mongo Posted August 4, 2009 Report Posted August 4, 2009 Do any of the newer DSLRs have geotagging features? I have an Eye-Fi card for my idiot camera, but that only works where there are Wi-Fi signals to triangulate. Next year, I'm going to Africa, would like to geotag my photos, and will definitely want/need a decent DSLR solution. Currently, I have a Sony Alpha 100. As it stands, I have two options: 1. Purchase an SD to CF card adapter; Purchase a Sony GPS-CS3KA GPS Image Tracker; Take photos with the Alpha while keeping Sony GPS with me (looks like a white pager); remove CF adapter from camera at the end of the afternoon/evening; remove SD card from adapter; insert SD card to Sony GPS; let it tag photos; Remove SD card from Sony GPS; insert SD card to laptop*; upload geotagged photos to laptop*, erase SD card, place SD card back in camera; replace battery on Sony GPS; rinse; repeat the next day... Or, bring several SD cards, and leave the laptop at home. * If the Apple tablet comes as rumored, I'm totally picking one up and bringing that as my computing system. or 2. Purchase Jobo Hotshoe adapter for Sony Alpha cameras (because Sony, the big bunch of proprietary fuckers, even made their hotshoe proprietary), Purchase Jobo photoGPS and attach to the hotshoe adapter which is attached to the camera... Option 2 seems easier except the hotshoe adapter adds big bulk, the photoGPS comes unattached rather easily, the photoGPS takes up the hotshoe so attaching an external flash is no longer possible, the photoGPS has it's own internal battery that needs a usb port to charge (it takes 2 hours), the photoGPS requires an internet connection to turn it's data into GPS coordinates, it doesn't actually embed the geotag (it creates a separate file that you need to keep with your photo file)... I'm looking for the best solution. So far, option 1 is my only solution with the current camera. If all else fails, that will be what I wind up doing. However, I want something better/easier. I technically haven't spent a penny on my current setup (the Alpha body was a gift from my father, who included 2 of his old Minolta lenses), so I'm not totally attached to it. Also, I absolutely hate Sony and all of their proprietary crap. Finally, if ever there was a reason to make the big leap with a good DSLR body and a couple of lenses it's an African safari. Thoughts? Insight? Help?
Vol_Bengal Posted August 5, 2009 Report Posted August 5, 2009 Mongo... after reading your post I did about 30-45 minutes of research on this... the stuff I was reading involved a Canon camera and then USBing to a blackberry and using the Blackberry's GPS capability to tag (don't know how far that went really). What I was reading though is generally most are using a GPS device of some sort to generate a log that would show times and coordinates and then it would merge (that night or at a later date) with the photo data and attach the appropriate coordinates to the picture according to the time / date stamp. Just had to make sure that your camera and GPS device times matched. Hope this helps some. Might look into that as an option.
mongo Posted August 6, 2009 Author Report Posted August 6, 2009 Thanks. I will look into it. There's a small part of me that is happy you weren't able to find 12 cameras that would fit my needs. I'd have felt like a total ass if the simple answer had been staring me in the face the whole time. In truth, it seems no one is making geotagging a feature of their camera just yet... I find it surprising that this technology hasn't been incorporated into cameras though.
Vol_Bengal Posted August 6, 2009 Report Posted August 6, 2009 Well, if you end up going with the logging GPS device then any of your decent digital cameras (personally I'm a Canon man but Nikon is good too) that attach the additional information (date / time, etc.) to the file is all you'd need there. You'd merge the GPS log with the image files (in what I was reading he was referencing Picture Downloader that supposedly would do that...(??)) and viola~. Seems like you'd be able to find a device that would plug via the USB port (how many cameras have these these days?!?!?) and when the camera fires it would write the image file (much like it does to the stored memory card in the camera) to a storage media, like a memory card, along with the geotag information... once you got to that point you could take that card and upload with whatever vehicle you'd prefer and the necessary info would be there.
Vol_Bengal Posted August 6, 2009 Report Posted August 6, 2009 In doing some more research before I went to a patent attorney(yeah right!!) I found some additional options... This one is a wi-fi deal so I don't know how it'd work in Africa. As long as it has wi-fi access it'll attach the information to the exif file as it stores in the camera. [url="http://www.eye.fi/overview/"]Eye-fi[/url] These two are actually GPS driven so they'd probably be more appropriate for your situation... [url="http://www.gisteq.com/PhotoTrackr/PhotoTrackrDPL700.php"]This one[/url] comes with the software to merge a GPs log with the images and it'll work on both pc and Mac... [url="http://photofinder.atpinc.com/"]This one[/url] doesn't even require merge software... it is all built in. Take it along, let it log, and then you put your camera's memory card into it and it'll merge and attach the necessary data to the exif file on that card. Take card to computer and upload as you normally would and viola~ you're cooking with gas... Obviously, those merge options you need to make sure the camera and GPS device date / time are synced up pretty close.
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