If I told you I was using a GPS photo tracking system for geotagging photos from my Nikon D70 that stored track logs and waypoints to 1GB of memory, exported in GPX format, and connected to my Mac via USB or Bluetooth—you'd be right to wonder if I was making it up. It's not fiction, and nor is it new tech either. It's a "make do" solution I put together from gear I'd already been using for several years and with £0 new investment. Given poor Mac support in the data logger market, such a system is surely a good way to experiment on the cheap before shelling out on yet more battery-operated gadgetry.
A DIY photo tracking kit
A Nikon D70
I shoot in raw, meaning my D70 saves images in Nikon's NEF format. Although finding Mac OS X software that can write geo-location data to EXIF in raw is not difficult, getting that data in the first place is somewhat more involved. The D70 is neutered when it comes to support for on-camera fully automated geotagging (I'm still not entirely clear whether this is a physical hot shoe issue, or a firmware deficiency—anyone?) The upshot is that my only choice, other than the tiresome manual method, is automatic geotagging using a standalone data logger (aka photo tracker).
A Navman 4470
"But why do you need another GPS?", my wife justly asked. Indeed I do have a GPS device equipped with Bluetooth, the Navman 4470, which I use for in-car navigation. Navman make great hardware; it's just a shame about the software and support. The 4470 seems pretty reliable on-road (especially with TomTom software!) and off-road when geocaching, and takes 3 AAA batteries that are good for around 30 hours of active use.
While I can pair the Navman to my Mac (despite Navman saying it can't be done), it is readily paired with my decidedly more portable Palm (for geocaching) or Pocket PC (for in-car navigation). The problem, of course, is that the 4470 like most personal navigation units has no track log recording function, and like many compact standalone GPS receivers no built-in storage in which to keep them. If it was going to serve as a data logger, I was going to need to add track log recording and memory by pairing it to another portable gadget.
A Palm T3
Despite the slow death of the neglected Palm platform I'm still dependent on my obsolete T3, tempted to jump ship to the iPhone but held back by the lack of basic PDA functionality. The recent release of the iPhone SDK and the promised v2.0 software update means I can look forward to a Palm-free future—at least in terms of calendar/ contacts/ to-do lists, etc. But that doesn't mean I'll be decommissioning my T3.
My geocaching software of choice is Palm-only (see below). With Bluetooth on, however, the Palm has pretty limited battery life, but it's good enough for several kilometres of walking. The Palm can send any file on the device to my Mac via Bluetooth (I use FileZ), or I can mount the inserted 1GB SD card via Missing Sync, or directly via an SD card reader (although I love my SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus).
So we've established that the Navman GPS can connect to the Palm T3 via Bluetooth, and that the T3 can connect to the Mac via Bluetooth or USB. All we need now is the right software to make this work.
Geocaching software
While the Palm also provides storage, it's really the software that turns the Navman unit into a GPS data logger. I use GeoNiche for geocaching, a very capable and well-designed application by RayDar LLC.
In preparation for geocaching I would download the targets I wanted to seek as .loc waypoints from Geocaching.com, load them onto the Palm after conversion to .pdb, and then navigate to the targets in order of "nearest first". I had also used GeoNiche to create targets (as you sometimes need to do when solving geocaching puzzles), but that's basically all I did with it. It does much more.
Routes = track logs
When I looked into geotagging photos something made be take a fresh look at GeoNiche and I was surprised to discover I could also record track logs and export those to GPX format. The logs are called routes in GeoNiche lingo—although as previously discussed in photo geotagging circles a route is an ordered set of waypoints, as distinct from a regular-interval track log. The difference here is moot.
The button at the lower right on the navigation screen activates recording:
You can give each route/ track log it's own named file and share it in GPX format with or without any associated targets:
The track log can be sent to the Mac via Bluetooth (shown) or USB:
Targets = waypoints
Since GeoNiche can also manually save new "targets", I can create "waypoints" for manual geo-location in geotagging software:
Waypoints (targets) can be sent individually or collectively to the Mac via Bluetooth, or accessed in dated directories by mounting the SD card in the Finder (shown):
Reading logs under OS X
See my ABC of geotagging photos on the Mac here.
Is this really a solution?
Dave Wild puts it this way:
...the GPS unit I had was meant for navigational use, it's very good at that, but it's not the sort of thing you can just drop into your camera bag and forget about. It has a screen that draws power and it was produced at a time when the technology available meant that you really needed a good clean unobstructed view of the sky for it to function properly... GPS technology has moved on and I expect that newer versions are far more sensitive than my old model.
That may be so, and although my set-up seems reliable I agree with Dave that it's not a "drop and forget" and certainly not a "plug and play" solution. Nevertheless the ability to give geotagging my photos a spin without spending any money has definite appeal to the Scottish part of my genome. If only there was a Mac-compatible data logger available that ticked all the boxes...
Update 08.04.08: Event_Logger adds track logging capabilities to many TomTom in-car GPS units.
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This looks like a promising solution. I saw it get picked up on dpreview.com during the PMA2008 show recently.
Doesn't look like it's been released yet, but being able to just pop your memory card in to the GPS data logger after you've taken photos and have it add the location data without the need to use any kind of computer at all seems quite smart.
Finally two objects I can relate to: a Nikon D70 and a Palm-device!
Nevertheless I keep lagging bind without a GPS-device.
However, these are interesting post(s) to keep in mind for a (near) future, Bruce.
@ Dave: Yes I saw that too, even added it to my "Product watch" bookmark category which I use to track things I might consider purchasing. However, 8 hrs isn't much in the way of battery life, and it only geotags JPEG (not .NEF). It does have a time display 'tho, "a feature designed to help nip geotagging time zone complications in the bud." which is attractive.
@ BOK: Hey, long time no hear Henk! Yes my blog has been a bit more mumbo-jumbo lately (jQuery, Wordpress-related minutiae, etc.) ... a side effect of my having all this spare time to crack problems and learn new things while waiting for my new career plans to take shape. How 'bout you do a "What's on my Palm" post and I'll match it, just to lighten the mood ;-)
You sure know how to keep your readers hooked to your blog, Bruce! :-P
But I hardly use my Palm T|X these days, besides for reading my email in the early morning. It's good to NOT boot a PC or Mac for this simple task.
The question should me bore like: "What's on your jailbroken iPhone / iPod Touch these days?" instead. And indeed: Mail.app in the iSeries is only a half-backed product compared to what it is on the Mac. Hence my choice for VersaMail on Palm at daybreak...
I sold my Palm V on eBay.
I think they missed the boat a bit...
Oh Palm ... the long forgotten one. There is still one in a drawer here somewhere. We had two Palm VX with GPS companions. Boy was that software a nightmare, loading every town & county individually and you only had so many MB of on board storage. The thought to try to log with the Vx & companion GPS comes to my head, but then there's the 4 hour battery life of the combo ... that won't work.
Anyhow. Very cool stuff, Bruce.
Thinking about the phototrackr lite made me wonder as well if I could use an existing GPS. In my case I could get 50+GB of logging data. Pretty exciting if it weren't that I would have to (re-) supply power to the OQO. Maybe I should try it and see how long it can run with the display off. Just for kicks.
The ATP product is certainly interesting. Automatic tagging with SiRFstar III and display. I do however prefer AA over AAA batteries, and it would be challenge to fit a compact flash card in there, so compatibility with larger dSLRs is out, I think. Still, with a good price point I would get it. The phototrackr lite is on hold.
(my gravatar is missing?)
PS: on the CF card & ATP photofinder. Maybe it will work using a USB card dongle, as it does on the flyer say they're compatible with compact flash 4 and there's an image in step 4 that lists card reader among ms sd mmc dsc.
That syncing without computer could be really sweet. Grab the cards from the cameras and sync away.
Gravatar have screwed up icerabit, with black background JPEGs replacing alpha-transparent PNGs. Apparently they didn't appreciate that PNG is an image format. Gravatars are cached on this site, so changes @ Gravatar may be time-delayed here.
Thx Bruce. I was aware of the black background issue. Just wasn't sure why it is be missing today, coincidentally on your blog. Did have a brief posting issue too, when I tried to reply a second time. No idea what that was about. Will email you the screenshot.
A week has gone by and ATP Sales has not replied to my request for some additional info on their product. Not good.
Reviews aren't as positive as I had hoped. v1 growing pains?
But sadly typical. I e-mailed Holux UK a couple of weeks ago and was ignored, and this has been my pre-purchasing experience with numerous other companies. Most of the world doesn't understand the concept of customer service, as I understand it to be practiced in the US (although I'm sure there are exceptions there too).
Hello,
I have been using a HP Travel companion with built in GPS receiver.
I record the tracks using simple program called GPXlogger. It has been written for the MIO GPS enabled PDA but works fine on the HP Travel companion. Here is a link to the download page. It is all in Japanese, but should be pretty easy to download the file. Be careful that you need to also install .Net Compact Framework 2.0!!!
I am also using a mac, so after I save the .gpx file, I then copy them to my mac and then geotag the pictures using gpsphotolinker.
here is an example. Sorry if it is in Italian!!!
Hope it helps
Ciao
Marco
@Marco: Seems like a fine solution, since you only need the one device and can move the GPX file to the Mac for processing. What sort of battery life do you get? Just curious!
Well my girlfriend went around Ise city in Mie prefecture with the gps going for about 3 hours continuos use and still had more than half of the battery available.
I have just reformatted the HP Travel Companion to make a clean reinstall (last one was more than 6 months ago), if you want I can test it around the city and send you a gpx log file. Just for the fun of it.
3 hours 'till half battery is not bad Marco (allowing for half-day hikes); unlike my solution you are not relying on Bluetooth being active for connectivity, so the drain on the battery may be less (although it is of course powering the GPS receiver, which is not the case with my Palm).
As for the theory that devices designed for in-car navigation might be less accurate than dedicated photo trackers, don't believe it: I compared my old Navman to my new Holux and the Navman was the more accurate!
I agree, it has a good battery life.
The main drawback was finding all the programs to make the setup work.
Especially since I am using mac.
I was also thinking of getting a dedicated photo tracker, but then decided to go for this all in one solution, that allows my girlfriend to watch movies during the return trip on the train.
Ciao
Marco