FILM IS DEAD !

William Graham wrote:

With digital shooting, no. But with film, I think that would be a terribly
poor ratio........That would be only one picture out of almost 28 rolls.
(assuming they were shooting 35 mm) Even I could produce a better ratio than
that......

National Geographic photogs are not hammering away to get a keeper.
They are getting more keepers per roll than most photogrpahers. The
article photo editor has to then use those very few photos that best
illustrate the story. All of their other keepers end up in catalogs of
photos that are available for purchase and future use.

For that matter the very best photos that the photog took probably don't
make it into the article if they are not relevant.

Every few months there are large format magazines from NG that show
hundreds of mainly unpublished photos that run grom merely great to
breathtaking. These are from those hundreds of thousands of unused photos.

Cheers,
Alan

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"Scott W" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Apr 7, 2:50 pm, "William Graham" wrote:
"Scott W" wrote in message

ups.com...



On Apr 7, 10:09 am, "William Graham" wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message

. ..

bob hickey wrote:
"Annika1980" wrote in message
oups.com...

OK, a simple question then.
Why does National Geographic shoot 300-400 rolls per assignment?
Can't they get the same results in just one or two rolls?

If I were an editor, and the photog gave me 10 perfect shots to
publish,
I'd
have to fire him. If he gave me 200 to stare at, I'd prolly pick
the
same
10, but I would have kept my job and so would he. Besides, the
photog
doesn't understand the spin: is the mag for or against, or how do
they
vote,
or what's the message, or why are they there?

Nat Geographic: assignements from a couple months to nearly a year.
Average number of shots per article: over 29,000

used in the article: 10 - 30.

This means that, on the average, they only publish about one in a
thousand...
Does that surprise you?

Scott

With digital shooting, no. But with film, I think that would be a
terribly
poor ratio........That would be only one picture out of almost 28 rolls.
(assuming they were shooting 35 mm) Even I could produce a better ratio
than
that

But it is not just a matter of the "keeps ratio" it is a matter of
having the best possible photos that you can get. It is really very
simple, although there are people who have a hard time believing it,
shoot more photos and the number of really good ones you get go up.
And then for a magazine like National Geographic they need to fit the
photos to the story so it is not quite like showing you vacation
photos to friends and family. Although I do put together slide shows
from travel photos and I try to have these tell a story, and here I
find having a lot of photos to choose from a great help.

Scott



Sure, but there comes a point where you leave the ridiculous and enter the
sublime.....Why not just outfit a robot with a digital camera and a radio
link back to a computer at the publishers office, and have it take a
photograph every second of everything in the world that it happens to come
across? At some point, it becomes necessary for some person who calls
him/herself a photographer, to make an evaluation of the suitability of
shooting a scene, and setting up to actually shoot it. I guess I would call
it, "Editing at the source", or something like that.......

"Annika1980" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Apr 6, 9:18 pm, "William Graham" wrote:
Besides, they don't throw the other 190 pictures away....they file them
by
subject, and perhaps will use some of them at some later date in another
article....So, they expect to get those other 190 shots as part of the,
"deal".-

Not likely. A more likely scenario is that they send out another
photographer for the next article and he shoots another 300-400 rolls.



I wonder if these guys ever get Carpal-Tunnel syndrome of the right index
finger........:^)

Scott W wrote:
On Apr 7, 2:50 pm, "William Graham" wrote:
"Scott W" wrote in message

ups.com...



On Apr 7, 10:09 am, "William Graham" wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message

Hopefully the "attribs" are within reason:

Nat Geographic: assignements from a couple months to nearly a year.
Average number of shots per article: over 29,000
used in the article: 10 - 30.
This means that, on the average, they only publish about one in a
thousand...
Does that surprise you?
Scott
With digital shooting, no. But with film, I think that would be a terribly
poor ratio........That would be only one picture out of almost 28 rolls.
(assuming they were shooting 35 mm) Even I could produce a better ratio than
that

But it is not just a matter of the "keeps ratio" it is a matter of
having the best possible photos that you can get. It is really very
simple, although there are people who have a hard time believing it,
shoot more photos and the number of really good ones you get go up.

Maybe, maybe not. From what I see in my everyday, the percentage may
actually go down.

There's a real difference in perspective in making every shot count,
even though you take risks you might not take if you were confined to 36
shots per roll, and just blazing away because there's a lot more room on
the memory card.

The photographers for Nat Geo et al may have shot 29,000 images per
article, but they attempted to make every one a keeper. A lot of that
quantity is from bracketing to ensure a good exposure.

Most of what I see from the digirazzi is just blazing away and hoping
something will turn out good. Of course, even a blind pig finds an acorn
once in a while.

OTOH, quantity is not the substitute for quality the digirazzi seem to
think it is, and does not make digital superior, nor does it make film
"dead".

On Apr 8, 2:01 pm, Pudentame wrote:

The photographers for Nat Geo et al may have shot 29,000 images per
article, but they attempted to make every one a keeper. A lot of that
quantity is from bracketing to ensure a good exposure.

And how is that different from digital where one might do many
different exposures to see which works the best?


Most of what I see from the digirazzi is just blazing away and hoping
something will turn out good. Of course, even a blind pig finds an acorn
once in a while.

One could say the same about the NG photographers .... if one was an
idiot like yourself.

"William Graham" wrote in message
. ..

"Scott W" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Apr 7, 2:50 pm, "William Graham" wrote:
"Scott W" wrote in message

ups.com...



On Apr 7, 10:09 am, "William Graham" wrote:
Sure, but there comes a point where you leave the ridiculous and enter the
sublime.....Why not just outfit a robot with a digital camera and a radio
link back to a computer at the publishers office, and have it take a
photograph every second of everything in the world that it happens to come
across? At some point, it becomes necessary for some person who calls
him/herself a photographer, to make an evaluation of the suitability of
shooting a scene, and setting up to actually shoot it. I guess I would
call
it, "Editing at the source", or something like that.......

The old infinite
number of monkeys scenario. That might even bring back Kodak.
Bob Hickey

"Pudentame" wrote in message
...
ups.com...
Maybe, maybe not. From what I see in my everyday, the percentage may
actually go down.

There's a real difference in perspective in making every shot count,
even though you take risks you might not take if you were confined to 36
shots per roll, and just blazing away because there's a lot more room on
the memory card.

The photographers for Nat Geo et al may have shot 29,000 images per
article, but they attempted to make every one a keeper. A lot of that
quantity is from bracketing to ensure a good exposure.

Most of what I see from the digirazzi is just blazing away and hoping
something will turn out good. Of course, even a blind pig finds an acorn
once in a while.

OTOH, quantity is not the substitute for quality the digirazzi seem to
think it is, and does not make digital superior, nor does it make film
"dead".
I remember when Ilford came out with a 72 shot
roll, and before that Nikon had a 250 shot back for the Fs. Neither became
very popular and I suspect that s just not the way photography is done by
most people. Bob Hickey