen

[pierces]

Dave,

Yes, thanks alot for the user-friendly explaination! We have a new 20" monitor and some of my pictures look pixely-even my text. When shooting the pics, I did use the full 6M and the hightest compresssion. Eileen

 

A couple of thoughts:

 

What kind of camera are you shooting with? If it's a compact 6MP and your ISO or "film speed" is set to auto, it will usually increase the ISO to avoir blurry shots in low light. This can cause a lot of digital noise and make pictures look "pixely" (love the new word!) especially if the shot is underexposed.

 

Another possibility is your monitor. I assume that since it's new, it's an LCD? If it is and it has, say, a 1280 x1024 or 1600x 1280 native resolution and you have it set to 1024x768 to make the icons and text more readable, all of your potos are going to look bad. Unlike the older CRT monitors, an LCD works best at it's native resolution and pretty badly at almost all others. Check your manual to see what the native resolution is and set it to that. You'll be amazed at the difference!

 

Dave

[mjt2890]

I'm betting it's your monitor, especially when you said it's text too.

 

I'm on a 17" notebook monitor and I'm at 1920x1200 resolution.

 

If you using windows, right click on the desktop and select properties ...

 

 

Then choose settings and adjust your resolution on the slider.

 

 

Let us know how that works out. And please no making fun of my awesome wallpaper :)

[zackiedawg]

Dave,

Yes, thanks alot for the user-friendly explaination! We have a new 20" monitor and some of my pictures look pixely-even my text. When shooting the pics, I did use the full 6M and the hightest compresssion. Why do my pictures look pixely? Even if I just did photoshops "auto fix" one time, they look pixely even more.

 

Will they also look this way if I print some? How about when I post them on webshots or the like? Will they look bad? I've spent alot of time on them and don't want to post themif they're going to be "bad"!

Eileen

 

I agree with the others...probably the monitor resolution set too low. That will cause the pixellation.

 

However, one other thing to check out - the software you are using to edit your pictures. If you are editing your photos - even minor touchups like color balance or brightness, then resaving the results, you could be seriously losing quality of your picture each time you resave. Most pictures come out of the camera in JPEG format...which is a compressed format (the data that makes up the picture is compressed to save space and make the file more manageable). This compression can be set to different levels - from very strong compression (as much as 80% smaller) or very minor compression (1% smaller). Most editing software is set to a default compression level for JPEG pictures that will compress roughly 20%. If you've got an original picture downloaded from your camera, check out the file size of that photo, then edit it and save it as a new file, and see what happens to the file size...A 3,400 kilabyte original file can be reduced to 500 kilabytes with just one resave...that's a lot less data!

 

So when you take a picture in your camera set to 6MP and fine mode, you are getting a pretty clean picture with around 10-15% compression...not enough to harm the quality and those jagged edges shouldn't be an issue. However, you then open the photo in your editing software, adjust the color, and then save. What you've just done is taken a 15% compressed photo, and compressed it by ANOTHER 20%. That's when those jagged edges can start to show up and the picture quality can start to fall off. Open it again to crop it or adjust the contrast, and resave, and now you've compressed 15%, then 20%, then 20% again. You get the idea! Every resave kills the picture even more.

 

Several fixes for this -

1. Set your camera to the best mode possible - highest resolution as well as 'fine' or 'superfine' quality mode.

2. When you go into your editing software, open a photo and click on 'save as'...before saving, look for an 'options' button, and click on it. Most programs will have an option to set the jpeg compression higher or lower - set it to the best available mode (least compression or best quality).

3. A good idea is to save the original, from-the-camera pictures unretouched and not re-saved. Whenever I edit or work on photos, I save them as a new file name, so my original photos that came from the camera remain untouched. That allows me to always go back to the start if my quality goes down from various resaves, resizings, crops, etc.

4. Try to do all of your editing in one session without constant resaving of the photo along the way. If you make a few adjustments and save, then come back and do a few more, even at the best settings you are compreomising the picture's quality. The less often you save, the better.

 

Hope that helps a bit! Your issue sounds monitor-related...but I think many people may not be aware of the compression involved with digital pictures, especially when using post-processing or editing software on the computer.

[pierces]

I agree with the others...probably the monitor resolution set too low. That will cause the pixellation.

 

However, one other thing to check out - the software you are using to edit your pictures. If you are editing your photos - even minor touchups like color balance or brightness, then resaving the results, you could be seriously losing quality of your picture each time you resave.

 

zackiedawg: If you would, could you read this and see if it covers the subject well enough? I'm in the process of re-writing and updating several articles and would appreciate any input.

 

http://pptphoto.com/ArticlePages/Article03.htm

 

Dave

[chasetf]

Just curious how many people shoot per week. Might give folks an idea of how much memory to bring.....

I am one of those people that take a lot of pictures. On our British Isles cruise I took 4,300 pictures. The Med cruise I took 4,900 pictures. The Tahiti trip I was just warming up at 2,600. All of the other cruises average over a 1,000 each. I took over 28,000 pictures with my first digital camera (which I brought for the Independence cruise) and "wore out" on the last Dawn cruise (Mex Riveria).

 

I now carry about 6 gig of camera memory plus my "traveler" lap top to download. I plan on having lots of pictures to relive those trips when I start drooling on myself

[zackiedawg]

zackiedawg: If you would, could you read this and see if it covers the subject well enough? I'm in the process of re-writing and updating several articles and would appreciate any input.

 

Dave - I think you've covered it quite well! You've got a pretty detailed tutorial there that should be very helpful for answering so many of those FAQs that come up from new photographers or amateurs looking to improve.

 

There are now several good tutorials out there - yours is quite comprehensive in digital photography and setup. On dpreview, a local Sony member has a great tutorial on digital superzoom cameras, techniques, and setups. And I've seen some great articles covering memory, using digital editing software, and backing up. It's good people like you that make the internet such a great tool for learning.

[JLC@SD]

Just curious how many people shoot per week. Might give folks an idea of how much memory to bring.....

I lke to think that the more camera memory I bring and use will mean more cruise memory I will have over the years. I shoot an average of 300 plus per day or 3000 for a ten day trip......and we some pre cruise days.......even more..:)

[mjt2890]

Ugh had a lot of rainy/overcast days and only got 592 pics on an 8 day cruise