How does everyone do it? I have a need to start doing this so my pictures can improve... made myself a little sheet on ms publisher for marking such data, but I havne't tried it yet. I'm wondering if any of you out there have good methods of doing this, and if so, please share them.

Do you just take a notepad? Do you have a special grid sheet or something you use? Keep it in your bag, your pocket... taped to your tripod? What does everyone do?

Thanks a bunch!

Nathan

Nathan

Voice activate, mini cassette pocket recorder.

"Take only photographs, leave only footprints"

Nathan

You can go to www.explorephotography.com amd download a Log for your data. Hope this helps.

Tom

RETIRED AND LOVING IT!!!!

Nikonians team

I'm using a notepad, always in my pocket. Since I own a F/N90X and a F5 I use software from cocoon to download data. I've also N90 Buddy (software for Palm device) to download data from my F/N90X. It's more difficult with my Nikonos V (underwater camera) I try to remember most of my shoots and to write back the data on the notepad. Outdoor it may be difficult to fill a formular or a grid so I just wrote a line like this :

camera / number of the roll / brand of roll
frame #, speed, aperture, compensation, flash Y/N, metering, where and what.

Hope it will help,

fb

The Nikonian from Paris (France)

I rarely take notes except mental notes. If I'm doing something that I want to scrutinize and perhaps shoot again later, I'll go through the process. If I have a shot that requires significant planning, I'll take notes. Simple shutter speed and aperture data are minimally valuable on many images. More important for a post mortem would be information about filters, push processing, metering points, etc.

I think the primary benefit for those who are fastidious note takers would be that it slows you down and makes you think while actually shooting.

BJ

BJ

Zenfolio gallery

Thanks for everyone's replies. The reason I want to record such data is because I'm working on getting correct exposures, or at least, the exposures I envision when I shoot the image. Hopefully I will be able to see where I went wrong and what I could have done to fix it.

Thanks again,

Nate

Nathan

When I started a decade ago, I wrote everything down. Now a days I just don't do it becasue I usually have no time, (press work) too cold, (winter landscape) or preparing for next shot (railroad/travel) On a few occassions when it is a must, I will, but those days are few and far between.

Aaron J. Heiner
Team Coast Guard Photographer
US Department of Homeland Security

This past weekend I did some shooting of a professional bicycle race. I then downloaded the data from the days shoot into my PC. When I got my slides back, it was very helpful to be able to know what the shutter speed was on some of the panning and motion shots I did that turned out well. I can now use this information to be able to more quickly duplicate this technique in a future shoot.

It will also be helpful information on the day I get that great shot of something fabulous that will make me famous. And I can say with great certainty that I simply shot it at F8 by being there.

Richard

My Photo Gallery

wingspan,

this is a little off post, but relevant to yr comments...

i am just myself looking through the results of a whole heap of bike shots i took on the weekend. i wasn't real confident in how they'd turn out (i used to shoot news, and dreaded covering sporting events), but was really pleased with the results - terrific motion blurs. only problem is, i didn't write down my settings, and can't for the life of me remember exact processes (of which there were a few, as i followed the old law of 'shoot a thousand images and you'll get at least ten that are okay'!).

anyway, as i'm hoping to shoot a few more bike shots next weekend, i'd be keen to see yr results and hear any particular tips you may have.

cheers,

tim

oh, btw - if you're into riding yrself, and can be bothered having a look at the pics, see <http://www.ethosbicycles.com/ethosbicycles_bikes.html>;

Tim,

I don't have a slide scanner, so I am at a loss to post any of the good shots. I do know that panning motion shots of a fast cyclist (moving at 25 +/- mph) work well in the 1/60 to 1/100 shutter speed range at 200 mm. (Shorter focal lengths will require a bit slower shutter speed (1/30 or so) due to the wider angle of coverage) The slower you go, the better your blur effect, but at the risk of more shots being wasted due to not panning perfectly. Be sure to follow through (Just like golf or setting a good example for your kids and just about everything in life, follow through is the key to perfection!) after you press the shutter release, and not stopping at the moment you hear the click of the shutter. (A great way to practice this skill is to go out and shoot at cyclists going by WITHOUT FILM! That allows you to practice the feel of the panning and releasing without wasting film. Shoot 50 pans without film, and then when you do load up the good stuff, you will be amazed at how quick you get the knack of capturing great shots.

There is one other great thing I learned at my last race. I was sitting next to some pro news shooters, who taught me how to do high speed flash sync in the range of 1/2000 of a second. This allowed me to get a shallow enough depth of field on individual riders and still get the pop to the colour that flash adds. Even an SB-28 doesn't have the power to get true fill flash at that speed on a sunny day, but it does add just enough to add a touch more crispness to the image. To make this look the best, find a tight corner where everyone is leaning hard. This really makes the action look powerful, even though you capture them without any motion in the shot.

If on the other hand you are trying to do shots that are static, with the blur of the cyclists going through the frame, you want to stay in the 1/125 to 1/200 range. I did some at 1/60 of bikes going by at top speed, and they move so fast that they are almost invisible on the film!

Oh, and I HIGHLY recommend Ektachrome E100VS for cyclists, as the bright colours in their jerseys are just incredible on this film!

Richard

My Photo Gallery

Wingspan, can you describe the technique used with the flash? Tx, carol ,

"We don't see things as they are - we see them as we are." Anais Nin

Carol,

My purpose in using high speed sync was that it was the only way I could get a shallow depth of field to take the background sufficiently out of focus. But even with only 100 speed film, this meant shutter speeds in the range of 1/800 (at a minimum) on a bright sunny day. (The digital guys were shooting at 1/2000!)

The trick to high speed sync is that the flash has to be in manual mode. Once set to manual, you set your aperture, and the rest is pretty easy. Set the camera to the same aperture that the flash is set to, and let the shutter speed float to whatever it needs to be.

The benefit to all of this is that the flash syncs quite well, and gives that pop to give a lot of punch to the colours and faces. The bad side is that the flash will always fire at FULL output, and the distance range is VERY limited. If you play with the settings, you will notice that at any given aperture, the distance scale on a flash such as the SB-28 (What I use) will show that you have a flash distance of about 15 feet, and no range at all. But the pros shooting with me the day I tried this said you still get a lot of punch even if you are too far away. In my case I was about 25 feet away, and the flash said it was good to 15 or 20 feet I believe, but the shots still came out great. Just plan on going through a lot of batteries if you go through a lot of film!

Richard

My Photo Gallery

Evening...

I use an Olympus Digital Voice recorder, model # VN-180....

It stores tons of voice data, and you can easily record your info for easy playback at a later time...

I tried the pen/pad deal, and dumped it after one roll....too much can happen for you to stop and write it down....

Surprisingly, my local photo store sells them, but any office supply place like Office Depot or Office Max, and superstores like Circuit City and Best Buy will carry them....

Good luck,

Mark in Austin

Mark, an Austin Nikonian

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Nathan,

In times past I used a small notebook and then a 5.5"x8.5" three ring binder to hold my photo notes, including the time and date that a loaded and unloaded the film from my F and later F3. Those film notes from the 1960's through 1990's were useful then and have been very valuable now in maintaining order in a large negative and slide collection.

In February 2000 I purchased a D1 and the note taking has been computer centric. A small, inexpensive Sony ICD-37 digital voice recorder has become a constant companion of the Nikon D1 during photo sessions in the field. In addition, when I'm taking photos 'on the road' I also keep a record of my ground track with a Garmin GPS-III (now 4 years old).

After downloading the images from my 128 MByte compact flash cards, I collect the files in a folder named for the 'take' or 'down-load' sequence. Then I execute a small 'C-language' program I've written to extract the 'EXIF' data associated with the JPEG of NEF image file. This program generates a sequential list of information and also associates the manually transcribed Sony ICD-37 recorder notes with the appropriate image. An example may be in order; this is the data for the 'Lake_Boxster' photo on my NIKONIAN Member Gallery page:

 5869: ... D1:take12  SC_0056.JPG  NIKON D1  2000:11:05 14:52:42
   AF-S 185.0mm,   1/350 sec.,   f/9.5,  0  200,  COLOR NORMAL NORMAL   FINE AUTO