Geotaging W/ 1D MIIN

[Norman Pyett]

I will be taking a trip to ecuador soon, and would like to know the best way to use GPS taging wiyh my system. Do antone have any ideas as to which would work best?
Norm

[Phil Colla]

I carry a Garmin 60csx handheld GPS with me when I shoot. It stores coordinates every 10 seconds or so to a 4 GB card, which I download to my PC along with my RAW files. I then use GPicSync (free software) to sync the coordinates from the GPS data into the EXIF header data of my raw files. From that point on, the coordinates (lat, long, altitude) are part of the image data and travel with the image, all the way to my web site where they show up as links to Google Earth. For example of how the coordinates appear with the shot, see here: http://www.oceanlight.com/spotlight.php?img=20700.

Further comments:
We have started carrying a pocket GPS with us when shooting photos, and leave it on for the duration of the trip. As a result we can display images on Google Earth complete with thumbnails of each image shown at the location it was taken, along with a link to a larger version of the shot. Here are a couple links that show what is possible. Note, there is no single piece of software that will assemble the entire thing, you need to do it in steps as part of your existing photo processing workflow. I had to write some custom software to manage some of it but now it is automated for all future shoots. If you have questions, feel free to contact me. You will need Google Earth installed on your machine for these links to work as intended.

Tracks Only
Photos Only
Track and Photos Overlayed

One of the little programs I wrote will take a group of .GPX files (created with your GPS unit and transferred to your computer) into a single Google Earth file (*.kml) with each track (e.g., each day of your trip) displayed in a different color. Click the "tracks only" link above to see what I mean. If you would like a copy, shoot me an email. For Windows computers only, it is a "command line" program, no guarantees!

[Simon Bennett]

I use a Sony GPS CS-1 in combination with Breeze Downloader Pro see http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm for seamless geocoding of images.