I've been using Lightroom for a long time. I haven't always run all my files through the application because I've also used other software like DXO, Capture One, Apple's now dead Aperture, and even iPhoto and Snapseed. But I now use Lightroom pretty consistently for all my commercial jobs if for no other reason than that I'm most familiar with it and it does batch processing quickly and efficiently.
sometimes I make mistakes and get rid of cameras I should have kept.
One of those is the Panasonic G9. It may be the best still camera I've ever owned.
This was done in Iceland with the 8-18mm lens. Pretty much perfect in my mind.
So, after a bunch of folks chimed in on theOnlinePhotographer to talk about which lens they shoot with the most, and someone posted a bit about how to look up your usage in the metadata, I thought I'd poke around and see what my numbers look like.
The first thing took me back a little bit. I've been accused of working too much but it was a bit shocking to see that there are 396,878 photos, total, in my libraries. That's a lot of photography.
Then I decided to check and see which cameras I used the most. Since I have the Fujis in house right now I assumed those cameras would have fairly high numbers but that's not the case. To look at the numbers you'd think that all I do is shoot with Canon cameras. With one surprising Sony tossed in.
It reads something like this:
Canon 5D Mk2 = 32,555
Sony A77 = 30,297
Fuji XH-1 = 25,142
Panasonic GH4 = 15,497
Canon 7D = 15,286
Canon 1Dmk2n = 15,079
Olympus EM5.2 = 14,124
Sony A99 = 13,495
There were 27 other cameras on the list, each with a representation of under 10K. The range of total lenses was embarrassing as well.
The rest of the info shows me that while some cameras had bigger short term impacts on my consciousness they didn't have the staying power of the cameras I listed above.
Most used two lenses? Not fast short tele primes I always seem infatuated by, but maybe the equivalent.
The #1 lens I used was the Canon 70-200mm f4.0 L, followed by
the 35-100mm f2.8 Panasonic.
My use of the vaunted 50mm was no more or less prevalent than most standard zooms (which I count in the 24-120mm range). The lens I've used most in the new Fuji system is the one I hesitated most to buy; the 16-55mm f2.8. I seem to grab for it all the time now.
I'm guessing I should just hold onto to the XH-1s (and, of course, the X-Pro2s....) and the 16-55mm along with the 50-140mm f2.8 and put everything else up for sale.... at least it would make numerical sense.
Funny that I always thought of myself as a resolute normal focal length photographer when in fact the range between 95 and 135mm seems to be where I gravitate.
I'd be interested to hear from y'all to see if my perception versus statistics is just an anomaly or if other people's nostalgia for popular, legendary focal lengths from the "golden" days of photography also cloud their clear vision of reality. Interesting exercise.
18 comments:
To put your 396,878 photos in context, do you delete the shots you do not use from each shoot, or do you keep everything you shoot. (Excepting the bloopers, of course.)
Kirk you have an amazing amount of work. What I wonder is if you can detect a change in focal lengths, and cameras, by years and differences in the nature of the work. I would think those changes would have a major impact on lenses and focal lengths.
Not LR, just a raw properties count of my "Images" folder: 160,376
Since, unlike you, I have never culled anything, and the total includes family documentation, to make a fair comparison, I'd shift the (implied) decimal point one to the left. To get to what I might put up on some website, I'd shift the decimal point one more. Images worth printing? Shift one more. What cameras? Kodak, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic; A75, A530, A590, D40, D100, EPL1, GF1, GH2, GX7, LX100, LX7, G85.
Should I be embarrassed, perhaps?
Historically, I'm sure my most used cameras/lenses would be Nikons with the 24-70 f/2.8, since I spent fifteen summers documenting an archeological dig and shots thousand of images beginning with F4's and F5's and then going to Nikon DSLRs. The film shots, however, are not in Lightroom. Still, I thought the Nikon DSLRs would be the most used, but when I look at my Lightroom lens stats, my most used lens (somewhat to my surprise) was the Panasonic 12-35 HD at f/2.8, followed by the Panny 35-100 HD f/2.8, which were very close. That wasn't a surprise, because I think I "see" at about 70mm, or maybe 70-85. Somewhat long, in any case, but not too long. Maybe that will change when I finally get my hands on the upcoming Nikon 85mm for my Z6. We will see.
JC
That's surprising, because I don't think of you as a Canon shooter.
I haven't actually gone through the exercise of checking, but basically I shoot standard lenses on pretty much everything! I've always had a variety of lenses, and I carry too much - something I'm about to change, because I'm developing back problems as a result! Reviewing my favourite images from the past five years the other day, I discovered the reason my 85s weren't getting much use: I don't like the telephoto perspective. For me it looks unnatural and compressed - probably because it IS unnatural and compressed! In fact, to my eyes, 50s render very slightly telephoto but not enough to bother me. A 50 and a 28 has me covered and in future I'll try to carry one or the other when I'm out and about, even though I've got some lightweight options.
I just did this too. My 'home' focal length is 27-30 mm (FFE), which is about 30% of all the images in my catalog. Another 1/3 are between 35-55 mm, and a smaller proportion above that. Currently, I don't need another lens.
I also looked at the aperture, and quite a lot is shot wide open.
Did you know you can also chose aspect ratio? (only 3 options though: portrait, landscape and square).
Interesting post Kirk. I did the same against my LR collections, and the results were fairly close to what I expected. Nikons own my top three spots (D50, D7100, D610) as that was my main system for a decade.
m4/3 holds the next spots, mostly shot in parallel with the Nikon gear over a period of just about two years (i.e. I shot a lot with m4/3 while I had it). This was more for family/personal photography, and size was key as indicated by the cameras (E-PL1, E-M10ii, Panny G7).
My Fujis bring up the rear, in 7th, 8th, and 10th. Here it gets interesting though, as they represent Mirrorless, premium compact, and compact (X-T2, X100S, and F31fd). The X-T2 has also captured many hours of video footage.
I loved my Nikons, capable, reliable, versatile cameras that were a joy to shoot. But I love my Fujis more. The X-T2 is even more versatile, as it can scale from a simple setup for family events to a do-everything school event machine to a full on rig for short film production. Color is effortless, I love the WYSIWYG of the EVF, and it just seems to do everything right. Both of my kids constantly grab the X100S to take to school or other activities, they love the retro look and the simple path to gorgeous photos.
The F31fd is an interesting little thing. No pocket camera I've ever owned could touch it, and even today it gives phone cameras a run for the money. Shockingly good noise behavior for a small sensor pocket camera of its generation, signature Fuji color science, and a lens that just works so well. They are highly sought after and for good reason.
Fun little exploration, though (as you discovered) a bit of a rabbit hole!
I thought those numbers seemed rather low. Only 396,878 photos? But, as Edward Richards and MikeR have asked about/stated, you cull (ruthlessly?) photos, so those totals don't amount to total number of photos you have taken, do they? (I have only recently really started that practice. I now wish I had done so sooner.)
The cameras you listed do not surprise me in the least. I have been reading your blog since you were using Canon DSLRs. (It actually started with your thorough review of the Olympus Pen E-PL2.) And I am not surprised about which lenses you used the most. You are a portrait photographer through and through, so it makes sense you will gravitate towards telephoto lenses. I seem to use any focal length but 50mm (or equivalent). I recently used a 50mm-equivalent lens and found myself wanting either a wider or longer lens most of the time. Those wide-to-telephoto zooms sure are useful, aren't they? I like to have a couple of prime lenses on hand, but they do not get used to the extent that my zoom lenses do.
Adding context: I do tend to edit down a lot. So, on a shoot for Zach Theatre I might fire off 1500 images in one evening for a dress rehearsal. I'll toss about half of those frames away while editing to import. Once I work with the remaining files I'll also jettison close duplicates and bring the range down under 500. When doing personal work, like a walk around town, I might shoot 200 or 300 images but will only import 20 or 30 and will trash the rest. Many times, after uploading the images that have some attraction, I'll delete them from my local storage and the catalog and the images will exists only online at Google/Blogger.
Images are more like water now. They flow through our days and are forgotten and discarded. Not the way we thought about film images at all. Those we imagined to be gold. Ah well.
I know mine would be a real mix, with likely the most still on old 4/3 Olympus gear, since that was when I shot every day, all the time. Mostly with the 12-60 2.8-4.0, often either at 12mm or 60mm. I'm looking forward to the Fuji 16-8- f4, which I hope will be a similarly performing zoom.
"Images are more like water now. They flow through our days and are forgotten and discarded. Not the way we thought about film images at all. Those we imagined to be gold. Ah well."
I have always been a bit like that, more interested in what was coming up next than the old stuff. Out of 50 years of photography I have maybe 150 or 200 images I'd keep for their own sake. Plus, of course, photos of family, friends, pets and such.
Not being a LR user I've never kept much of a catalog but I did go back through a year's worth of portrait and people photography not too long ago, looking at focal lengths. I discovered one rather expensive surprise.
When I was using the Panasonic 12-60 I had a lot of photos at 60mm and constantly felt like I was bumping against the long end of the lens. When I bought the Olympus 12-100 that feeling went away, but when I really look at the numbers the big bump is right around 65mm, with a few closer to 70 and very, very few any longer than that. Had I been able to foresee that I could probably passed up spending $1,200 on the 12-100.
FWIW, the other bump in the chart is right around 35 to 40mm (70 to 80 equivalent)-- which I always thought was too short for portraits on 35mm -- I favored 100 or 105 over 85. Maybe it has something to do with the more squarish frame on m43, or maybe I'm just older.
Interesting that after all the deep immersion into Fuji gear you continue to rank the Panasonic G9 as perhaps the best still camera you've ever owned. Clearly not one to advocate "foolish consistency", defined by Emerson as "the hobgoblin of little minds".
396,878 is an amazing number of edited images. It shows long-term focus and work. As for the ephemeral nature of digital images compared to film, I think it was Cole Weston who talked about his yearly edit by woodstove. He would fire up the stove and burn the large format negatives that did not make the cut each year. He felt it was critical to keep one from wasting time trying to improve not great images, at the expense of new images.
Since I am not a pro and just shoot, well because I can I've not counted the shutter clicks. I shoot both B&W film and digital but I'll leave film out of the equation for now.
Looking at saved files I was surprised to see my D700 has the most. Despite having owned newer cameras there is something about the D700's size, performance and signature I really like.
Poor old Canons... so boring that all you can do with them is take photos ;)
Feedback loops are interesting. Be fun to see what focal lengths people use AFTER they looked at their focal length history. Will their behaviour change? Be re-inforced?
I've never been a wide-angle person, so lately I've been forcing myself to shoot with only a 35 mm equiv (Oly 17 mm) with me. So far, I am not impressing myself.
The X-H1 got to the top rather quickly, no? Interesting that my two favorite bloggers (you and MJ) are currently using the X-H1 as their main camera. Fuji must be doing something right!
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