Over the years, you may have noticed that there has been a significant increase in the number of photos we take of any given tie or position. This increase has mainly been due to progressively improving (and affordable) photo equipment. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, when we were shooting with a Canon AE-1 35mm camera and had to focus manually and actually change film, the average photo set was only 12 to 15 photos. When we switched to our first digital camera, the size increased to 20 to 25 photos. But the first digital cameras were slow to focus and write to the storage device. You could quickly fill the buffer and then have to wait 20 seconds or more for the buffer to clear – not the greatest thing when you have a model tied up in a uncomfortable position! But digital cameras rapidly improved and our average photo set size gradually increased with each new camera we purchased. The limiting factor then became the recycle time on our strobes, so we updated those too. The main limitation now is how quickly we can shoot, not the speed of the equipment – LOL. We routinely find ourselves shooting 50 or more photos of a given tie and sometimes we shoot more than 80 or 90 photos. Our photo sets now average about 30 to 40 photos, slightly more for progressive storyline sets, and those numbers seem about right to us.
This increase in photo equipment speed has produced several advatages. First, we can be far more selective in the photos we choose to use. We don’t publish all of the photos we take as the sets would be highly repetitious and boring – not to mention it would take us forever to edit all those photos! (Although editing time has also decreased with faster computers and better software, it is still a very time consuming process). Second, when shooting, we have far more time to get varied and interesting shots from different angles, experiment with different lighting styles, and to move the model around into different positions and poses. We have never understood why some sites tie a model to a chair, shoot 50 photos all from the same angle, never getting close ups or different views, and then actually publish all 50 photos with little or no variation! Third, we can shoot more sets in a given time period. The main factor limiting the number of sets we can do in one sessions now is the length of time it actually takes to tie and untie a girl. Your average photo set (without video) takes 40 to 50 minutes and some more complex ties can push 90 minutes or more. Sometimes we joke about how much material we could produce if we were doing something simple – like shooting foot fetish material! And finally, the faster photo equipment allows us to get models untied from difficult positions more quickly, which is beneficial both in terms of safety and a model’s happiness. And happy models make happy photographers! 🙂
