Isn't this hell?

[bakubo]

I saw on Tuck's blog today that he had a job and shot 4000 photos in about 3 days at a conference. That makes my head hurt just thinking about it. He seemed to enjoy it, but it sure sounded bad to me. I shot about 3100 in almost 4 weeks in Turkey, less than 2800 in 4 weeks in Nepal, a bit over 700 in a week in Bali, less than 1000 in almost 4 weeks in Ecuador, less than 1600 in a month in Egypt, etc. To tell you the truth, dealing with the Turkey photos was torture. Going through them and making a first cut selection, processing those one by one, making a second cut from that set, and then a final third cut, write captions for most of them, and then add them to my website. Every trip is similar if there are over 2000 photos, but it seemed like I was getting much more weary this time. I almost decided near the end that I might just not do anymore photography or at least not travel and take photos. Sheesh, 4000 photos in half a week. That sounds like hell for me, both the taking of that many photos at a conference and then working through them after getting home. Anyway, glad he enjoyed it.

[Vidgamer]

I wonder if the photos were of random attendees, and he didn't intend on any processing, just providing them for a slideshow or something? I've taken a few photos at conferences, and I don't find it that interesting. I generally only took photos when we were out of the actual conference and walking about or at some activity. So, I wonder how interesting most of his photos really are. Of course, I'm looking at it from the view of what interests me.

Since digital cameras, I've probably taken a few hundred photos per week on a trip where I'm actively touring around. Even 400 is a lot to go through (and that's probably after deleting obvious flubs from the camera already), but yeah, I probably can generate at least 400 a week on a scenic trip, which sounds similar to your numbers. I take enough photos to take up many gigabytes of storage a year, forcing me to increase the size of my backup devices. And yet, I often have the feeling after taking a trip that maybe I should have taken a few more photos of this or that.

[bakubo]

Taking 4000 photos in 3 days would probably be very tough even on your shutter finger and hands. Cramped hands from holding the camera and carpal tunnel in your finger.

If you shoot only jpegs and do absolutely no post-processing then you can just dump the jpegs without review onto a DVD and give them to a customer, but I doubt if that is what he does. I don't know though.

From 2000 to early 2006 I usually shot jpegs because memory cards had smaller capacity and much more expensive than today. I shot jpegs with the contrast and sharpening set to minimum and then I did PP on the jpegs. I recall paying about $100 for a 64mb (megatbyte, not gigabyte) Smartmedia card for my Olympus D-510Z in 2001. When I got my Minolta D7i in 2002 I bought a 128mb CF card and I think that was also about $100. While traveling it would just be too expensive to carry several gigabytes of memory cards so I could shoot raw. By 2006 though things had improved a lot. When I bought my Canon 30D that year I bought 3 fast 1gb CF cards and started shooting only raw. Still not enough for a trip, but I also had older 512mb, 256mb, and 128mb cards plus a portable device the size of a paperback book that you could plug your memory card into and it would copy to the internal 20gb hd. I used that on Ecuador, Thailand, Mexico, and Cambodia trips. These days I just carry a bunch of SD cards (32gb and several 16gb cards). Last time to use it was in spring 2008. The cards are cheap these days so since that last time I just carry enough memory cards for the whole trip.

[Vidgamer]

Yeah, back in those days, I rarely used RAW, but not just because of memory -- there was a 30-second cycle time! Ouch. On one trip where I took over 400 photos, I filled up my memory cards. I figured out by then that it was better to jump to higher compression modes rather than cut resolution. Now, I use 8 and 16GB cards, and never have to worry, even taking a lot of RAW. The problem now is that I fill up my backup drives! I went from one CD every few months to a DVD every couple of months; I now back up to HD and bluray.

[bakubo]

Yeah, back in those days, I rarely used RAW, but not just because of memory -- there was a 30-second cycle time! Ouch.

Yeah, my Minolta D7i had a 30 second wait after shooting a raw photo. I shot a few raw with it, but not much. I recall shooting some photos with it at Bryce Canyon, Utah in raw mode, for example. My next digital was the Canon 300D DSLR in 2003 and it was much faster. I shot mostly jpegs, but sometimes shot raw with it too.

[Vidgamer]

I wonder if those old RAWs are still supported by newer RAW converters? Sometimes I think I should go back and revisit...

The DSLRs were generally much faster than the P&S cameras, until I discovered Sony cameras. They often had pretty fast response times, not just for RAW, but in general use with the menu, etc.

[bakubo]

I wonder if those old RAWs are still supported by newer RAW converters? Sometimes I think I should go back and revisit...

Yes, my old Minolta D7i, Canon 300D, KM 7D, etc. raw files are supported in LR and ACR. A couple of years ago I was evaluating After Shot Pro and, I think, I remember that it could handle those old raw files too. Most new versions of raw converters will continue to work with raw files that they earlier could work with.