Do you keep notes on photo shoots?

[fay_cori]

I�ve noticed that the majority of photos shown on this forum have

neat notes of what camera was used, exposure details, film, etc.

Does this mean that you keep careful notes when shooting? In theory

I know I ought to keep records, but in practice I never do. Maybe I

would learn from some of my mistakes if I was a bit more organised.

So, what do you do?

[eric_.]

I always carry a small booklett with me to take notes. It is my experience that it particularly helps in climbing the steap learning curve with new gear.

[travis1]

Never.

[doug herr]

Nope. I remember the circumstances behind most of my 'keepers'.

[noddy_b]

No..but should have done!

[jay_.]

I'm like Doug, I remember the camera and lens on most shots that don't end up in the circular file. I do sometimes keep notes on exposure, if I'm trying to "learn" a new camera with evaluative metering.

[art_karr]

Fay:

 

I used to carry a small recorder for that purpose. Now, that I am

using digital, more and more, it captures that data [actually more

than I need] and presents it on my computer.

 

Art

[tom h.]

who has time?

 

Tom

[kevin_hundsnurscher]

I used to. But it looks a little amateurish in front of clients, so I try to remember what I did. I'd like to be able to do it more often again.

[g_nter_haika]

very rarely, and only in situations where I hope to come back and might learn from the first shoot. E.g., in addition to bracketing, I took general notes in Antelope Canyon the first time around, and got 90 percent of my acceptable pics on the second trip. (see http://www.wfu.edu/users/haikagk/galerie5/gal5indx.htm)

- sorry, Hasselblad images from my pre-Leica years.

 

Günter

[al_kaplan1]

The only reason I can think of to keep notes is in case a camera isn't functioning properly you'd know which camera it was. Leica m bodies of various vintages seem to have slight differences in the film aperture such as one corner a bit rounded, the frame a fraction of a MM longer, etc. and I've been known to notch the frame edge in a few cameras. A stroke with a file, a dab of black magic marker and every negative will have a little bump on one edge. I can usually recognize which lens was used.

[cabophoto]

Fay,

 

when I travel I always have a small notebook in my photo bag.

 

Carsten

 

http://www.cabophoto.com/

[patricks]

I wish. But in reality - never.

[Robert_Lai]

If indoors, I will use a booklet to make notes. Usually this is if I am trying out some new lighting setup. I will draw a quick diagram of how things were set up, and the bracketing used. Once I see the results, I don't make notes again once I know how things went for this sort of setup. If I do something similar in the future, I can refer back to the notebook to see how it was done the first time.<p>

Outdoors, if I am uncertain, I will bracket in the sequence of 1)scene as metered, 2) Open 1 stop (or 1/3 stop increments), 3) close 1 stop. I can tell be the slides and the squence length what I did for the scene. The correctly exposed slide then tells me what to do in a similar situation in the future. This gets noted down in the same notebook at home. If find this accurate enough without having to make notes all the time, which is a real chore!

[magumi]

Recently, I did a series of photographs for a theatre company. I had the opportunity to shoot on two dress rehearsals and then the performance itself. Before I went to the first session I read the script of the play and made notes of what I think will be important to shoot. Then I made some more notes after the first rehearsal, for the posed pictures after the second rehearsal and finally before the final performance. I must say that it did help me very much.

 

However, in normal situations, when I do not have the luxury of planning and/or returning to the location later on, I hardly ever bother.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[sal_ortega]

There's too much other stuff to pay attention to when I'm taking pictures. What I

repeatedly regret is not taking notes later, not so much re exposure data, but

info re the subject, setting, time of the event. I do use the peripheral brain

concept a lot in my work and in some other settings, including darkroom and

digital processing stuff. I think what you will find is that with time and practice

you will internalize what's important to you as far as actual picture taking

goes.

[lee_shively]

Never.

 

I do make notes on the negative file pages--date, place, film speed, etc.

 

If anyone ever asked for camera, lens and exposure information, I can always come up with something that sounds right.

[furcafe]

Always, using a program called FotoLog on my Palm PDA.

[gwilburn]

Nope. And I've never missed them.

[jorge_oliveira2]

Since I'm (re)adjusting my processes (some 15 yrs vacations..) I'm tasking notes mostly of development times/developer type and time/place of the photos (on the neg files); but once adjusted it will be only places/date.

[yochin]

Well, if you look at a photo you can sort of tell what kind of lens was used and at what aperture and approximate shutter speed it was shot at especially if you've taken it yourself; assuming it hasn't been manipulated. Also, realistically speaking unless you have like twenty different cameras or five or six different films you'll remember which camera and film you used. Also, generally speaking different films look a little different from each other; that is, some types of film will have a certain amount of grain and the colors will be "so" saturated and other little identifying characteristics like that. Most people don't really keep meticulous records unless it's sort of required of them by an assignment or an experiment such as taking a picture of a moving subject and expressing its motion by panning the camera as the subject passes and using a slower shutter speed and with that example you would note the shutter speed you used and report it to your photography instructor.

 

All in all it does seem sort of meaningless once you begin to think about it. I assume that it would be helpful in general in case you want to underexpose or overexpose your pictures some time in the future and you would under that circumstance have to know what you would have to set your shutter speed or aperture at to do that and you would in general understand how to do that by looking at how pictures exposed at a certain shutter speed or aperture look like and how changing the shutter speed or aperture in order to underexpose or overexpose the picture would make it so that it would look the way you wanted it too; whether that be underexposure or overexposure. Blah blah blah...!

[gary_pinkerton1]

I keep a log of each film roll with date, type film, camera used, subject. Beyond that it gets too complicated. This info helps if a roll gets lost and I need to ID it.

[fay_cori]

Thanks for your input. I do as Gary does and that seems enough.

[george_b1]

Only when checking shutter speeds following a CLA, a new light meter or or a new batch of film.