I'm insane, 8700 photos to go through.

As promised... some story and documentation about editing my photos from this last weekend.

So, I have this Park and Rec end of year Ice Show.  There were well over 2400 photos I took. I know, I need to be better at pairing this down before I even take the photo.  Part of this is that it is sooo easy to take 3 shots with the Sony a6000.  (I leave the motor-drive on because when it is a great jump, it makes for a great 3 or 4 shot board.)

So, after my first pass of the photos, I got it down to about a 3rd.  But who wants to go through 900 photos?  So, I'm doing a 2nd pass. Might have to do a 3rd pass.

I know part of why this is so hard is that many of these kids are also students of my wife.  Also, so many of the little ones were so cute (Yes, I'm a grown man... but I can say "cute" when describing little kids 6 years or younger.)  But, that is why I need the multiple pass process.  Each pass makes me be more and more critical of the photo's subject, lighting, composition, etc.  That makes me remove my own emotional reaction, and judge them on the level of what I would want to bring to the viewer.  Believe it or not... not every photo I take is a great shot.  So most of them never, ever, ever get released.

Oh, yeah, um... next up is the competition from last Sunday.
Over 6300 photos in that one to comb through.
I guess that was over 8700 photos in one weekend.  I'm insane.
Thank God I have the day off from my day job today.

Year in review, new camera training

Over the past year I've been working on a new camera, Sony a6000.  I don't have the luxury of the deep zoom of my old camera.  But I do get forced into being better and capable of pro-quality photos

I just have lenses that are best used for portrait and wide angle views.  Very different from the point n'shoot with a 500 mm equivalent zoom. So I am getting used to this, finally.

But, to be clear... this still is better than my old Nikon COOLPIX P510 when taking figure skating photos... even when cropping to about 8 megapixel of the 24 mp on the sensor.  And best lense I have is a 50 mm f1.8 on loan from my brother.

Think about this, I have a better picture at 8 mp cropped (original photo is 24 mp) compared to the 16 mp on the Nikon COOLPIX P510.  I still need better lenses for wildlife and sports, but for now, I can do good.  And I'm honored that some people have actually paid me for some of my shots.

In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to document some of what I have to do now for my figure skating photos.  The sorting, sorting some more, cropping, editing, sharing.  Because last Friday, there was an end of season ice show for a local park and rec, and yesterday I shot action photos for a basic skills competition.

Just a sample, I like shooting in B&W with RAW.  I find it helps me compose better.