P#7 Q5B: Is There an Ideal Number of Photos to Take of a Specific Animal in a Given Situation?

How many photos you take depends on the subject

Roy Toft: This is another question I get a lot, but it's one of the more difficult ones for me to answer because it's really subject related.

Boy, you really almost stump me on this one. On the low end, it can be from ten to fifteen if I'm working a situation and nothing is changing much.

If I'm photographing a frog and it's sitting on a leaf, well, I'm not going to have to take a hundred pictures of that frog on a leaf. If he's not doing anything and I'm using flash, I know what kind of lighting I want so I'm probably going to photograph ten or fifteen pictures of that frog sitting on a leaf.

On the other hand, if I'm sitting in a blind and I'm photographing tigers coming through a pool of water, then when that tiger comes, I'm just going to photograph the heck out of that situation because it's such a rarity that a tiger comes to the pond.

I want to get every nuance of that animal so I'll probably shoot 100 or even 200 photos.

As long as that tiger is there, I'm going to be photographing. At no point in that situation am I'm going to stop and say, "You know what, I have enough pictures of that tiger at the water hole. I'm just going to sit here." No, it's never going to happen.

I'm not going to have my camera set on "rock and roll" and not be thinking about what I'm shooting. What I mean by rock and roll is continuous shooting.

Some people with new cameras put it on the continuous mode (the Uzi mode -- the ten frames a second mode) and just hold their finger down on the button. That's not a way to shoot either.

You need to be thoughtful about what you're photographing.

In situations that are unique, where the light's changing, or where there's a lot of movement and behavior, I'm going to be shooting a lot more photos because every photo is going to be a little different.

A static subject like a frog sitting out on a leaf, as I gave the example before, that's going to be very few photos because after I change the lighting around and change a couple different compositions, that frog is still sitting in the same spot. I've done it.

So I'd say anywhere from ten to fifteen photos to hundreds of photos if the animal stays there and things change, and I'm not disturbing the animal. If I'm sitting there, I'd rather be taking pictures.

In closing

Roy Toft explains that there is no set answer to how many photos you should take in a given situation. The answer depends on the subject and what is happening in the situation.

Roy takes anywhere from 10 to hundreds of photos of the same subject depending on movement, behavior, lighting and other qualities of the photo situation.