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...on a typical photo session at the local airport?

Yesterday, I went to LAX in the afternoon. Got there around 3:15 or 3:30 or so. Left at, oh, 5:30 or 5:45.

Got home and uploaded 812 photos to my computer. And I actually took maybe 850, because I deleted some of them soon after shooting them.

Completely filled my 16 GB CF card.

Now, 800+ photos is not typical. But it's not unheard of, either. Evening/night shooting is especially taxing on my right index finger; when I'm panning at 1/50 or so and slower, I take a lot of shots.

In a typical 2-hour session at LAX, I'd say my average these days is around 400 shots. It's actually a LOT more than it was 2 years ago. Not entirely sure why (aside from the aforementioned night shooting).

Usually a trip to OUL will yield 40 or 50 spray-and-pray shots of the same airframe, of which maybe 1 should be uploaded and about 5 actually are.

Heathrow, I'll often fill the 8GB card and slap another one in. Success ratio about the same.

Not that many in comparison - though I tend not to use continuous shutter even on fast moving aircraft. I think I took 1100 or so over two days in Frankfurt; my average trip to MAN probably ranges between 300 and 500 depending on how long I'm there and whether I get bored of flyBE.

When I go out to ABQ, it's never for more than a couple of hours. Lately, though, it's been more like 30 ~ 45 minutes since traffic levels are down. I'd say on average that I'll get maybe 10 or 15 shots on a good session. I usually snap at least two of each aircraft as well.

mhodgson wrote:though I tend not to use continuous shutter even on fast moving aircraft.

Same here. In fact, the 50D has two continuous shutter modes - high speed is ~6 frames a second, and low speed is ~3 frames a second; my camera is always on low speed.

But even then, very rarely do I use it. Even with the camera on AF Servo, I'll still usually release and re-press the shutter button completely for each shot. Not sure why - it's probably a hold over from my old Rebel XS, which could only shoot 1.5 frames/second and had a tiny 3- or 4-frame buffer.

For very low shutter speed shooting, I might take 10-20 shots of a particular aircraft, spaced over 10 seconds.