Choosing the perfect shot from a burst of photos

[@glenyshough543]

Scott your content is second to none! My photography benefits from your videos 😊. It was good to see your out of focus shots in the sequence as as that is the real world. Reasons for your selection were explained simply and will undoubtedly help me when I go through my next batch of shots. Yesterday I had a black shouldered kite in late arvo sun and after taking my safety shots started to experiment aka one of your previous videos. Thankyou

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Glenys. Thanks for your lovely comment and I’m happy to help. I’d never heard of the black shouldered kite but on googling it - what a bird! It looks lovely. I hope you got some really nice pictures of it. Thanks for watching.

[@dronephotoprint]

Just entered your competition as a Newbie. While a long long long way from being a class act, I am learning tons watching your videos thanks

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Excellent. Glad these videos are useful and good luck with the competition. Thanks for watching.

[@OrkoLuca]

Scott, I have to apologiese: in the last period I had a very busy life (second son, not so much sleep, a lot of summer works in the house, ankle heavily twisted etc) so I didn't manage to watch and focus on your video. I am slowly recovering and I have to say that these long videos seems to me some small masterclass. Keep on working on quality, your channel is unique. Luca

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Congratulations on your newborn - I hope he and your family are doing well. Glad you're enjoying the videos too and thanks for continuing to watch.

[@NaturePhotographyGear]

Great video, full of useful tips and tricks, like how to mark photos, where I use a different method, so thanks for this beautiful video Scott. And congratulations for your amazing photos!!! See you, bye

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thank you Giuseppe, glad you enjoyed it.

[@tamarawilliams3699]

This video was INCREDIBLE. Thank you so much. I learned so much, not just how to choose photos but to make using Lightroom work better for me. Wow!!! The image you showed in your last section discussed was absolutely gorgeous. Always a pleasure to get the notification you’ve uploaded a new video. Thanks again, ScottC for the time you spend being an amazing teacher. - Tamara

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Tamara. Wow, thank you. I'm so happy to hear that and I'm glad I can be of help. Thanks for watching.

[@davet3530]

Thanks Scott, an informative video. You are right about having a focus for what it is that you are using as the deciding factor when selecting. When I used to give talks , sometimes you need images to illustrate a point,in much the same way as you used here to show why you pick one over another. So if you delete everything apart from your standout top image you can’t have that bank of images. I have never tried a Timelapse sequence from photos , so I hope you make that one of your future videos. Lightroom catalogues are so versatile , and another way to get all your ‘picks’ into one place without removing them from the original destination is by using Collections within the Library Mode. You can leave all your photos in Lightroom and have just those picks appear in the collection. I find them so handy for a whole variety of purposes. For example, you can have a top level collection of your photos for consideration, plus sub collections within that top level of all the red, yellow and green images (or whatever other criteria you want). So handy when you want to quickly get to the images.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Dave. Yes, another good point and reason not to delete photos. On the time lapse, it's effectively the same technique you would use for a landscape time lapse where you might take a photo every 10 seconds and play it back faster than real time. But when doing it with wildlife, depending on your capture frame rate and playback rate you might end up playing it back slower the real time. So I'm not even sure that time lapse would be the right name for it. But I don't really see other people doing this technique with wildlife, so I might have to come up with a name for it myself. I will definitely consider making a video on it at some point. On catalogues and collections - another good point, which may be helpful for people to know. I haven't used them in Lightroom for a number of years because I keep my photos in various external hard drives and cloud drives. Often, when Windows updates, it changes the drive letter assignment of external drives within the directory (for example your hard drive will probably be assigned to the 'C' drive, external drives also get a letter assignment), and whenever this happens, Lightroom throws a wobbly with me, so I stopped using them. If you know how to stop that happening, I'd be eternally grateful to know. But I've never found anything on searching the internet that offers a workable solution. Thanks for watching.

[@davet3530]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Thanks for the explanation Scott, I look forward to it. Re Lightroom …… I’m not sure if this will answer your problem but here goes. The Catalogue module in Lightroom is in effect a very good database. The original photos that are imported into the Catalogue always stay where they are (whatever drive and folder you imported them from) Problems can arise If you move them from one place to another on your computer whilst using Lightroom to move them, the programme knows where they now are and updates the database accordingly. If you move them , when not using Lightroom, then the link is broken and Lightroom doesn’t know where to find that image. But all is not lost, as all you need to do is tell Lightroom where that image now is. If it’s a whole folder of images, that’s no problem, as once you point Lightroom to one photo, in its new location, all the others in that folder will be reconnected as well. Therefore if windows gives your drive a new letter, then just go to the image in your Lightroom Catalogue and right click it, and I believed (from memory) that you get the option to point Lightroom to the new location. This should work with external drives as well. Hope this helps.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thanks Dave, I’ll give it another look and see if that helps.

[@trevordayt2341]

Scott, another great video. Thanks.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Trevor. I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching.

[@arbed77]

Thanks for sharing

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thanks for watching.

[@Marleydia]

Thanks for taking us through your process Scott. Picking and processing is by far my least favorite part of the process. I’m getting better at it as time goes on. The frame rate on these mirrorless cameras is both a benefit and a burden! I would rather spend time in nature rather than in front of the computer! As always, great content!

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

One of the reasons I don't use the highest burst-rates on my own camera is having fewer images to go through afterwards... 😅 I personally use FastViewer to sort through the images before importing them into my catalog but sorting through the images can be both exciting (to see how they came out) and tiring (gong through all the shots and figuring out what to discard so it doesn't clog up your harddrives!). I do enjoy the editing part of the process, so sitting behind the computer as such is not what I mind. But the picking and selecting, that's not my favourite indeed...

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi @KELLMAR915 I agree, my favourite part is being out capturing the photos. But I save a lot of time with photo editing through a few tricks that I use. I will make a video on that at some point. But one of the other befits to reviewing all your photos is that you can self-critique. If you were less successful on the particular day that you were out and about you can ask yourself why and try to improve next time around. I honestly think that has been one of the biggest learning points for me over the years. @TimvanderLeeuw - good point. I often change the burst rate depending on the subject and how fast moving the action is. A lot of those bird in flight shots in the video will have been on a high burst rate, but the sedge warbler and crows were probably on medium or low. Thanks for watching.

[@mrbluesman66]

not sure if you are aware but you can check "auto advance" from the photo menu and there's no need to press shift, you are able to just flag the photo and lightroom will move to the next one automatically

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Yes, that's good tip. I usually don't use it, partly out of habit of pressing the shift button, but also, I often apply multiple labels to photos and so I don't want it to automatically move on after applying the first one. Thanks for watching.

[@johntoolan7243]

You can also engage the caps lock and the photos will advance automatically. Hit x to mark it for rejection ( delete later by going to photo, "delete rejected images" at the bottom of the drop down ) or u to advance without any color or numerical grading

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Good tip, I didn’t know that one. Thanks for sharing.

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

Selecting the best image from bursts... That's a rather common problem we all face! Not a video that I realised I needed but I did! Now a couple of questions... - About gear, and realistic expectations of AF abilities: How often does it happen for you that in a burst, that focus is imperfect in part of the shots? And if focus is just off on some shots, is that usually on the first shots or does that happen anywhere in the burst? - About editing: When you have an image that has the bird in just the right post and sharpness, but not enough negative space and no better images, would you consider extending the image using PhotoShops new "generative fill" to add more of that background? I'm thinking of the puffin in flight shots, where the background negative space has little distinguishing features, so adding more of it in any direction wouldn't add anything unrealistic. Personally I would have no problem with that but it can be a tricky sliding slope and I'm curious about your thoughts on this.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Tim. Glad it was useful. On gear/AF, I think you will always find a few shots within a burst that are not in focus. If you're photographing birds from a standing start (eg taking off from a branch) it will often miss the first shot or two. Except, if you have pre-autofocus (I don't, but I've recently tried some cameras that do have it) and they seem to do a much better job in that situation. Although, if you have pre-autofocus switched on you will end up with a few extra shots in your burst series. What pre-autofocus does, if you don't know, is always focus, even if you haven't got the shutter half-pressed or use the back button method. It captures all those extra photos in the camera's buffer, but only writes them to the memory card if you press the shutter. It's a massive drain on the battery too. After the bird has taken off, I think it becomes more about the photographer's skill in keeping the bird in the frame. On your second question about creating some space, I don't really have a problem with people doing that. But generally I haven't needed to because I usually manage to get enough photos in the day that if one burst doesn't work, I will get another that does. I actually haven't tried generative fill yet, I haven't had the time. But the old tool of content aware fill worked perfectly well in such circumstances. I just think a lot of people didn't know how to properly use the tool. I had been planning on making a video about content aware fill, but I don't think there's much point now with everyone raving about the new generative fill. Thanks for your questions and for watching

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Thanks for your answer! I'm aware of the pre-focus and also the pre-shot functions; on my camera both can be activated separately but since I don't use the pre-AF I don't know if it will also write all that to the card already! Pre-AF is a big drain on the battery indeed and on my older camera, subject detection with that was anyway too unreliable to make it worth using. But perhaps I should play with it again now and see how it does, especially since I'm planning to buy a vertical battery grip soon which will give me extra battery to make up for that. 😀 About content aware fill, I'm aware of that feature and have used it on occasion. For many shots it can indeed to the job just as well as a generative fill.

[@BkiyhffuRtdfujv]

What filter should be used on wildlife Photography? I want to start my wildlife shoot but my landscape filters from Kase looks not fit it.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

You don't really need filter for most wildlife photography, but sometimes filters are useful I've made this video showing the filters I use for wildlife. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4nPmJJvrqyMhbM If you've bought filters for landscape they probably won't fit a long lens which tend to have a larger filter thread size. Many lenses that go up to 600mm focal length have a 95mm filter size. Your landscape lenses will likely have 67 or 72mm filter threads. So you may need to buy some other filters if you wish to use them for wildlife. Thanks for watching.

[@jonscobey677]

This is my fav photo site. I’m taking a British Isles cruise in 2024 and am struggling to find best photo sites for the ports we are visiting. It’s our 50th anniversary and can’t wait! Can you help if I give you our ports?😊

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Jon, I will if I know of any near the places you are visiting. Let me know the ports, how long you will be at each one and how you plan to travel from the ports and I will see if there are any I can suggest.

[@garyloader1416]

You're a git. You've just shown a better way of organising my pics and I have hundreds of thousands of them. Months of sorting out now....... ;)

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

I have to try to keep you all busy! 😂