How do you track your pictures?

[pumatrack]

Just wondering... How the heck do you keep track of what the hundreds of pictures are? Do you just keep a little journal and jot down what the view is and hope that it matches the order that you took them?

[Alligator]

Some cameras (mine included) have the option to add a voice memo directly to the picture. It's a nice feature to have.

I don't always use it though .

When I haven't, I use the time stamp to jog my memory.

[Photofanatic]

Shooting digital is easy because each shot has a file number. I kept track of single shots by file number=subject for example dsc_1234=Alligator
If it was a sequence of shots such as dsc_1235 ~ dsc_1246=Clingmans Dome. It also works great in looking back through digital files you know exactly the date and time you were at a location and shot the picture. One piece of paper goes a long way if you are writing it that way. When you load the pictures onto a computer put them into file folders equal to the way you have them logged. It will make them easy to look at later and to find specific ones you are looking for.

[soad]

The time stamps are especially helpful. After we day hiked Katahdin, I was able to look back at the pics and tell what time we were at certain places on the mountain...Knife Edge 10:02-10:54, at the summit from 10:54 to 12:03 etc.

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

Time stamps and I take pics of signs, trail signs and sometimes macro shot of a guide book citing a particular view or feature. We have tried soad's method, but dinos are forgetful creatures and fall down in water a lot.

[Gray Blazer]

Photofanatic, are you L. Wolfe? When I try to view your gallery, I get L. Wolfe's. Digital photography is fun. You can take a hundred pictures of the same mountain and get 2 or 3 good ones and then erase the rest. It was made for me because I used to get only 2 or 3 good shots on the film cameras and I have those other 97 hanging around, taking up space.
Load 'em on your computer and have fun. Do you have photoshop? Even more fun! Point the mouse at a pic and you can view the time and date you took the pic. Left click the picture and view all your available options. Do what these other posters said and have fun.

[Ramble~On]

It depends on what kind of photography..
snaps shots along the trail i usually don't record anything and remember what the subject is when I see the shot.
Film and digital are different.
Digital as mentioned has file #'s
A shot log is useful to record all info about a particular photograph:
iso, shutter, aperature, lens, lighting, filters used and any other camera settings. Shot logs are a great help when shooting multiple rolls of film..they also help you better understand what went wrong and what went right in a given photo...unlike in digital where you can see the results of your settings through LED...if your photo sucks you can make corrections and take another shot. With film you don't get to see the results until you develop the film...so, it's nice to learn from mistakes or from what settings were used on "good" shots so the next time you don't waste a bunch of time and film with underexposed, overexposed etc etc wasted film.

[pumatrack]

Thanks . I forgot about the digital time and date stamps. That will make it much simpler. Thanks for the help.

[Photofanatic]

Photofanatic, are you L. Wolfe? When I try to view your gallery, I get L. Wolfe's. Digital photography is fun. You can take a hundred pictures of the same mountain and get 2 or 3 good ones and then erase the rest. It was made for me because I used to get only 2 or 3 good shots on the film cameras and I have those other 97 hanging around, taking up space.
Load 'em on your computer and have fun. Do you have photoshop? Even more fun! Point the mouse at a pic and you can view the time and date you took the pic. Left click the picture and view all your available options. Do what these other posters said and have fun.

Photofanatic=L. Wolfe Sgt Rock changed it for me because there are two wolves in here. L. Wolfe=my name and L Wolfe=Lone Wolf I would sometimes get posts for Lone Wolf and probably vise versa. So anyway that is fixed.
As for digital photography it has it postives and negatives. Mostly positives. I am a professional photographer, that simply means I get paid to shoot and everyone likes instant satisfaction. I use Photoshop with all the bells an whistles.
We don't have any point and shoots but would like to get at least one. We use slr's so they are kind of weighty on the trail. We can't justify not using the best we have when we are out there though. I use a Fuji Finepix S3 Pro and my boyfriend is using a Nikon D 200. Someday Nikon will design a trail weight digital slr.

Nikon if you are reading this think pack weight.

[Kaptain Kangaroo]

Each night I would write notes in my journal describing the location, people etc. in each of my photos for that day. At home I could then use the photo file info (date, time etc.) to identify each shot.

Another benefit of this process was that each day I would delete the poor or duplicate photos & save room on my memory card. I deliberately used small capacity cards so that I could mail them home regularly, so if I lost the card (or camera) or a card died, I would not lose a huge number of photos.

Cheers,

Kaptain Kangaroo

[Photofanatic]

Just a tip on digitals. I carried a card reader with me. I was always able to find a place to burn my files onto cd and ship the cd home. When you get to a town think about places that might have a burner. Photography stores and most drug stores and definately Walmart. I have also been able to burn by asking at a realtors office and an attorney burned some disks for me once. If you go to Walmart or a drug store be sure to tell them that you want the entire large file. You are not wanting a watered down set just to get them all onto one cd. Ship the cd home and you can keep your cards with you. If you do by chance ask for this service at a business such as I did with realtors and that attorney....absolutely always be polite and offer them some money for doing this $5.00 is a nice jesture. I have always been grateful for their help and they have always appeared to be happy to help out. Nobody has ever taken the money that I have offered but they have always asked if they could keep a copy on their computer too look at so don't do this if you have nudies on your card...hahaha

[Peaks]

Back in the days of film cameras, I wrote down the location of every picture in the back of my journal.