This is The Digital Story Podcast #935, Feb. 20, 2024. Today's theme is "How Do I Pick My Best Shot? (And the New Fujifilm X100VI)" I'm Derrick Story.

Opening Monologue


Breaking news! The Fujifilm X100VI. And... photographers tend to be too hard on themselves, or way too generous when evaluating their pictures. But there's a middle ground. To reach it, we need to honestly answer a few basic questions during the review process. In the first segment of today's TDS Photography Podcast, I'll let you know what those are, and how they can help you make better choices when selecting your images. Then we take you to Tokyo for the Fujifilm X-Summit. I hope you enjoy the show.



Digital Photography Podcast 935






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How Do I Pick My Best Shot?

Have you ever opened up your laptop to show off a favorite picture, one that you worked very hard on, only to have the viewer rave about a different shot that you had passed by?


"But I worked hours on this one to get it perfect!" you counter. "Oh, that one is nice too," the viewer says in a comforting voice.


Photographers have many blind spots when evaluating their own work. One of the most common is, "If I spend lots of time working on a picture, it's better than the others." That may or may not be the case.



But how do you know? You can move the odds more in your favor by analyzing your favorite photos using this process. It goes something like this. Let's apply this technique to a photo shoot you've just completed.



First, you have to separate the good shots from the bad ones. This is easy to do. Say that you have 100 images from the shoot, odds are solid that at least 25 of them will be good. That means they could stand on their own with very little image editing.

Second, put the good photos in their own album so you are only looking at those.

Third, go through those 25 again and pick the 5-10 pictures that you like best. So far, we haven't really done anything new. But we will with the next step.

Fourth, isolate those 5-10 favorites, enlarge the first one to full screen, and ask yourself the following 3 questions.



Is the content of this photograph compelling? What I mean by that is, is there a clear center of interest and does it tell a story?


Is the image technically sound? That is, is the exposure good and the sharpeness appropriate for the subject?

Is there emotional appeal? Do you feel something when you look at the picture?


Your best images will answer yes to all three questions.



One of the things I've observed during lab sessions at our TDS workshops is that many photographers give too much weight to technical considerations and not enough to content and emotion. The irony is, if we had to live without one of the three, it would be the technical.



Photos that have interesting content with emotional appeal will always outshine technically perfect images with general audiences. Once a person identifies your main subject and is attracted to it, the game is over.



Pixel peepers may criticize image noise or a plugged-up shadow area, but if they are ignoring a great subject in the process, then they're missing the point.



Try this four-step process on a recent photo shoot, and see if you're surprised by the winners. Maybe next time you open up your laptop to show off a picture, it will also be the favorite for the person you're showing it too.



If you want more on this subject, check out my Live View article, How to Better Evaluate Our Pictures. This is a free link!


Fujifilm X100VI Announced at X-Summit Tokyo






Fujifilm photographers have their first X-Summit of the year on Feb. 20th in Japan. And they didn't have to wait long for the announcement of the new X100VI Digital Camera.



The estimated ship date is Feb. 28, but you can preorder the X100VI now for $1,599.



On today's podcast, you can hear directly f