OMMMMM - The Importance of NOT Chimp and Delete

richardman · January 15, 2012

I rarely chimp and delete on my digital cameras, unless it's clearly a mistake. Since I normally use 16 GB cards and never machine gun shoot, I rarely use up more than one or two GB per day.

With film, of course, chimp and delete are not an option.

This photo starts as a panoramic frame, and a brief look at the (digital) contact sheet confirms that I missed the position and it's a nothing photo and I wouldn't bother to scan it in high res. Then when I examined the contact sheet more carefully, I noticed the boy in the store and severely cropped to get this version. The man adds a nice balance.

Not a great photo, but at least it's half decent and shows the importance of not deleting things.

Richard · January 15, 2012

Fun image. I don't see much point in deleting anything in camera--cards are cheap and electrons don't mind the inconvenience. The only time I chimp is to set exposure on a scene when shooting manually.

bdcolen · January 15, 2012

Thanks for the reminder, Richards both. NEVER delete ANYTHING that is clearly beyond redemption technically - totally blown out or underexposed, grossly blurred or out of focus. And that goes for images on hard drives as well as in the camera. That image you're not sure of today may, on reflection, turn out to be one of the best you ever shot, or at least turn out to be of value for a reason you never could have imagined when you shot it.

Oh, and Richard Mann? Forget the gd panorama and look at what you're shooting. Imagine how happy you'd be if you had a technically good quality version of this wonderful image. :-)

richardman · January 15, 2012

I saw this scene about 20 feet away. I saw an image in my mind I want to get. I was RUNNING to try to get it, but I know they are going to move at any moment, so I stopped and took this photo, and sure enough, they more or less moved right after this so I couldn't get the image I want.

But the image I got is probably stronger than the image I wanted anyway :-)

As for the pano, I shoot with a pano camera, but obviously there is no way to ensure there is interesting stuff going on in the entire width of the frame all the time, especially in this sort of quick shot situation, so I have been cropping judiciously :-)

bdcolen wrote: »

Thanks for the reminder, Richards both. NEVER delete ANYTHING that is clearly beyond redemption technically - totally blown out or underexposed, grossly blurred or out of focus. And that goes for images on hard drives as well as in the camera. That image you're not sure of today may, on reflection, turn out to be one of the best you ever shot, or at least turn out to be of value for a reason you never could have imagined when you shot it.

Oh, and Richard Mann? Forget the gd panorama and look at what you're shooting. Imagine how happy you'd be if you had a technically good quality version of this wonderful image. :-)

OMMMMM - The Importance of NOT Chimp and Delete

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