Before we all “went digital” we were constantly jotting things down in notebooks. It was the old fashioned paper and pencil approach that some of us obsessed over and some of us completely ignored. But, if you wanted to be able to recall anything about the photographs you were making, you had to write it down somewhere.

Now, with digital cameras and the advent of EXIF information, we hardly have to write down a thing. Our cameras record not only our exposure settings, but nearly every aspect of how the camera was set right down the the serial number of the body in use and the exact focal length you happened to be zoomed to at the moment you pressed the shutter.

This information comes in handy in all sorts of ways later in the workflow, and of course makes searching through thousands of images much easier. It saves us the task of writing things down like the date and time, frame number and ISO setting. It no longer matters how organized you are in your note-taking, the camera does all the work for you, regardless.

However, there are still a few holes in the system, so I thought I would offer up a few tips on taking better notes using your handy photographer’s companion--your iPhone!

Voice Notes

Some cameras have the ability to record voice annotations. My Nikon D2H had this and it was great. I always thought it looked funny when I would see other photographers “talking to their cameras,” but it worked. You could speak something like the name of your subject, and their address and this would be tied to the frame number you just shot. This was a life saver for me when shooting news assignments and having to keep track of caption information. However it could get a little confusing if I had shot a variety of frames at an event and then decided to run around and grab caption info after the fact. I would have to scroll through my shoot on my LCD and match up faces with voice annotations. It worked though, and I miss having that ability.

My current cameras don’t have this feature. I don’t really know why, it seems like a simple enough feature to add to any digital camera. Anyway, I recently started using an iPhone app called “Jott.” This app can be used as a native iPhone app or you can subscribe to have a special phone number to call from any phone. Not only does it record your voice, but it uploads it to the Jott web service and transcribes your voice into text. It doesn’t work perfectly all the time, but so far I have had pretty good luck. If you speak clearly enough and can limit the background noise, it usually does a decent job with the transcription, and you always have the voice recording to fall back on if it makes a mistake. I also like having the ability to copy and paste the transcription from their website. Jott is free and available in the iTunes App Store.

Geo Tagging

Following up on Steve’s post from yesterday, geo-tagging is becoming more and more popular every day. Not only is it just plain cool to be able to see where you have been shooting, it can be used to trigger your memory as to what you were shooting and the sequence of events that may haver taken place over the course of a day.

Übermind’s new Mapature plugin for Aperture is a great addition for those of us who don’t have GPS enabled cameras, but you still have to remember where you shot the pic in order to really use it. To do this, I turn to my iPhone. With the iPhone 2.0 update your iPhone’s internal camera is automatically geo-tagging every pic you take. So, whenever I move to a new shooting location, I take a snapshot with my iPhone. I now have a GPS record and a visual clue as to where I was shooting. I can use this info later with Mapature to tag the rest of the images out of my main DSLR bodies.

Visual Notes

I also like to use my iPhone’s camera as a visual notebook. Since I cary it with me just about everywhere I go, I really like to take advantage of the built in camera to take snapshots that I can use to build ideas. If I am on some corner in Brooklyn ( the picture above was taken at Bushwick and Troutman on my way back from grabbing some coffee this afternoon ) that has a nice backdrop of subway architecture or something interesting that I may want to come back and explore later, I just snap a picture with my iPhone. It tags the image with GPS data so I know exactly where to return to, and it creates a visual note that I can use to think about creatively when developing a project or story idea.

I really like having these visual notes available for use on my blogs and flickr. It helps me sort through concepts in my head and allows me to see things develop chronologically. My iPhone is my modern day sketchbook.

Sketchbook?

Okay, to be honest, this one isn’t exactly perfected yet on the phone, but there are a number of cool apps out there that you can use to create sketches on your iPhone. I’m trying out one called “Color Tilt” that allows you to use your phone’s built in accelerometer to pick out colors and then make quick sketches with it. It is pretty limited and until I can get the images off the phone somehow, I think I will stick to a real sketchbook, but I can see the possibilities looming overhead!

So far the iPhone has turned out to be a great companion and has made its way into my pocket permanently when I go out shooting. I use it for all sorts of things, but when it comes to making pictures it really comes in handy.

How do you use your iPhone in the field?