Dictaphone to record settings?

Out this morning with a Konica Autoreflex TC, Hexanon 40mm lens and a roll of HP5. I tried to remember the settings I used, but my aging brain failed me. Recording them on my phone is way too much of a faff. Wondered about a cheap and cheerful dictaphone that is as small as possible. Voice activated would be even better. Any thoughts?

I always use a pen & paper . . .

Sky said:

I always use a pen & paper . . .

Click to expand...

I have done from time to time but it's not always possible when I'm out and about. Rucksack to carry, dog to keep an eye on, my wife needs help on walks sometimes. Sal has a digital camera and I might just be taking longer to snap a film shot.

It might be a daft question, but why do you want to record your settings? It's highly unlikely they will ever be the same again. And anyway you adjust for the conditions.

Can you get over the faff and use your phone rather than buying another device? Buying and carrying another device and remembering to have it charged and with you also includes faff and hassle.

I'm no fan of smartphones BTW but they do have their uses.

Most phones will have a voice recorder app. I would just use that rather than carry a separate device.

The only time I ever record camera settings is when I shoot large format, and even then I sometimes forget.

It's not for everyday use. I'm a bit OCD and organise "things" that don't really need it. I'm testing a number of cameras whose metering is a bit suspect and I just wanted a record of what settings it gave me and then I could check the outcome when the negs came back. Most of my gear is reliable in terms of metering and I never record anything. Too much time on my hands I suppose. (NOT)

I wrote myself an app for exactly this - it records the settings a shot at, what the selected area metered at and the EV value my settings exposed for. Plus it’s geotagged. So I have a record of where, when, how and what I shot.

It’s also very specifically an 80mm 6x6 framing too, it’s for my Hasselblad.

the_accidental said:

I wrote myself an app for exactly this - it records the settings a shot at, what the selected area metered at and the EV value my settings exposed for. Plus it’s geotagged. So I have a record of where, when, how and what I shot.

It’s also very specifically an 80mm 6x6 framing too, it’s for my Hasselblad.

Click to expand...

WOW! That's clever.

My lens is 69 years old and overdue a CLA, some of the shutter speeds are more fiction than fact, so I need to take care and recording is useful.

I might publish my app, but I don't really want to add more features to it - there are plenty of apps out there that work as logbooks for people that want more.

If you're on iOS I find lightme light meter and logbook apps decent https://lightme.site/

Though they didn't do quite the thing I wanted, hence making my own (I care about what I metered AND what I shot, but also where I metered).

Pulled my socks up and had a look at the light meter app on my phone. I never read instructions, I much prefer to learn by doing. Had a bit of fun finding out more about what it can and can't do.

Slightly different approach. How about a small dji nano video camera? Comes with a hat mount. You could film the camera, scene and settings?

Mozziephotography said:

Pulled my socks up and had a look at the light meter app on my phone. I never read instructions, I much prefer to learn by doing. Had a bit of fun finding out more about what it can and can't do.
View attachment 494841

Click to expand...

So, can it, does it actually keep a record as per the image? That would be handy. I used to try to keep a similar record of settings but in the end found that I had a bigger issue. I took all my films to a selection development labs for processing and numbered each roll as it came out of the camera so, if you like, roll 22 came out of an OM3 with 55mm and 135mm lenses. Do you think that I could get labs to faithfully reproduce the roll number?

tikkathreebarrel said:

So, can it, does it actually keep a record as per the image? That would be handy. I used to try to keep a similar record of settings but in the end found that I had a bigger issue. I took all my films to a selection development labs for processing and numbered each roll as it came out of the camera so, if you like, roll 22 came out of an OM3 with 55mm and 135mm lenses. Do you think that I could get labs to faithfully reproduce the roll number?

Click to expand...

Each time I put a film in one of my cameras, I make a note of the first and last image that I take, as well as which film I put in. If I'm testing a couple of lenses on a "new" camera, I use half the film with one and then change over to the other lens. I write notes in a little booklet to remind me. Camera, film type, first shot, last shot, lens used.

I don't use my dictophone I use my fingers

Mozziephotography said:

Out this morning with a Konica Autoreflex TC, Hexanon 40mm lens and a roll of HP5. I tried to remember the settings I used, but my aging brain failed me. Recording them on my phone is way too much of a faff. Wondered about a cheap and cheerful dictaphone that is as small as possible. Voice activated would be even better. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I tried [using a dictaphone to record settings notes] once. The first difficulty was trying to remember which settings comments related to which photo, as I'd forget to do record any comments for random periods. Second was getting the data off the phone into some useful form. That took place at some random time afterwards, exacerbating the first difficulty! Turns out decoding my notes on a voice recorder in some sensible way is non-trivial. Might be better if I was completely disciplined, but that's not why I do this game. I think it only lasted for about 3 films.

I did also try one (or maybe more) of the multitude of film and exposure apps. They tended to be quite a bit of work to set up, and suffered rather from the first and second difficulties above! There are techie ways to get data into your EXIF, but I don't think I've ever managed it!

If I want to take notes nowadays (examples might be if I'm comparing lenses, or maybe having another go at testing myself with Sunny 16), I simply use the Notes app on my phone. Whatever I write there miraculously turns up on my laptop, so that disposes of much of the second difficulty. I solve other parts of the issue by rarely changing lenses mid film (which I'm sure is VERY bad practice, but works for me), and recording the film-ID, camera, lens, filter, EI if not box, and general subject category, ( and later any dev info, etc) on the tab torn off the film box, tucked into the slot in the back of my camera. This information goes into the file name of the scans, and then (the tedious bit) into keywords for the scanned images! What that completely misses out is the individual scene information, lighting, meter reading, aperture, shutter speed etc. But if I feel that's Important, I'll make a Note!

Not sure this is coherent but it's late now!

F1.2 said:

I don't use my dictophone I use my fingers

Click to expand...

Aha! you've got the Dactylphone!