To chat or or not to chat?

[StephenBatey]

Do you come back from an outing with 4 or 500 images or perhaps  40 or 50 carefully considered shots, that you think 4 or 5 may make a picture worth looking at?

4-500 images - never have so far as I can recall.

40-50 - these days only when I'm out with a digital camera to record something (e.g. last Saturday we went to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, where they were re-erecting a timber framed building. I came back with 30 exposures made). I always aim for the best camera position etc. before making an exposure. My idea of "exploring the subject" is to use my eyes and feet and not the camera.

4-5 - that would be a large number when I go out with my view camera with the intention of serious photography. In general terms, if I'm not certain that I'd want to print the image at A3/12x16 or larger, I don't make the exposure. OK, sometimes I am disappointed by the result and don't print, but it's my aim not to waste an exposure.

[ABERS]

I have to admit Anglefire that never having done much, if any, sports photography I forgot the necessity to engage the continuous drive button.

It makes you wonder what sort of expertise those cameramen of old had with their equipment. You know the ones I mean, they were all dressed in gabardine macs with  a large belt around the middle and sporting a trilby hat The archive film of Pele's  first world cup goal in Sweden shows three such elegantly clad blokes running onto  the pitch to capture the moment as he extricated himself  from the net. Happy days. 

[Oldboy]

A quote from Jane Bown,

"Some people take pictures, I find them."

Are you a taker or a finder?

Do you come back from an outing with 4 or 500 images or perhaps  40 or 50 carefully considered shots, that you think 4 or 5 may make a picture worth looking at?

I'd be in the finder camp, as sometimes I might take only a handful of photos whilst been out for over five hours. At other times I might take 600 plus photos but that's taking photos of Swifts, Swallows and House Martins.   

[StephenBatey]

I'm not sure I understand the distinction intended between take and find. In one very obvious sense, you can't take what you haven't found. I can understand "take" in the sense of pointing the camera almost at random and snapping away; and I can understand the concept of actually looking to try and find a worthwhile image. But surely there's also another step - arranging the technicalities to create the image on the print that you saw in your mind, rather than the one that a straight photograph would give you. Assuming that what you saw was, in Ansel Adams' phrase "a departure from reality".

[DigiDiva]

I'm off too my old stomping ground in  Tenerife on Sunday so will be 'taking' hundreds of images but will use a dozen only

[anglefire]

I have to admit Anglefire that never having done much, if any, sports photography I forgot the necessity to engage the continuous drive button.

It makes you wonder what sort of expertise those cameramen of old had with their equipment. You know the ones I mean, they were all dressed in gabardine macs with  a large belt around the middle and sporting a trilby hat The archive film of Pele's  first world cup goal in Sweden shows three such elegantly clad blokes running onto  the pitch to capture the moment as he extricated himself  from the net. Happy days. 

Absolutely. They had some serious skills in the old days, both timing and focusing and of course exposure, though that is one that can be preset (As can focus to a degree depending on the subject)

When I "only" had a 5D - so about 5fps, I did a motorsport event and there was a corner with a dip in the road so the cars cocked a wheel and the aim being to capture the wheel at its highest point. I had to use timing to get it right as I could only take 1 shot before the moment had gone and actually it was quite good fun and did mean less shots to go through!

I actually rarely is 12fps - or at least don't do long bursts.