PMA 2008: ATP’s GPS PhotoFinder

[DPNow]

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New Photo GPS device records positions and directly tags image files

More... (http://dpnow.com/4660.html)

[Stephen]

If I understand this correctly then, you take a picture at a location then take the SD card out of the camera and put it in this gadget. The GPS data is then embedded into the file. Not sure how it knows which file to apply the data to but I guess I'm just thick :)

What I really wonder about is how much the average shooter will ever need the data. Is it a case of thinking up applications for the facility. I mean there must be more to it than putting yer snaps on Google earth :)

[devilgas]

what i understand is that the gps receiver keeps a log of where it's been every second (or whatever the interval is set to). you then plug your memory card in. the device reads the exif data, susses when the photo was taken, correlates that to its own log and updates the exif of the file with the relevant gps co-ords.

'spose it saves recording the info onto a map (i'm thinking good corners for rallies etc), but then you've still got to navigate back to that point if you ever want to shoot from there again.
i guess it could be useful if you do a lot of travelling and need to know where a particular photo was taken and hadn't made any other notes at the time.
personally, i'll stick with my take-a-shot-of-the-place-name if it won't be immediately recognisable / memorable.

[Ian]

what i understand is that the gps receiver keeps a log of where it's been every second (or whatever the interval is set to). you then plug your memory card in. the device reads the exif data, susses when the photo was taken, correlates that to its own log and updates the exif of the file with the relevant gps co-ords.

'spose it saves recording the info onto a map (i'm thinking good corners for rallies etc), but then you've still got to navigate back to that point if you ever want to shoot from there again.
i guess it could be useful if you do a lot of travelling and need to know where a particular photo was taken and hadn't made any other notes at the time.
personally, i'll stick with my take-a-shot-of-the-place-name if it won't be immediately recognisable / memorable.

That's about right :)

It does require that the GPS and camera clocks are synchronised accurately as this the only way that the GPS can match where the picture was taken. The ATP device has a small LCD display to help you sync the clocks.

There is a dedicated XMP-compatible set of image metadata fields for GPS data. Not only can it record the geographical coordinates, but altitude, speed (!), direction, and a whole lot more obscure information :)

Previously, with a Sony device I have here - for example, the GPS data had to be managed by software on your computer. The ATP device does it by itself. SD cards are supported in the device, but you can attach a standard memory card reader via a USB port on the device to sync images on most kinds of card. It will only work with images that have compatible metadata (IPTC/XMP) so that usually rules out RAW files. So that's another good reason for shooting RAW and JPEG simultaneously.

Alternatively, you can sync JPEGs from your RAW files later.

Ian

Ian

[Stephen]

You see I knew it was all very simple really :rolleyes:

[19ninety]

I like the idea of this, in a way.
Personally I was looking to get a cheap GPS device to log co-ordinates places I've been. Or somthing along those lines, as I always see places/things I wanna go back and photograph when I dont have a camera with me.