Machine gun photography
 

I lurk on the dpreview forums (though never post, it can be rather unpleasant at times) and was rather astonished to see that someone had taken 10,372 shots with his Nikon D2Hs dSLR. “What’s so shocking about that?” you may well ask. The shocking factors are: He’s not a pro working on a job, and he took them in about 5 hours on one day. It averaged 2 shots/second. Phew! Not only that, this was not an unusual weekend’s shooting for him. The really impressive thing was he’d done it on one charge of the battery!

He’d culled the 10K down to just over 1,800 and posted them all on his pBase gallery. His main job is selling dogs and he was taking lots of shots to try and show how cute and appealing his dogs are. Trouble is, there’s a limit to how many dog pictures you can look at before you get bored, especially as an awful lot of them are very, very similar – they are the same particular breed.

The vast majority of the comments on this guy’s shooting style were along the lines of “slow down, compose your shot, go for quality, not quantity”. Each to his/her own, but I agree with these sentiments. Apart from anything else, Nikon only guarantees the shutter for 150K shots and he can only do 15 days at this rate before he’s on borrowed time.

I started photography using film and it has taken quite a lot of time for me to get out of the habit of treating every shot as though it was the last frame on the reel. I rarely use burst mode with digital, just as I rarely used the motordrive in the past, it used to get far too expensive. Apart from anything else, I really can’t be bothered to sort through 20 near identical shots, agonising over which is the best. The most I’ll usually do is a batch of 7 shots, bracketing the exposure in increments either side of what I think is the right reading given the subject in question and if I think the metering is going to be fooled. In the film days it would have been a batch of 4 at most.

When the Canon 350D had just launched and a big feature being pushed in the marketing was the continuous shooting rate and associated large buffer. I recall one comment posted about “machine gun photography” with a statement along the lines of “hold the button down until the buffer/card is full and hope that something interesting has passed in front of the lens in the meantime”. Cruel, but I dare say there’s some that use it that way.

Do you blast away, or take your time? The subject for further discussion is: Do you advocate machine gun photography, and if so, why?

Regards,

Duncan.

Yeah, I read that guy's post a week or two ago... not many believed him, especially the battery aspect (though i regularly get 1200 per battery).

Although I have 8fps at my disposal (and it does sound mighty impressive), I tend not to do bursts of more than 15 shots in one go (speed setting at 5fps). If I can't get get a healthy shutter-speed, I'm usually asking for trouble after the first shot with mirror bounce. It all depends upon the situation and subject though.

I don't really have a problem going through large numbers of almost identical shots... i can zoom right in on the camera monitor and go through all images at same zoom level to judge the sharpest.

I know what you mean Ducan almost like using a cine camera and picking out single frames. What is it the army say "short bursts of 3 rounds". Since having the 20D I have tended to use this mode for shots of flight and twitchy birds. Normally 2 or 3 shots at a time. I would find it tedious going through dozens of shots to pick out the better pose or sharper image. I often find my 1st shot is the best but occasionally the next maybe a better pose or sharper. In a days shooting I average 50 - 100 shots. I find the more I take the higher the percentage of rejects.

I am from the same school, in a roll of 36 FP4 film say 6 rejects, mainly not sharp enough to blow up to 8 x 10 or tricky lighting conditions.


Rob

I have only been to DP Review forums a few times since joining BirdForum - just not enough time but out of interest I will look for this thread - sounds like this guy should have been using video.

I think there are situations where selective use of burst photography is well justified. Sports and action spring to mind and I have seen some superb images that may otherwise have not happened.
On the whole though I am a believer in a considered approach. Medium format with its reversed viewfinder image slowed me down. 5 x 4 slowed me to veritable crawl. Number of dead shots - 5 x 4 very few, medium format a few more, 35mm quite a lot more. Says something ? Apart from the cost of film I think the bigger viewfinder just made you slow down and think a bit.

If Leaf digital backs were a long way under their £15,000 I may have stayed with MF.

In 35mm I always had a drive attatched but this was primarily to give better handling and a more stable platform when not on a tripod. Just weighed the F2AS with 50mm f1.4 in at 1950g - without film. That mass really damps mirror bounce. Very stable when using a longer lens. Using the F2 drive ( powered by 8AA batteries ) in earnest could be hazardous to your film if the frame counter is not properly set as it will rip the film out of its cannister without this stop set.

I do think that with the arrival of higher buffers, bigger image storage and no frame cost in digital ( other than time sifting the results ) , the temptation to blast away will grow in some area's of the hobby.

Don

It's here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...hread=16284937
If you can't find it.

Can't say it's worth spending more than 5 minutes on it. It's not a mindset I understand.

I fully understand what you mean about MF slowing you down. I have a 1938 Rolleiflex that is primarily an ornamental piece. I take it out now and again when I've been getting stressed for whatever reason. It makes me concentrate totally on the photography and takes my mind away from whatever it is that's been bothering me. It is the complete antithesis of machine gun photography. The mirror is badly blotchy, there's no metering, the shutter and aperture settings are analogue dials and who knows how accurate the calibration is for the shutter. I think I've done well if I get one good shot out of the 12. it doesn't matter, the camera has done its job of making me switch off.

Duncan.

Here's the original thread
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=16205504 ... yawn inducing

Well I just could not resist it.

Checked out the EXIF's and his clock has stopped.

As for the battery perhaps Duracell could find him a job. The drumming bunny from last year would still be going.

Check the clock........

How many frames did the time stay the same?... it's possible for him to have 7 or 8 frames in a second. I still reckon it's all a bit odd.

Bbbwwwaaaahhhhaaaaahaaaa!

I know I've had a bottle of wine since I last logged on, but this really made me laugh!!!!

Fishy methinks!
I keep my camera set on a 3 frame burst and today I managed to get 3 wonderful photos of where the Kingfisher was!!!

Mick

I've just come back too. Christmas lights search.

I reckon Andy's just baiting me to go back and look.
Well a quick visit after a glass seemed ok.
Looked at his profile and nearly fell over - Bill McIntyre has 650 galleries and 137478 images online. Mostly the same breed as well . This guy should have been in the movies.

I cannot believe anyone can post stuff like this in their gallery but then......I guess it what the dogs think of it http://www.pbase.com/billmcintyre/image/53158333

ENOUGH or we will become as crazy as the posters on this DP Review thread !!

Agree back to topic.

Don

I agree, Don..... ENOUGH! But; I just couldn't resist taking a "gander" at his galleries.... the mans "barking" mad :eek:

There is a place for it. OK, not the fruitcake mad style linked above, but in wildlife work there is certainly a place for the machine gun method. I commonly take over 1000 shots in a day, nearly all birds, and yes, sorting through them is a very long and tedious task. But you do get shots that you wouldn't have got otherwise. Every once in a while, something magical does happen, and if you hadn't kept the shutter button down for that extra second or two, you would have missed it.

The sheer number of shots that this guy has rattled off does sound a bit over the top. That said I always have my 350D set to burst shooting, normally only shot 3-5 shots in a go though. With active birds you can get the composition and light right, but you're still dependant on the bird looking the right way at the right time, a short burst gives a fair chance of getting the shot.

I'm quite happy to trawl through photos in the evening, I actually enjoy doing so. An average day taking shots of birds I usually end up with about 2-300 shots to go through.

In light of this post I feel I have to share a guilty secret I have been hiding for many years.

Having always been a dedicated Canon user I managed to wait a whole 4 weeks before blowing my entire savings on a T90 when they were introduced - desparate to impress my mates I spent hours demonstrating the impressive 5fps wind (without film as I couldn't afford any after buying the body) and the accompanying "Canon Clatter" shutter noise to anyone slow enough not to run away.

Unsurprisingly this was fine until a crunch and deathly silence shortly ensued - off to Canon went the body and cue the call from a Canon service engineer.

"When we downloaded the frame count it read 8000 frames have been taken, in view of it's age we find this a little surprising"!

"My, my, how can that be - I simply don't understand it officer"

Amazingly I received a warranty replaced body within 48 hrs, good old Canon, but lets face it haven't we all had a play once in a while?

A wonderful tale Karl. :D

I did it too when I finally managed to afford my first drive for my Nikon FM, but not to that extent though.

Don

There is certainly a place for shooting long bursts when you're trying to capture things like flying birds - one of the great joys of digital - I'm not proud I know I'd get about one a month with film! I have also been involved with the world of show dogs for a very long time [not much now] and have to tell you the obsession with one breed is not unusual. There are those who will visit the cinema to watch a film for a few seconds in the opening sequence where their favourite breed is seen - and sleep through the rest of it! I find a burst of 3 or 4 shots is usually enough to capture the fleeting expression of a dog though - can't imagine taking 1000 per canine!!

Got the guy his publicity; im sure he may well be the one smiling now ;)

A thought has just occurred to me and that is of purchasing used digital slr's. In the old days obvious signs of body wear - brass showing through, on black camera's could be taken as a sign of how much life was left. On chrome camera's, no dings or scratches generally referred to light use by previous owner(s).
In view of numbers of frames shot per session exampled above, do members recommend buying used at all. An apparently 'MINT' camera could be about to fall over with a dead shutter.

Don

Even a well kept DSLR shows signs of use just like any other equipment, on the 20D the paint peels off the hot shoe. One of my 20D's has taken 29,000 images but it does not look too bad.

I myself have taken hundreds of shots of empty branches.

Don't worry Robert one day something will appear on them ;)

Nothing wrong with empty branches --- if they are in focus !!

For me, it's usually ripples in the water where a diving duck was posed beautifully when I pressed the exposure button!:o