Good photo with a RF camera

[rolleistef]

Hello everyone,
I just got some photos yesterday and I was quite disappointed of the poor quality of most of the photos - I mean, not just technical but aesthetical quality.
Then I was wondering, how many good photos do you get out of a 36 roll? 5? 10? 20? the whole film?
thx for answering!
cheers

 

[Fabian]

To be honest, most of the time it is one photo that i am happy with. About five that are ok and the rest is usually for the trash.
But its an intersting question anyway.


Fabian

 

[IGMeanwell]

I have had rolls where I have felt 15 out of 24 are keepers ... if lucky maybe 20

I have had entire rolls that were just crap

and when using polaroids I pay that much more attention to your subject due to the cost of the film.

as in life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose

 

[Tom Harrell]

Greetings,

I am having about the same luck! I don't know exactly why but feel that I am in the doldrums with this thing! I must admit though that I have not really concentrated on my photography for a while and I strongly suspect that could be a part of it. Coupled with the fact that I do not develope and print my own work. I have to drive into the city to get to a real photography lab where they do an excellent job of printing. Instead of doing that I have been dropping them off at the local one hour establishment and they produce my work in a hit or miss fashion. I also need someone who is interested in photography as well. None of my friends are interested so I always go it alone. I suspect that my down turn in taking photos is a little bit of all of the above combined and I find myself tossing a lot of photos in the trash! Perhaps we will hear from some of the other RFF friends that are doing better and they will give us some tips and encouragement!

Regards,
Tom Harrell

 

[oldrangefinderguy]

If there's one successful photo on the roll it's a good roll. Anything more than that is gravy. And maybe luck too.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I'm just reading a book 'Art & Fear' about the difficulties being creative and, in part, about when we go through a dry patch or when projects don't work out. Recommended.

 

[oldrangefinderguy]

My last post may have sounded a bit flip, but it's literally true that I shoot for one good photo per roll. (unintential pun). A lot probably depends on your style of photography. If street photography is your thing you may go through several rolls without a keeper. Especially true if you're a shoot-from-the-hip type. If you shoot landscapes you probably have a much higher success rate. Don't get discouraged. HCB shot a lot of great photos but he also lived into his 90's and shot a lot more frequently that most of us can ever hope to. Imagine how many duds he must have shot over the years.

 

[Hiyawaan]

I agree with oldrangefinderguy, count your self lucky if you get just one any more is a bonus. Rolleistef do you have such results when shooting with slrs. Maybe you need to learn to see what you lens see's, as rf's don't preview the perspective for you. It could also be that you to close to the pictures, I had a teacher who told us to leave it for a couple of day before going back to look at them, your perpective changes with time/moods or have someone else edit them for you.

 

[Tom Harrell]

Yes, I agree! The oldrangefinderguy is right especially about not becoming discoraged! I have only been shooting with my IIIf for a little over a year now having switched from SLR's! I think it takes a little while to get used to a different type/style of photography for me! I recently changed out my Elmar 5CM with an Industar I-22 to see if I liked that one any better! I feel that I need to find a few filters to put on to see if that would pump up the contrast a little and give the photos more punch. Rather limited around here for RF equipment, may just have to find a site and order the filters I want. I have enjoyed the thread. It gives one a chance to air concerns/disapointments.

Regards,
Tom

 

[MikeyGaGa]

What is the Good?

What is the Good?

I now the title is grammatically incorrect,but I remember it as such because my philosophy porfessor at Brooklyn College posed it the first day of class . It was asked by Aristotle to his students.

What is the Good in photography?

I f you walk about with a camera(ANY kind of camera)and become aware of something extraordinary about the ordinary,and can capture it in the right light(which may mean returning to it at another time of day),framed the right way,then you have the Good.

If you make thousands of exposures every year and come up with 5 to 10 impressive shots for you portfolio,you have found the GOOD.

The type of camera is secondary the "eye" and technique is primary. Some of my best shots were taken with a 35mm Mamiya Merit RF(40mm lens;Selenium meter;only 4 shutter speeds) my Dad bought me when I was 13 years old(1965);they still are in my portfolio.

Mikey GaGa

 

[Marc-A.]

To be honest, most of the time it is one photo that i am happy with. About five that are ok and the rest is usually for the trash.
But its an intersting question anyway.
Fabian

Pretty the same here. I would say 3 photos to be honest (but I take a lot of family pictures, so it's easier).
Bien amicalement,
Marc

 

[DMG]

depends on what mood I am in at the time I look at the negs, there could be nothing worth keeping at the initial review but months down the line the same roll could have a keeper on it or vice versa...never say never

 

[markinlondon]

If I print a dozen frames from a roll I'm pleasantly surprised. If three or four of that dozen are liked by my critique panel (Sylvia) I'm ecstatic. Usually it's more like one or two per roll. Sometimes I look at a drying roll and feel like giving up altogether. The camera is irrelevant, I've always had these results whether with RF, SLR or P&S.

 

[mfunnell]

On a good day with my rangefinder I'll find that maybe 18 out of a roll of 24 are technically good, and maybe 6-8 are what I'd call good. On a good day I can shoot a few rolls like that. On a bad day, well, nothing works. Even if the right things are in focus, and have no motion blur and... and..., well, the shots all turn out as "blah" or worse. Maybe 1 or 2 shots worth looking at - but, really, no. And trust me, on a bad day, the more rolls I shoot the worse things are.

Now, if I could tell before shooting that it was going to be a bad day then I'd just go to the pub or something. And if I knew it were a good day I'd shoot off a lot of rolls of film. But I can't tell. Some days my eye is in, and on others it just isn't.

I guess part of that is my (or your) own standards for "good". I took my Hexar RF and 35mm M-Hexanon along to the company Christmas party this year. I thought I did, well, OK in the shots I took. 3 rolls of BW400CN and maybe 4-5 shots I really liked. So, obviously, it wasn't one of my "good" days as defined above. But almost everyone at the office went on about how good the photos were, and how they stood out from the other shots taken on the night. Many asked for prints (which I was glad to provide).

I think I feel good about that. However, I think that really these were snapshots in the true sense - the content of the photos certainly, to my mind, seemed to trump their technical and aesthetic qualities. And that's fair enough, too. That's what snapshots are for. I like to think that (after all the time, effort and thought I've put in) I can generally take a superior sort of snapshot. But as to really good photos - occasionally I have a day as described above where I can take quite a few I regard as "good". "Really good" eludes me, mostly, and when it happens it seems more a case of luck and working the odds. I figure the more often I can take a "good" photo the more likely it is that Luck will smile and that one of 'em might just happen to be "really good".

...Mike

 

[RML]

It comes and goes. I have a few personal favourites, which somehow few people seem to like. 🙂

I post a PAW on my blog. Though these aren't usually super shots, I like them for whatever reason.

For X-mas I had 4 photos of mine printed 20x30cm and framed, photos of me, my wife and (twice) our daughter, to hang on the wall.

I shoot digital so i care little for a shot-per-roll ratio. I just hope to shoot something satisfactory at least once a week.

 

[mac_wt]

Of 36 frames, about 34 are exposed correctly, of those about 30 are focused correctly, of those about 25 show the intended content, of those about 20 are showable, of those about 10 are 'good' and every few rolls I have 1 photo that I'm really happy with.
Strangely enough, shooting more doesn't help my succes rate at all. Choosing and setting exposure, framing and focussing goes faster, but now I'm getting much more critical about the subject of my photos.

Wim

 

[c.poulton]

I count myself lucky if I get one 'keeper' per roll. Ususally it takes me 3 - 4 rolls to get one that proves it's worth. - I am not talking technically perfect here, only aesthectically. (To my eye at any rate...)

 

[Terao]

Well, probably a third of what I shoot makes Flickr, of that maybe another third is pretty good...

 

[peter_n]

One if I'm really lucky. Stéphane I remember reading somewhere an amazed comment by a photog who was with HCB for part of a trip in China. HCB spent the whole of his days snapping away like mad, but according to the photog he only ever saw one picture from the time he was with him. There is hope for us all yet! 🙂

 

[Bike Tourist]

"Good photo with a RF camera "

I don't think it matters whether it's a rangefinder or SLR, film or digital. As others have said, the percentage of keepers varies and usually isn't much. Such a dismal rate of good vs. bad is easier to support using digital. They used to say film is cheap, but I don't think that applies anymore.

The occasional good or great image is the payoff!