Geo-Tagging
First observations: AMOD GPS tracker
02/Mai/09 04:32 Filed in: Hardware
In my last post I talked about the GPS tracker I bought recently. By now I have had the chance to take it out on three trips 
So I have definitely had time to test it.
The device takes three AAA batteries for tagging your location for 15 hours, so it is best to buy some rechargable batteries for it. After you put the batteries in, you just need to push the button to power it on and you are ready to go! So very easy. The only downside: the device takes several minutes to find your location initially, so if you want to tag all photos, be sure to turn it on a few minutes in advance.
The AMOD came with a little band so you can clip the tracker to your belt or to a bag. I clipped it onto a belt loop when i went out. It’s neither heavy nor big enough to get in the way, which is a plus.
Once you have turned it on, you can basically forget about it. It has three lights on the front to show you that it is turned on and working and also to let you know if the signal is not strong enough (which can happen inside) or the memory of the AMOD is full. It has 128MB memory, which does not sound like much but is enough for 72 hours of tracking data! You can increase that timeframe by letting it only record your location every 5 or 10 seconds instead of every second.
it gets a bit more complicated once you are back home from your photo trip: the AMOD comes with a software you can use to embed the GPS data into your images but I haven’t tried that software yet. What I have been doing is the following: I import my photos into Aperture like normal and then use Ovolab Geophoto to match the photos to the GPS track, which is pretty easy. The AMOD records the time on GMT, so you just need to tell it the time zone your camera uses and any time your photo is off from the „official“ time (mine is off by 29 seconds). Then I just need to hit a button to embed the longitude and latitude in the EXIF of my RAW file and simply update the EXIF in Aperture. And voilá, my photos have GPS locations
I only checked the locations on a few photos from my first try and they were off by a few meters but that could be due to the device not being calibrated (which also just takes the push of a button) or my reading the time difference from my camera wrong.
Overall, I really, really like the device and how relatively easy it is to embed the data. Of course, it adds some extra steps to my workflow but the way I have set it up currently, I could add the locations any time after importing, it is not the first thing I have to do and I can go back and add locations for edited versions of photos (e.g., HDRs or Panoramas). Definitely a great option till I get a camera and/or memory card with a GPS chip embedded.
So I have definitely had time to test it.The device takes three AAA batteries for tagging your location for 15 hours, so it is best to buy some rechargable batteries for it. After you put the batteries in, you just need to push the button to power it on and you are ready to go! So very easy. The only downside: the device takes several minutes to find your location initially, so if you want to tag all photos, be sure to turn it on a few minutes in advance.
The AMOD came with a little band so you can clip the tracker to your belt or to a bag. I clipped it onto a belt loop when i went out. It’s neither heavy nor big enough to get in the way, which is a plus.
Once you have turned it on, you can basically forget about it. It has three lights on the front to show you that it is turned on and working and also to let you know if the signal is not strong enough (which can happen inside) or the memory of the AMOD is full. It has 128MB memory, which does not sound like much but is enough for 72 hours of tracking data! You can increase that timeframe by letting it only record your location every 5 or 10 seconds instead of every second.
it gets a bit more complicated once you are back home from your photo trip: the AMOD comes with a software you can use to embed the GPS data into your images but I haven’t tried that software yet. What I have been doing is the following: I import my photos into Aperture like normal and then use Ovolab Geophoto to match the photos to the GPS track, which is pretty easy. The AMOD records the time on GMT, so you just need to tell it the time zone your camera uses and any time your photo is off from the „official“ time (mine is off by 29 seconds). Then I just need to hit a button to embed the longitude and latitude in the EXIF of my RAW file and simply update the EXIF in Aperture. And voilá, my photos have GPS locations
I only checked the locations on a few photos from my first try and they were off by a few meters but that could be due to the device not being calibrated (which also just takes the push of a button) or my reading the time difference from my camera wrong.
Overall, I really, really like the device and how relatively easy it is to embed the data. Of course, it adds some extra steps to my workflow but the way I have set it up currently, I could add the locations any time after importing, it is not the first thing I have to do and I can go back and add locations for edited versions of photos (e.g., HDRs or Panoramas). Definitely a great option till I get a camera and/or memory card with a GPS chip embedded.
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Where was I or My search for a GPS device
10/Apr/09 04:52 Filed in: Hardware
A trend in photography has been to add the GPS data to photos - be it on Flickr or in the newest version of iPhoto. Until recently I did my Geo-Tagging only for parts of my photos on Flickr (using Flickr Export for Aperture and Google Earth) but then I did a roadtrip, taking me to five different US states, with lots of photos in every city we visited and even more photos on the road. I know which photos were taken in which city but it would be cool to also know the street/actual location. It would be even more great for the pictures taken on the road... but like most cameras, mine does not have a GPS chip in it but I knew that there were external options, so I decided to take a first look at prices. When I was in Germany over Christmas someone showed me their Jobo photoGPS tracker, which gets attached to the flash mount but uses its own batteries and still forces you to use a software to attach the GPS data to your photos. When I looked up the price, I decided against any immediate purchases... Then a few weeks back, Scott Kelby posted a review of the Jobo photoGPS on his Photoshop Insider blog. That one brought me even further away from buying it - but he recommended another option, the di-GPS, which I found relatively easily on the Internet. Then Macworld posted an article on Geo-Tagging your photos, listing a whole bunch of options, including a small device (Gisteq PhotoTrackr) you can put into your backpack/bag and then use with a software to add the GPS data to your Metatags. I thought about going with that one but then I saw on their website that their Mac software does not allow you to embed the GPS data into RAW files - and lets be honest, that is the main thing I want to do... before I found that, I saw on amazon that there is another, similar device (Amod AGL3080 GPS DataLogger) that will work with both Mac and Windows since it saves the GPS data in a standard open-source format, so that you only need a software that can read this file format. Since it was also cheaper than the other options, I decided to buy this one.
I received it on Friday and can’t wait to try it out. But the main thing I wanted to say with this article is: Read very careful before buying a GPS tracker to see that it actually does what you need it to. Important criteria might be that it can write the GPS to the existing metadata (and does not create its own sidecart file or overwrites your metadata) in your most used format (jpg will work almost always but be sure to check for your RAW-File type before buying!) and what kind of power it needs and how/if it needs to be connected to your camera. Also, if you need to use their software and how easy it is to get the files back to your photo app/organizing system.
I received it on Friday and can’t wait to try it out. But the main thing I wanted to say with this article is: Read very careful before buying a GPS tracker to see that it actually does what you need it to. Important criteria might be that it can write the GPS to the existing metadata (and does not create its own sidecart file or overwrites your metadata) in your most used format (jpg will work almost always but be sure to check for your RAW-File type before buying!) and what kind of power it needs and how/if it needs to be connected to your camera. Also, if you need to use their software and how easy it is to get the files back to your photo app/organizing system.