dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
588

inGearX
3.1415 9265
join:2000-06-11
New York

inGearX

Member

your procedure for new pictures / videos

let's share with each other how we take pictures .. and post process of how to enjoy them vs being burdened with terabytes of unprocessed data...

I guess that begins at the very initial level of taking pictures / videos:

1.1 - do you take many shots and then select best one or try to carefully to take one good one? I want to learn a correct approach ...

1.3 - what else?

1.5 - do you remove bad ones - right away on your device/camera ? or later on PC ? or never ?

----

2.1 - how .. and how often do you transfer them of the camera and to where and how?
do you say sync them religiously every Friday?
to where? to your PCs HD? what if it crashes?
do you clear the card completely? format it?

2.3 - what else?

2.5 - what do you do next - now this can be really different for each...

do you rotate them? when? how?

do you first process them - crop? color filter - say grayscale filter ... or so? what else?

do you batch resize and upload someplace? like flicker/facebook?

----

3.1 - where do you upload them?

how do you enjoy them?

----

you get the idea ...

please describe your process ... for safe of all... in as many details as you feel necessary ... what software ... what methond ... what shortcut keys... etc..

thank you...

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR
·Ziply Fiber

1 recommendation

darcilicious

Premium Member

See also: »What do you use to organize your photos?

I'm not nearly as organized as the folks who posted in that thread which has given me some food for thought.

In general, though, here's the process I've used for my recent river cruise through Eastern/Central Europe:

I used a DSLR with one regular SD card and one wireless SD card (primary). I had also brought along a wireless external drive, an iPhone (for day use) and an iPad (for evening use, instead of a laptop).

The general idea was that each evening I would offload the pix from the wireless SD card to the iPad and then up to the external 1TB drive, deleting photos from the wireless SD card at the end of the process. (The drive also had music and video to enjoy during the trip).

What really happened:

I shot most photos with my Canon Rebel T2i (RAW) and a quite a few candid/casual shots with my iPhone 5 (convenient). Many shots from my iPhone went directly to Facebook for friends to view while I was still traveling.

The external drive became inaccessible after uploading photos the first night (of a 12 day trip so it was returned to Amazon for a full refund the day I got back) so everything that was moved to my iPad and/or iPhone from the wireless SD card stayed there. I was not amused, I had to delete a lot of other content to make room. And annoyingly, the app to do this worked much better on the iPhone than it did on the iPad. Because I was a little short on space towards the end of the trip, I did start deleting the less than great shots from camera and iPhone before transferring at the end of the day (though that was not my first choice).

Some of the photos (about 10% at a guess) made it to Flickr during the trip to give wider access to them while we were still traveling.

Once I got home, I transferred everything to my main PC under one folder, then one subfolder for each day, including the name of the one or two towns visited that day. Then I used PSE v11 to adjust/crop/resize/convert to jpg selected photos (not all of them by far) and these have been uploaded to Flickr (well, I'm not done but just over half way).

So far, I've got about 140 posted to Flickr just for this trip but that's pretty special, only for trips I take once or twice a year. (We're head back to Sweden to visit my husband's family this Christmas and I expect there will be lots of people photos to take )

In general:

I'm a fairly casual photographer (though I'm exploring getting more serious about it) so I shoot photos (with my iPhone) nearly every day of flowers (I work near a state park with lots of flowers throughout the spring/summer/fall, fountains, the capitol building etc) and quite often of food that I prepare (my previously vegetarian husband and I, primarily "flexitarian" have switched to oil free, whole plant foods eating habits). All these go to Instagram and then (automatically) to Facebook/Flickr/Tumblr, usually after applying some filters via Camera+ and cropping in square format for Instagram.

About every three months or so, I transfer everything off the iPhone using Windows Gallery so the pictures are automatically placed into folders/subfolders based on the year/month they were taken. Since the vast majority of the pictures were already posted online, I usually don't do anything more with them.

Other times that I go out specifically to shoot (e.g. time spent at a nearby wetlands or driving around the country-side or the day we picked out our kittens from the shelter) get similar treatment as trip photos. These are all organized by "sets" on Flickr for public consumption.

I occasionally delete photos in advance but it's rare; similarly for photos that get transferred -- I pretty much save everything. Eventually the photos make their to the WHS photos folder which is duplicated by the OS. I have yet to make arrangements for offsite storagebackup though it's been on my to-do list for quite some time.

I enjoy sharing the photos with friends, either on their own or occasionally with friends on our TV, their TV, my iPad, etc. It's rare that I go back and look at them, for me the enjoyment is more in taking the photos, reviewing them (hopefully to improve over time), and "processing" them.

(Uhm, wow, that was long, sorry! But it did get me to thinking, so thanks for that!)

Sweet Witch
Be the flame, not the moth.
MVM
join:2003-07-15
Gallifrey

1 recommendation

Sweet Witch to inGearX

MVM

to inGearX
Alrighty then

1.1 - just keep shooting! On average you get one or two good shots per hundred taken. I've routinely gone out for a few hours and come back with 400-500 pictures to go through.

1.5 - I only delete shots on the computer. If you've obviously screwed one up, delete it whenever, but you may miss a great shot trying to delete a crappy one.

2.1 - I transfer at the end of the day to my pc into a new folder ( ex. 2013-8-19 Pikes Peak/Masters). I use FastStone to run through them quickly and do my deletions. I make a note of the file name of the ones I really like then start processing only those. Once processed, I save by tagging an 'a' onto the end of the number and put them into the upper file (ex. 2013-8-19 Pikes Peak). I never completely delete unused shots because they're still my pictures, I just tuck them into the Masters subfolder

2.5 - I usually rotate, crop then work on the tweaks. I don't upload my shots but do put some into a folder for submissions to a local calendar.

I image my system onto an external drive so the pictures are backed up too. I don't have a schedule but definitely do it after uploading a day's shooting so I may end up with three images in one week and then none for a month if I haven't been out shooting.

There is no right or wrong way to do this, you just have to do it different ways until you find your own way.

rcroning
D700 Rocks
Premium Member
join:2005-05-21
Winnipeg, MB

rcroning to inGearX

Premium Member

to inGearX
-I try and get everything right in-camera - old school film habits. No machine gun shooting for me.
-I keep all my shots except for the obviously blurry ones, and even then I wait a few weeks. The blah ones can sometimes be used in composites.
-Post processing to a minimum and usually only what could be achieved in a traditional darkroom.
-I use a tripod as often as possible to maximize sharpness.
-As soon as shoot is done I transfer them. I also save them triple redundant to ensure I don't lose images due to a disaster such as a HDD crash.
-I do a copy and paste, never a move. Once transfer is done I will erase the card. Formatting not necessary each time.
-I circulate cards.
-I circulate batteries. Sometimes I will let the batteries drain completely before charging. It keeps them in good condition.
-I rarely use filters and if needed, only graduated NDs. No colour filters at all.
-I shoot with lens hood on all the time. Helps reduce flare and protects front element.
-Cropping only sometimes. Most of the time I strive to achieve composition in-camera.
-Share them with family and friends. Rarely make prints.
-Too many other things to list that have become habitual over the years. One most important thing I strive for is to learn from others as much as I can but I try not to imitate. Trying to develop a style that is mine but that's a work in progress.

Kramer
Mod
join:2000-08-03
Richmond, VA

Kramer to inGearX

Mod

to inGearX
I'm just going to answer one of your questions right now because of limited time. As far as memory cards: I have about 6 that I use and I rotate between them. I do not format them until they come up next in the rotation, which maybe months or even a year or more after I have used it. I look at the card as a form of backup. If I am traveling with a laptop, I do back up the shots to the laptop whenever possible. When I get home I immediately transfer the images from the cards to my computer. I put the card away and load a card with the oldest images I have. I do not format that card until I start taking pictures again. On a really long two week vacation I may use two or three cards depending on much video I shoot, so the rotation schedule will get compressed when that occurs. It still may be many months before I erase the first of those cards.