It's interesting how the commenters on this thread have widely variable goals. From just documenting a ride with snapshots, all the way to careful, fine photography. I think the whole spectrum is valid. I like to take a little more composed and edited photos than just firing off a quick smart phone shot. I especially like challenging lighting conditions when I have my good camera with me. But I'll do either type, depending on the day, and if I'm solo or not.
Originally Posted by
Doug64
We did a a
rough estimate of the
time we spent taking pictures on a 3-month tour that we did in 2011. Using an average of 5 hours a day of actual riding time, we estimated that we used a little over 2 weeks of riding time or the equivalent of about 600 miles, for taking photographs
Photography is an integral part of bike touring for us, and that is what we love about the bike, we can stop almost any time or place we want. We still get our 5+ hours of actual riding time a day regardless of how many time we stop.
On a tour this summer we were about the same as the 3-month tour, and this one was only 2 months long. I use about a minute a picture as the average, because sometimes I was shooting at 11 frames/ second. I also used half of the actual pictures we took for calculating the estimate, because we seldom take just one shot of a subject. However, I'm thinking that my estimates are still a little on the conservative side. I can think of several instances where I spent up to an hour shooting street "events" and maybe only ended up with 15-20 shots. After editing, that number will go down to 2-4 keepers (hopefully).
After your comment, I realized I have actual stats from my GPS.
I recently did a 66 mile, crushed rock surface rail trail ride, out and back, no baggage.
I took about 250 photos that day.
ridewithgps says:
Riding time: 5:15
Stopped time: 2:20. Included was 20 minutes for a lunch stop, and various sight-seeing pauses, not just photography.
That averages about 30 seconds each photo. Maybe half of the shots were just a quick document of what the trail was like. The rest were more composed and took longer. That's actually less time than I expected.