Because there is a difference…

Since having iPhoto ’09, my interest in geotagging images has been revived. I am now victim of this new obsession of getting GPS location embedded in my vacation images. Why? no real reason, just the “Cool” factor, and the fact that it is afterall not that difficult to do. It is not difficult but it can get expensive and you can easily get carried away into spending hundreds of dollars in cool gadgets that can do just about as much as I will explain below.

I didn’t want to spend any money. well I did, but I didn’t. If you see what I mean. I already have access to a bluetooth GPS, the Holux GPSlim240. The challenge was to record the tracks and embed the GPS data into my jpeg files before publishing. I looked at various options. There are many GPS track recorders available, including the brand new Nikon GP-1 unit that plugs into the camera, and eliminates the 3 step method that I am about to explain.

Here’s how I do it, for now.

Step 1:
Gear to record the tracks:
Holus GPSlim 240 BT receiver
Nokia Cellular phone that supports Java and has Bluetooth
This awesome little application: Mobile TrailExplorer (Java) installed on the Nokia (I have tested this on the Nokia 6555 and 6300 with success)

The Holux GPSlim240 is pretty good at locking on to the birds (satellites), 30 to 40 seconds cold start, and around 15 seconds on a hot start (meaning you already used it that day and you are turning it on again, in or around the same location) since it remembers the last position and locks into the same satellites.

Synchronize all your clocks – Camera, Computer and Phone. Since the closer the time, the easier it will be to accurately geolocate your images on google maps.

Step 2:
Head out for your hike/drive/walk etc, turn on the Holux, start the app on the phone and hit record. At this point you can throw it in a backpack and let it run as long as you have to (battery life permitting – the phone and holux have shown very good battery life so far)

Step 2B: Take pictures (important)

Step 3:
Get home, download the gpx or kml tracks to your computer. This can be done via bluetooth file transfer, or if you are saving on a flash card, retrieve the files from there.

Download the photos from your camera.

I use GPSphotolinker to load the gpx track and the images, and then I let this software do it’s magic in embedding the position into the images, based on the time frames. GPSPhotolinker also allows you to offset the time if you have to.

You can use the KML file if you want to geotag your photos in google earth. or you can use the freshly updated images in iphoto ’09 and use the nifty “places” feature to view everything on a google map.

This is how I manage to get geotagged images for now, until I can justify a Nikon GP-1 or Geometr’ unit that will save me the small hassle of semi-automatically tagging the images. Although it takes a bit of extra time, I don’t find it too much work to add this extra step in my vacation photo workflow. Of course, for the other photo assignments, this step is skipped altogether as client photos don’t have to be geotagged.

Hope this helps a bit for those of you who want to get started, but don’t want to put a lot of $dollars into this highly addictive activity.

I will be posting some examples of this process soon.