In-camera folders and code replacements: use cases, techniques, etc.

[WinterSolstice]

Modern cameras allow you to route photos into specific in-camera folders. Photo Mechanic can watch for these folders on ingest, and when combined with code replacements/hot codes, assign different pre-filled metadata fields.

(Jeff Vogan et al have made this technique more popular.)

At best, this technique allows a photographer to fill out all the caption information in advance, and spend zero time captioning on deadline at the end of the shoot. Or maybe there's still captioning to do, but a lot less of it.

How have you used this technique?

• Jeff Vogan seems to use it extensively for sports, when he has roster information in advance. All the Defenseman #42 photos can go into camera folder 101042, and Photo Mechanic will automatically know that any photo in that particular folder should be captioned with "John Smith, of the Jayhawks, plays during a game against Guelph, March 6, 2024." From there, this technique also allows Jeff to route specific players into specific folders in his archive, making it easier to distribute to teams/coaches/parents.
  
• Max Lemesh seems to use it for conference type events, when there's a set list of speakers and schedule. (Max, have you made any improvements to your 10-minute increment code replacement text?)

The best use case, to me, seems to be big events, on deadline, with a predictable and reliable order of events and cast of characters. Sports games, panel presentations, graduations, weddings, music festivals. I've used it for political rallies and sporting events.

Where my technique breaks down is if the event switches from being predictable to unpredictable. I can write code replacements if Speaker A will reliably appear at 10:05AM. But if Speaker A is sick that day, and Speaker Z fills in, I can't account for that and I need to route those images to a "General" folder in camera with a generalized caption. Or maybe there's a rain delay, etc.

The other challenge is training yourself to shoot in a different way. You need to be constantly aware that you've selected the "right" folder for what you're shooting. Jumping back and forth between subjects means you also need to on-the-fly jump back and forth selecting the right in-camera folder, and this can be annoying or difficult in the moment.

What are some things you've learned with this technique?

[Max Lemesh]

I use folders for various shoots, from separating people during portrait shoots (Jeff's method), to separating different areas on events — kitchen, guest table & food, or different stages of the event (based on time), or even shooting different events during the day, and then making PM sort them into separate folders with all the metadata.

And the conferences with the speakers. Didn't find a way around 10 minute increments yet, but it works so far.

Also thinking of coming up with some sort of system that gets all my scheduled jobs for the day or week, and just knows what info to fill out and what folders to create based on date and time of the shoot.

[Max Lemesh]

Another use case was in hospital where we photographed babies and families.
Process was similar to Jeff's portrait workflow, but with additional info like first and last name and type of shoot done for the client.
With about 10 shoots a day all looking alike folders really helped sorting clients at the end of the day.

Pro tip: Sometimes we forgot to create a new folder for the next client, only remembering about it mid shoot or at the very end. Solution to this was either to make new folder mid shoot and continues shooting to it (and transfer early images to it later), or create a folder at the end and shoot some random thing. This way the system WILL create a client folder during ingest which will have this random thing and we will know we failed to make the folder and all the images are in previous clients folder. Just need to remember that this new folder was for the previous clients and to make another folder for the new one

[Robert Edwards Media]

I use hot codes based on (foldernum}.  Here are two examples:

1) For timed sports, write game time (inning, quarter, half, etc.) in 'Description/Caption'.   

  Variable: //## BASEBALL
     901   during the first inning
     902   during the second inning
     903   during the third inning
 
  IPTC 'Description/Caption': May 4, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; [BASEBALL] at Oracle Park.

  Post-Ingest Yield: May 4, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; during the first inning at Oracle Park. 
 
  I just add the subject name(s) & action before the "during", via code replacements.  I've customized a button on my cameras (Nikon Z9) to quickly change folders as the game progresses.  It's a huge timesaver to accurately auto-capture when plays occur.

2) For untimed sports, write a full caption in 'Description/Caption' and player's names in 'Persons Shown' & 'Keywords'
   Variables: //## TENNIS     //##MATCH   //##OPPONENT
      901    Valencia Xu     singles match    Jessica Alsola
      902     Alexandra Yepifanova   singles match   Jessica Alsola

   IPTC 'Description/Caption': May 4, 2024; Stanford, California, USA; Stanford Cardinal [TENNIS] competes against California Golden Bears [OPPONENT] during their [MATCH] at Taube Tennis Center."

   Post-Ingest Yield, 'Description/Caption': May 4, 2024; Stanford, California, USA; Stanford Cardinal Valencia Xu competes against California Golden Bears Jessica Alsola during their singles match at Taube Tennis Center." 

   Post-Ingest Yield, 'Persons Shown' & 'Keywords': "Valencia Xu, Jessica Alsola"

[WinterSolstice]

I'm beginning to develop a workflow where hot codes watch for in-camera {rating} in addition to the more standard {foldernum}.

{rating} allows me to:

• Highlight the best shots, and sort/edit/file those ones first. 1 star is good, 2 stars is great. These stars get remapped to {colorclassval}, my preferred method of ranking photos.
• Highlight mistakes if I shoot to the wrong folder. 3 stars = mistake, and it gets its own brown color class. This lets me easily filter and address these ones that have problems with their captioning/metadata.

{foldernum} is good, but at least with my camera*, there's no good way to correct mistakes. If you shoot to the wrong folder, it gets the wrong captions. And you can't correct this in-camera. When you add in {rating}, you can highlight any mistakes.

What makes {rating} special is that it gives you 5 options of what to add to a photo's metadata, in camera, and after you've taken the photo. (With {foldernum}, you're effectively adding things to the photo's metadata before you've taken the photo.) This makes {rating} good for dynamic environments where your subject matter changes often.

Those 5 options are effectively 5 empty "slots" that can be unique caption information, keywords, etc. Maybe all 4 star photos = "quarterback throws for a touchdown" and all 5 star photos = "receiver catches for a touchdown". You can't realistically do this with {foldernum}.

*My Canon 5D IV doesn't allow one to easily move photos between folders. There's a copy feature but it's clunky.



Additionally: With hot codes, you pretty quickly shift from relying on Photo Mechanic's IPTC template to enter information to relying on an outside spreadsheet to enter information. Photo Mechanic has provided an example spreadsheet to get us going. I believe there's significant improvements a user (or Photo Mechanic) can make to the spreadsheet, in design and function. There might even be a way to incorporate Google Forms, for example, to provide a cleaner experience and be able to update your assignment info from your phone. Or maybe your client fills out the Google Form, and it automatically populates your hot codes spreadsheet with their info.

[Max Lemesh]

Regarding google forms and stuff. I used Notion databases for this.
You can have the same database for each entry, like we did for parents in hospital while photographing babies.
Database had all info like type of shoot, clients name, comments, baby's name, photographer etc.

And then at the photographers page, that same database displayed only relevant info for photog like Clients name, Type of shoot and with an empty cell at the front to input a folder number. Clients also lined up in order you shot them, so folder numbers most likely would go in order too. And the best part was you could just copy whole table at the end of the day and paste it as code replacement.