Yes, I think it is a good idea on the long run. Taking the last private family shooting project with our kids: From 350 images 290 got deleted. With kids in action under dim light the keeper rate is really low, because most of the shots have been out of focus. Nobody, except me, will look at this 290 delete shots again. So, why keep them?
I know storage is cheap now, but you still have to do backups and if you donāt take care the amount of backups grows and growsā¦
Overall, I keep 50-60% of my images. My DSLR has +21k klicks since I switched to RAW and I have 13k RAW in darktable. I tag my images as well, which takes quite some time . Iāve two lua moduls to speed it up a bit. The lighttable mode in darktable is fast enough, even if thumbs need to be regenerated.
Everyone is different and each to his own but I donāt understand keeping bad images. Yes, storage is cheap but āto meā it is much like a hoarder keeping useless junk because he might need it some day.
So I wade through mine, cull anything that I know is no good, deleting most of what I shoot.
Yes, I have gone back and saved an image that I rejected before but if it had potential I kept it. I know that editing improves with skill and technology but a bad image will always be a bad image. Some just donāt cut it. So if it is an bad ones that I get rid of.
I can see the reason that some bad shots might be kept, I have a few I just like. Friends and family I totally understand. I am old enough I have lost a few realatives and friends and want even the bad photos.
If it makes it past the Delete button on the camera, I keep it, unless I later find some egregious focus issue I couldnāt see on the camera LCD. Yes, I chimp. Unashamed.
Devilās advocate part deuxā¦you can miss shots because you are reviewing and culling shots on the camera. IMHO better to leave the deleting until you get home. I know Iāve had the āone more &$&$ button press and I coulda caught thatā moment more than once. So now when Iām shootinā Iām just shootinā.
I did not mean to start a Holly war but looks like I did so. Sorry about thatā¦ but I am enjoying reading all the answers to be honestly.
As for the subject, I think I am going to stick to the plan - delete a shā¦t out of my pictures. LOL
I guess thatās it for me, I do ~90 % photos of family and friends and their/our events. I started scanning negatives of my childhood recently and am happy of every shot, not just the sharpest ones. I wish photographing had been cheaper in the 80ās, there are huge time gaps even in one roll of film. And, I wish they had metadata then, it is extremely difficult even to find out the year a photo was taken.
@ggbutcher,
I will have to agree with @elGordo. Sometimes I even donāt delete pictures from my phone (which has a very good screen by the way) because I might like them when viewing in my desktop.
Well, I should probably more specifically characterize my use of the cameraās Delete button. It is usually employed when I didnāt āthinkā, or properly consider the camera settings before shooting, and I end up creating an image I really know I donāt want to keep even before inspecting it. I donāt have to do this very often, but I canāt say Never. Mostly, I end up doing it when I switch off auto-focus for some reason, forget to re-engage it and momentarily wonder why AF isnāt following as I push the shutter buttonā¦
To elGordoās point, what I donāt do is cull shots in the field. And when I get home, I donāt cull, unless I find a really crappy shot that escaped the ādisaster filterā described above. Which was the point I was attempting to make to the original intent of the thread - I keep most all of my exposures.
Keeping lots of them useless crappy shots was my guilty pleasure untill not long ago. Now I feel so much relieved erasing all the thrashy RAWs ) It feels like orgasm, but much better
I find it easier to delete RAWs than to delete jpgs on my phone. Thereās something about mousing that makes doing this easier than thumb wrestling oneās phone.
Iāve been wondering the same and the answers from this thread are very interesting.
I shoot in Jpeg+RAW, because I think the camera I use (Olympus OM-D E-M5) outputs very nice Jpegs out of the box, but sometimes I know I could improve things with RAW.
However, that means every shot takes around 10 MB on my hard drive. And again, most of the time the Jpeg looks āgood enoughā (and obtaining the same from the basic RAW is often quite difficult).
Soā¦ so far, I keep everything, and even though I know storage is cheap, Iām still not really convinced that I should keep everything all the timeā¦ yet Iām a digital hoarder, so itās very dificult for me to trash any file, because āyou never know! Maybe this not-so-interesting looking picture will become meaningful in 10 years!ā
Iām on this camp also and, to add my 0.02$ to the discussion, my culling process includes removing the out-of-focus, blown, accidental or āduplicateā photos, which usually are around 40%. After that I very rarely delete raw files, and also have an automated backup and another external drive thatās synced manually often,
Deleting duplicates is the toughest part for me. Itās just hard to decide which one of the two almost the same pics is better. You know, one has a bit better exposition but the faces look better on the second one, etc. I do not try to merge them to make one perfect picture just because it is pretty time consuming.
I can relate to that, and thatās often end up keeping very similar images, but sometimes I actually have almost duplicates from small bursts, so that I guarantee I can have a good photo,
. Iāve two lua moduls to speed it up a bit. The lighttable mode in darktable is fast enough, even if thumbs need to be regenerated.
) It feels like orgasm, but much better 