NIKON D2X TIPS & TRICKS - RECORDING VOICE MEMOS

For many years I carried a small notebook with me so that I could write down details about important shots. I’d record the aperture, shutter speed, and such, and then write about the subject. Later, I’d attach a small label to my slides with extended captions based on the notes I’d taken. If I failed to take notes, well, it was much harder to remember exposure and subject information later.

Along came my Nikon D100 and its EXIF information on all aspects of the exposure. Now I only needed to describe the subject in my notes since the exposure details were recorded with the image. I bought a small digital voice recorder to carry, and after that my notepad was obsolete. Only problem was, I’d often forget to take my voice recorder with me, and would have a hard time remembering subject details later.

When my D2x arrived, one of the first things I tried out was the new built-in voice memo recorder. I am extremely pleased with this little D2x feature. It works like a charm, and I never leave it in the car, it’s built into the camera. Now I have all the EXIF exposure info I need and a nice voice recording for the important shots.

When you take an image, it is assigned a certain number by the camera. If you use the voice recorder, the camera assigns the resulting separate .WAV file the same name as the image, except it ends in .WAV instead of .NEF or .JPG.

You can record a minimum of 1 second of voice info, and a maximum of 60 seconds. The .WAV file is a small thing, and will take away very little from your storage card memory. Most of the voice files I record are about 12K in length, and if I get a bit more verbose, might go up to 60 or 70K. But, in comparison to a multi-megabyte image file, the voice file is very tiny.

I use NikonView 6.2+ to transfer my images, and it is smart enough to transfer the voice files along with the images.