Well, I just got done copying the files from my trusty 17″ MackBook Pro and 3 External Hard Drives over to my server overnight… and here are the facts:
In Beijing, with a total of 6 cameras, I shot: 28,444 files for a total of a whopping 480 Gigabytes of Images! That’s INSANE! Even I am shocked.
So I looked into at what Sports Illustrated shot during the Olympics with their ten staff photographers there - SI shot over 300,000 images of which their staff kept 17,000. One of their editors took that down to 1046 “super selects” and then their director of photography Steve Fine, edited his selection down to 135 images. That means their “best of” turned out to be 0.045% of what they shot.
These numbers may - and should - look crazy to most of you. But truth be told - it’s what happens when you have cameras that now shoot bursts at 10 frames per second - and when you’re likely firing not one - but two or three cameras at once (via remotes.) In fact mon ami Bill Frakes had more than 18 cameras firing at once each time someone crossed the finish line at the Athletics (Track & Field) venue for example- so imagine the volume coming out of the track venue. Hallucinating.
With simple arithmetic, it looks like I shot just a little under what the SI shooters did - but there is one important distinction: I saw many of them editing their images live on the back of their cameras. In other words - they would look at every series of images after they’d shot them (either during events or in between each rotation for example) and delete the poor or out of focus images - this to make sure that a “bad” one didn’t make it into the magazine - as someone else would end up editing their images. I on the other hand - never deleted a single frame - and that’s because I would be the only one editing my take each day (and not have to explain myself for missing a key frame to any editor.) I don’t believe in deleting images on the back of the camera myself - I’ve deleted quite a few keepers out of “sleep deprivation” or just by rushing in the past, and in fact missed more moments that happened right in front of me because I was “chimping” (term used for looking at back of one’s camera, and jumping up and down and howling like an ape, when one finds a good image, often showing it off to the person to the left or right of you.) So I keep everything. Given that those guys tended to mount a few more remote cameras thanI did - I’m sure it evens out things a bit further. (more…)
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