GPS photo tagging by GPS logger

Mud

Mud

Mud

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Not a question but a general recommendation, especially to those considering an expensive, slow and clunky on-camera solution such as the Nikon GP-1. I didn't want to spend £200 on something that'd make my camera less wieldable, but had a lot of difficulty finding which GPS loggers worked well and even more difficulty finding which had software that actually functions properly. The loggers I considered were mostly comparable...similar memory, battery life, and bluetooth should you care for wireless.

I first bought a Globalsat BT-335 for ~£70, and whilst the hardware was nice the software to talk to the logger ('Data Logger PC Utility') didn't function correctly and wasn't capable of directly tagging the photos. locr (bundled free tagging software) complained the GPS log files were incomplete. No go with Microsoft pro photo (another free tagging software) either.

I now have a Photomate 887 (Blumax Bluetooth GPS-4043 Recorder) which cost £44 posted. The software (GPS Photo Tagger) with this works properly under Vista x64, and tags my D90's .NEF files with no issues. Quick, easy and cheap.

I'm not claiming the above is massively enlightening, but it would appear GPS loggers for the purpose of photo tagging is a bit of a minefield. It didn't help that the recommendations I could find were all for models already discontinued, and something as proprietary as Nikon's camera-specific RAW format is difficult to confirm support for. Compound that with a 64bit OS and things get very sticky. Please share any further experiences and recommendations.
 
I'd be very interested in logging location details of my photos, would you mind explaining how this works. Do it interact with the camera at all, or is it a case of it logs your location and then matches up the timestamp of the photos to the log info fot that time?
 
I got a shoe-mounted unit for my D90 for about £75 from the auction site and it works in a similar way to the GP-1. The info is stored in the EXIF data for each frame and can be accessed with any decent EXIF viewer.
 
GSXRMovistar said:
I'd be very interested in logging location details of my photos, would you mind explaining how this works. Do it interact with the camera at all, or is it a case of it logs your location and then matches up the timestamp of the photos to the log info fot that time?
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If you have a GP-1 or a unit like Snapshot's (post above) then the GPS logger sits in the hotshoe of the camera (or you can mount it on a strap), plugs into the side of the camera with a cable and generally takes its power straight from the camera battery. These embed the location info straight into the EXIF of the photo in-camera.

I'm using a standalone GPS logger, it's a small wireless device about the size of a matchbook, of which is mostly battery. These can typically be set to either log your location every time you push a button on the logger, or just to log every x seconds or distance travelled. You then export the GPS log and photos to your computer and the software rattles through adding the location info to the EXIF of each photo.
 
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That standalone unit looks pretty good. How good is the software that comes with it? Also can you use the software to geotag older images by manually putting in the location info?
 
I believe there is also an app for the iphone that will record GPS info and a corresponding PC app to link the photo and the GPS data.
 
GSXRMovistar said:
That standalone unit looks pretty good. How good is the software that comes with it? Also can you use the software to geotag older images by manually putting in the location info?
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The software works well, which is more than I can say for the software which came with the first tagger I tried. The majority of the view is a map pulled straight from Google Earth/Maps, with just enough functions to organise tracks (GPS logs) and tag your photos. I can't see how to manually set locations with it, but you can do that in Microsoft ProPhoto (if it'll accept your photos).
 
Similar to MUD, I use a Garmin gps (60CSx although any that records tracks will do) then make sure both the camera and the GPS are sync'd to the PC time.

When back from a day out, I copy across the track file and then use a piece of software that looks at the time stamps in the EXIF data in the photo and then gets the location from my GPS track file and stamps the co-ords in the EXIF on the photo. It does this as a batch so it's quick and easy and spot on accurate.

The benefit is also that you have a full track file from your GPS unit so you can overlay your entire journey on to google earth and have it show the photos as well. I used this method on a trip around New Zealand and it worked very well.
 
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Mint_Sauce said:
When back from a day out, I copy across the track file and then use a piece of software that looks at the time stamps in the EXIF data in the photo and then gets the location from my GPS track file and stamps the co-ords in the EXIF on the photo. It does this as a batch so it's quick and easy and spot on accurate.
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Would you have the name of this software? or is it something that came with the GPS?
 
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