15, 20, 30...195 fps OMG! We need HELP in culling/editing "squirts".

As fps goes higher and higher it becomes easier and easier to shoot 1000s of photos in a single session/game/outing. But our software for culling out the best photos has not kept up.
I think our editing software needs to group photos into "squirts". And provide some way to quickly select the best from a squirt.
That is if I hold down the shutter 10 times and shoot 100 photos each time, this needs to be automatically presented/grouped as 10 squirts, not 1000 photos. Odds are I only want one photo from each squirt. I click on the squirt, and I get a pop-up with a slider that lets me zero in on the best photo. I click on that and get normal editing options. That photo becomes the icon for the squirt. And doing this automatically seems pretty darn easy. The time is recorded on the photos, the software can determine which photos are 1/20th of a second apart...

Think about a bird photographer. The bird is standing, you shoot one photo. But then he looks like he's going to fly you motor drive hoping for that perfect wing position. Repeat that 200 times in a morning shoot. Now do you want to look at 200 photos and 200 squirts, or 10,100 photos?

I'm not aware of any editing software that does this. This could be certainly be optional, maybe you don't want that and could view your pics normally.

Note that I'm not married to the name squirt, but what else to call it?
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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"Bursts," perhaps? Something to consider might be Photo Mechanic.

 
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Actually Lightroom has had that functionality for many years, it’s called ‘Stacks’. You can even tune it to do the stacking automatically via time.

Thanks, that is pretty close to what I want, but it is manually set up. I want it automated. I can't see going through thousands of photos and setting up 100 or more of these. I don't think you'd save time over just manually culling.
 
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Birdshooter

R3 and R5
Oct 14, 2019
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With an R3 you can delete the last bunch of shots taken in a burst, and if you protect the image you want it will delete the rest of the burst. :)
I would imagine this feature will filter down to other cameras eventually. Nice feature to have for a camera that shoots 30fps.
I don't see issues deleting photos when you have all kind of viewers out there like Photo Mechanic, ACDsee and others which you can view and cull images with.
Myself, I don't mash the trigger for thousands of images. :)
 
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Birdshooter

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Oct 14, 2019
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DXO Photolab has the same capability. You select a "squirt" (or stack or burst), right click and put the squirt/stack ino a "project" which you can name appropriately. It would be nice to have it automated. Topaz could certainly do that. They could use their sharpen/noise AI to pick the best photo in a burst. I hope they do it.
I for one don't want anything automatically picking what it thinks is best in a burst.
You, might as well let a robot shoot and cull for you.... Guess your a newbie photographer :)
 
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I for one don't want anything automatically picking what it thinks is best in a burst.
You, might as well let a robot shoot and cull for you.... Guess your a newbie photographer :)
No. I just value my time. You can always override auto-culling if the situation warrants it. What does culling have to do with the skill of shooting? I guess you use an iPhone :)
 
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I for one don't want anything automatically picking what it thinks is best in a burst.
You, might as well let a robot shoot and cull for you.... Guess your a newbie photographer :)
I have not seen anyone here suggest letting the computer select the best image. But this is the Forum I missed from before, someone makes a suggestion and we attack!
It does seem like the computer could rate the sharpness of the subject pretty easily though. Oh no, I've dishonored myself...
 
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Sharlin

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Dec 26, 2015
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Thanks, that is pretty close to what I want, but it is manually set up. I want it automated. I can't see going through thousands of photos and setting up 100 or more of these. I don't think you'd save time over just manually culling.

Hmm? You can set LR to automatically stack photos taken within, say, one second from each other, as PBD said. I guess it could be handy to auto-stack photos taken in the same burst, but I don't think the EXIF data contains something like a "burst ID".
 
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