Tracking pictures

Antonio Correia · February 6, 2007

When I travel I always have a problem:
To know where I shoot photo number x, y, etc.

I am too lazy to write down where I am at the time of shooting.

In March we are going to India as you already know. I will be carrying a GPS and, later at home, I will "melt" this data with the exif of the photos.
This will place a yellow ballon in the map of my site.

This can be an issue, but it is not complete: I will not be able to say exactly if it is in the Church 1 or 2 of the city X.

We can't have everything in life, but we can try.
It's like learning. There are much more to learn that we already know...

Any tips ? Please ? ...

Art Scott · February 6, 2007

Which GPS unit will you be using???

Just be sure to get the accessory cable for downloading to you computer...same cable can be used to download from the GPS mfg'ers site for upgrades and various maps.

A digital tape recorder is also handy so that you can quickly keep notes...much faster than trying to dig out a pen (pencil) and paper.....

There have been a few discussions here about software which will attach your gps locations to the picture....this is done thru time stamps and the software will attach to the nearest photo time stamp........

Be sure to keep plenty of rechargable batteries for the gps and digital recoder...the one I use cost around $30 US and can recode like 7 hours of notes in the slowest mode (like your old vhs recorders....these digital recorders have 2 or 3 recording modes...LP SP and slp...).....they are very light weight and about the size of or smaller than most cellphones...

When I was in the Czech Republic I took extensive notes on where each pic or group of pics was taken....using permanent ink (Ultra Fine Sharpie) and I got into a small rainstorm and the not book got drenched and all the black ink turned various shades of purple and blue and into vary abstract runs forming strange images...I got home to with absolutely no notes to around 600 photos...some I will always remember where I was (Prague, Janske Lazneand a couple of other towns)...but I also had hiking directions to places where batteries died on me or I ran out of film....hopefully this will not happen again as I will have at least 100gb of CF cards and 1 or 2 digital recodiers and tons of rechargable batteries for all equipment and my chargers will work on 60 and 50cycle electricity....

EDIT: I have the yellow Etrex....this was the 1st etrex and is still in production....I have wanted this cable....Garmin 010-10206-00, for quite some time ..however could not find it locally and to order directly from Garmin, I would have to pay full list: approx $45 US + state sales tax+ shipping...finally after much internet searching I found it for just under $14 (incl. ship and insurance) ON EBAY from this dealer: http://stores.ebay.com/FIS4HER-COM

Jeffro · February 6, 2007

Antonio Correia wrote:

Any tips ? Please ? ...

Bummer....I was expecting photo's of a journey....I'll be expecting some Antonio!

Antonio Correia · February 6, 2007

Dear fellows photographers.
Thank you very much for your answers.

The idea of having a small tape recorder is good. But it's another equipmen to carry around, to take care with all those battery problems, etc..

May be a photo in JPG as reference and before shooting RAW can be an issue...
It's very practical. If a sight is available. If it is not, better shoot the travel program

:D

I will be shooting with 2 cams: a 20D with 16-35 and a 350D with the magnificent. The 24-70 will stay home for the sake of my backs.

I'll have to reset the counter on the 350 D for example in order to - at downloading to the computer - select the pictures by date and give them a chronological sequence.

And Jeffro: I am preparing a modest Travel Journey to post !
(with all my English limitations !

)

Regards.

ian408 · February 6, 2007

Here you go. Have a look at this.

Nikolai · February 7, 2007

Voice recorder

Antonio Correia wrote:

The idea of having a small tape recorder is good. But it's another equipmen to carry around, to take care with all those battery problems, etc..

You don't have to use tape recorder per se. Voice recorder! Any decent MP3 player nowadays has this feature. Some of them even serve as the photo backup devices. So, get one of those 40..80Gb version, load some of your favorite music for the trip and simply leave some space for your pictures and voice records (you can always delete some music during the trip if you run out of space)

Pros:

you can listen to your music
you can back up your cards immediately
you can make voice notes instantly

Cons:

need some $ to buy it, but you do need mpr3 player, phot backup and voice recorder anyway...

HTH

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

Thank you Ian !

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

Hi Nikolai

That is a good point Nikolai.
I will manage other way because I have already 2 back ups for the pictures...

Most probably I will move temporarelly to JPG (or not) to shoot a name and go back to RAW. That is if any sight is available.

If it is not I'll have to photograph my own travel guiding papers...

Thank you. It was help and useful info.

claudermilk · February 7, 2007

It seems the low-tech solution of taking a reference photo of a sign, or your map first would be the easiest. I did that on vacatiaon a few years ago while touring the national parks in Utah. The reference shots of the location signs helped a lot later on.

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

claudermilk wrote:

It seems the low-tech solution of taking a reference photo of a sign, or your map first would be the easiest. I did that on vacatiaon a few years ago while touring the national parks in Utah. The reference shots of the location signs helped a lot later on.

Thank you.
The principle is the KISS: Keep It Simple and Short

My GPS is a Magellan 400.

Nikolai · February 7, 2007

Antonio,

Antonio Correia wrote:

Most probably I will move temporarelly to JPG (or not) to shoot a name and go back to RAW. That is if any sight is available.

In this case you may like this: as you aware, canon keeps TWO different sets of files resolutions: one for "green and scene" and another for "pro" (P and above towards manual). You can set your "green" settings to the lowest quality jpeg possible, and keep your "pro" mode as RAW. In this case quick trip to green zone will let you shoot any "meta" image at low-res, and going back to where you were will restore your working settings..

HTH

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

Nikolai wrote:

In this case you may like this: as you aware, canon keeps TWO different sets of files resolutions: one for "green and scene" and another for "pro" (P and above towards manual). You can set your "green" settings to the lowest quality
jpeg
possible, and keep your "pro" mode as RAW. In this case quick trip to green zone will let you shoot any "meta" image at low-res, and going back to where you were will restore your working settings..

HTH

You never stop to amaze me/us !
Supperb tip !

Nikolai · February 7, 2007

Antonio,

Antonio Correia wrote:

You never stop to amaze me/us !
Superb tip !

Found it by accident (almost cost me a whole shoot :bash), and then DavidTO mentioned that he's using "green" mode as a "quick way to shoot jpeg only". So I kinda remembered this one..

Gald you found it useful!

ballentphoto · February 7, 2007

Nikolai wrote:

Found it by accident (almost cost me a whole shoot :bash), and then DavidTO mentioned that he's using "green" mode as a "quick way to shoot jpeg only". So I kinda remembered this one..
Gald you found it useful!

Can't you just connect the GPS to the camera???? I know that the Nikon D200 ( and the higher models as well) has the capacity to do this.... Every shot has the GPS location embedded in it.

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

ballentphoto wrote:

Can't you just connect the GPS to the camera???? I know that the Nikon D200 ( and the higher models as well) has the capacity to do this.... Every shot has the GPS location embedded in it.

I'm afraid that such a feature is not available in Canon equipment. A shame.

Nikolai · February 7, 2007

Michael,

ballentphoto wrote:

Can't you just connect the GPS to the camera???? I know that the Nikon D200 ( and the higher models as well) has the capacity to do this.... Every shot has the GPS location embedded in it.

AFAIK, there is no easy (= relatively inexpensive) way to do it. This is one of the (few) areas where N is clearly ahead of C:-)

There are various GPS tracking devices you can use in the post, some of them even photo-oriented (Sony), but unfortunately Canon was dragging its feet in this game

Art Scott · February 7, 2007

ballentphoto wrote:

Can't you just connect the GPS to the camera???? I know that the Nikon D200 ( and the higher models as well) has the capacity to do this.... Every shot has the GPS location embedded in it.

So do you to press the enter button to create a waypoint on the gps to get it to record to the camera exif data for each photo??

that is something nikon left out of its D200 literature.

ballentphoto · February 7, 2007

Art Scott wrote:

So do you to press the enter button to create a waypoint on the gps to get it to record to the camera exif data for each photo??

that is something nikon left out of its D200 literature.

You physically connect the GPS to the camera and as you take pictures the GPS is feeding the data into the camera and the camera adds the information into the EXIF on the fly for each shot. It's automated, and requires a special cable that connects both units. Some people have modified it so that the connection is done via Bluetooth so they carry the gps in the pocket and it's transmitting the data to the camera over the air. Is Nikon the only company that has this functionality?

Antonio Correia · February 7, 2007

ballentphoto wrote:

You physically connect the GPS to the camera and as you take pictures the GPS is feeding the data into the camera and the camera adds the information into the EXIF on the fly for each shot. It's automated, and requires a special cable that connects both units. Some people have modified it so that the connection is done via Bluetooth so they carry the gps in the pocket and it's transmitting the data to the camera over the air. Is Nikon the only company that has this functionality?

Very good feature !

Nikolai · February 7, 2007

Not only

ballentphoto wrote:

Is Nikon the only company that has this functionality?

Nikon, Sony, Kodak, Ricoh just joined the club(Jan 17 2007)...

I do hope 40D comes with the one built-in or at least with a nice optional accessory (compatible with other existing digital EOS models) that would not require a mile of cables and half-a-ton battery to run it.

But that's just my wishful thinking...

Spagbag · February 8, 2007

Nikolai wrote:

In this case you may like this: as you aware, canon keeps TWO different sets of files resolutions: one for "green and scene" and another for "pro" (P and above towards manual). You can set your "green" settings to the lowest quality jpeg possible, and keep your "pro" mode as RAW. In this case quick trip to green zone will let you shoot any "meta" image at low-res, and going back to where you were will restore your working settings..

HTH

This is a really useful tip (probably obvious to many, but not to me) - thank you.

Nikolai · February 8, 2007

Spagbag,

Spagbag wrote:

This is a really useful tip (probably obvious to many, but not to me) - thank you.

You're welcome, glad to be of help!

Antonio Correia · February 8, 2007

Nikolai wrote:

You're welcome, glad to be of help!

Nikolai,

I think Spagbag didn't understand about your brilliant idea.

Am I wrong or am I misunderstanding what he wrote ?

Spagbag will tell us at the right time.

Art Scott · February 9, 2007

ballentphoto wrote:

You physically connect the GPS to the camera and as you take pictures the GPS is feeding the data into the camera and the camera adds the information into the EXIF on the fly for each shot. It's automated, and requires a special cable that connects both units. Some people have modified it so that the connection is done via Bluetooth so they carry the gps in the pocket and it's transmitting the data to the camera over the air. Is Nikon the only company that has this functionality?

thank you for clairifying this....I had thought that even tho it was connect by special cable that you might still have to physically enter a waypoint into the gps....so this takes info off of the tracking/ route side of the gps...

Yes at this time Nikon is the only with this feature......however there are softwares for the pc user to link photos: ROBOGEO, OZIEXPLORER/OZIPHOTO(TAKES BOTH) AND WWMX (WORLD WIDE MEADIA EXCHANGE) takes four different small downloads.....

cabbey · February 14, 2007

The real question here I think is more along the lines of: "the GPS says I was standing in the middle of such-and-such square. The overcast prevents any sunlight hints as to what direction I'm facing... which famous house on the edge of that square is this a picture of?" Personally, I've done the take a picture of the guidebook thing a couple times... just to solve that mystery later. And a trip into the "green zone" to shoot it will certainly save some flash space.

Tracking pictures

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