English | 中文 | Русский | Français

2,557 Posts served

8,273 Conversations started

Photo Management Wish List – Geo Tags!

By Dale Taylor (Intel) (58 posts) on January 11, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Geo-tags for images are nicely defined and great to have associated with your images. The only problem is that getting the GEO information into the images is not automated yet. There are many clumsy solutions; I would prefer to see an integrated automated setup.

Here’s an overview of the types of solutions out there now.

You can plug a GPS into your camera. My Nikon D300 supports an external GPS that feeds the camera an NMEA feed which is then attached to the images as they are shot. This requires a cord and a tethered active GPS. Nikon supplies the cord via an MC-35 adapter but you still have to worry about batteries for the GPS and getting one that is compatible.
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-MC-35-Adapter-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0009GYNZ8

You can buy a GPS device to carry around with you, and then after you shoot, you can run software that will sync your images with the track log that the GPS kept. This requires careful coordination of the dates and times between the GPS and the camera. This also requires you to keep your GPS on and powered up, tracking as you go. I have tried this solution and due to syncing difficulties returned the device (It didn’t support the Nikon D300). It might work for your camera and has a reasonable price.
http://photofinder.atpinc.com/index.html

There are methods were you add a location after the fact. Probably the easiest method currently available is provided by Flickr. It isn’t automated, but works well. Once your image is uploaded, you go to a map page, move around, zoom in and out etc and finally place a “pin” where you took the image. Flickr then associates this location with your image though it isn’t added to the EXIF portion of the file which would be a nice addition. One benefit is you can produce maps showing where the images in your Flickr stream were taken, such as the one below.

Flickr Map View

While all of these methods work, they are clumsy and thus rarely used. MIDs on the other hand include a GPS that gets a location quickly and is very simple to use. When taking pictures with your MID, because all of the hardware is there the software can automate the process and Geo-tag the images with little to no input from the user. This is really the way to go and I’m glad to see MIDs including this functionality and taking digital photography to the next level.

I hope to see the camera manufacturers add integrated GPS functionality to the SLR style cameras I enjoy using.

*** Update I found a solution I enjoy and wrote about it here:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/01/21/photo-management-geo-tags-update/

Categories: Cool Software, Mobility, Uncategorized

Comments (4)

January 11, 2009 5:31 PM PST Josh Bancroft

Both Picasa 3 and iPhoto 09, probably the most popular non-pro photo management apps out there, support geotagging, either by manually dragging to a map, or by GPS embedded EXIF data.

January 11, 2009 10:06 PM PST Dale Taylor (Intel) Total Points: 7,694 Status Points: 7,194 Brown Belt

Josh, My focus here is on how to get the geo-tag information into your files. I'll have to look at Picasa and see that as it wasn't there when I used Picasa 2 last. In a future blog I'll discuss how the various popular photo applications use the geo tag information once you have it in your images. Thanks for the comment.

July 5, 2009 12:33 PM PDT ahmed abd almajed

kfjgbvl

July 5, 2009 12:33 PM PDT ahmed abd almajed

kfjgbvl

Trackbacks (0)

Leave a comment