Would it help new people to know my system for doing food audit shops? They aren't my favorite, and you have to be incredibly sneaky at times.
I start out very early cause I do breakfast shops. I only do them in my city, not all around the whole town. I use my DSLR, and plan out my drive. I drive around the shop, make sure there aren't many or any cars in the lane. I pull out my DSLR, and focus in as good as I can,and snap the picture.I drive to another parking lot to make sure it's decent. sometimes there's glare, or if it's rained, there's nothing you can do about that. If there's too much glare, I have to redo it. But if there's rain,I can't help it, the inside of the menu sometimes gets condensation on it.
So, the pictures are done, I go home, and print a master copy of the restaurant audit sheets from the msc, and I make 3 columns. (2 or 4 or whatever). I look at the picture zoomed in on the computer, and write down the prices on the paper, in the corresponding columns. When I go to the page to fill out the form, it takes about 10 minutes to do it.
These are not my favorite thing to do, cause I hate getting in the way of other cars, or having to go back, when you've driven up and there's cars all the way up to the highway. But my system makes it go quicker, and the DSLR with the zoom lens goes very fast. I've not tried it with my pocket camera. It has a higher megapixel, but not as good as zoom.