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I have always been too focused (pardon the inevitable pun) on making an image to bother with field notes. Of course these days all digital cameras record not only the lens, exposure, and date/time but often GPS location as well.
If you scroll below most of my images you will see notes on the placve and time, camera and lens, exposure and more - usually from camera data, sometimes from memory.
To "calculate" exposure I combine several common techniques. First, I carry an incident light meter, which I find very useful, no matter how old fashioned, in judging overall light on distant subjects. Next, I "shoot to the right"; i.e. I routinely over-expose 2/3 stop above that indicated in-camera. As has been extensively discussed elsewhere, this gives me the best chance of preserving maximum information in hightlights (recovered in post-processing) without blowing them up. And then I usually bracket three shots in 2/3 stop imcrements.
In spite of all that, and many years shooting the zone system with a Pentax electronic Spotmeter, I find my best "exposure calculator" in in my eyes and brain. Practice makes better (not necessarily perfect).
Over the last fifty years I have used a fairly wide variety of cameras and formats, Items in bold are those I currently use.
35mm Film:
4x5 Film:
Over the years I owned many fine lenses for my 4"x5" film cameras:
Digital
Now the the digital age is upon us, and film, to my great regret, is very difficult to obtain and process, I have worked up through a steadily more sophisticated series of digital cameras:
To make full use of my Canon DSLR cameras, I've owned and used an arsenal of Canon and 3rd party lenses. Bold items in the tables below are those I currently use:
Having added Sony a6300 mirrorless bodies, I mate these with compact native Sony E lenses, albeit with a substantial reduction in sensor size, and any of my FF Canon lenses through a Metabones adapter.
That's a fair question, although any dedicated photographer will know. First, technology has evolved very rapidly over the last fifty years - from Brownie box to full digital componentization. Most serious photograpohers are always at least as curious as their wallet allows. Second, one's personal style of seeing, processing, presenting, and eventaully, carrying (or not) evolves continually. I have reached the age where I shoot only what I can carry comfortably to the car, and only where I carry only the one camera and lens with which I will shoot, not more than 50 yeards from the car.
In the end, it is the photographer, not the equipment, which makes the image!