Quartz Date Cameras

So about 9 months ago I bought a Nikon F80QD. I got the QD feature for one reason. I often take pictures of birds simply to identify them later. This is useful for birdwatching. The QD feature allows me to date stamp the image which can also be useful in identifying a bird later on.

Anyway, on Photo.net I got a LOT of crap from people for buying the QD camera. "A big waste of money" (not when you buy greymarket) and "Foolish".

Which made me wonder about the hostility towards the QD. Anyway, I recently started using the QD feature in a new way. One which I haven't heard people talk about before.

What I do is I turn it on for the first frame of the roll. Just the first. I take a "throwaway" picture. This dates the roll. I can even time stamp it depending on which option I pick. I then turn it off and shoot the rest of the roll. When I sleeve everything up, I have a nice marker which helps me organize each page.

Now come on, I can NOT be the only person doing this. But I haven't heard of it being done before. Has anyone else heard of someone using the QD feature to track rolls? I can understand not using it for EVERY frame. That would screw the image up, but to not use it on one frame to track the roll.... Am I the only one who likes this feature?

With our P&S we do/used to do what you describe. We used to do it for the 1st photo of the day, but not purposely waste a frame (I can understand you doing that if the pics have some 'artistic' purpose). These days we tend to leave it on permanently as all the pics taken with the camera are family or holiday snaps and having the date on them doesn't bother us at all (they all end up as 6x4 prints in an album).

When I bought my N80, I considered the QD option. I decided against it because the only time I thought I'd ever use it is for the purpose you describe in dating the rolls (I hate having the date on all my pictures). On the other hand, I find myself doing more and more failure documentation and having that feature would be useful.

So, while I don't regularly miss having the QD option, I do see a purpose for it.

holiday snaps and having the date?