GeoTagging

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Comment by Randall Sherman on February 6, 2010 at 7:35am

Hi! Thanks for your question. I haven't. But then, I don't connect the GPS to the camera. Rather, I just carry the GPS in my shirt pocket and at day's end I down load the GPS track file at the same time I download the image files (remember to backup the track file too). Then, I use a program like GeoSetter to compute and write the geotag (Lat/Long) into the EXIF file. I believe this is a better, simpler and more flexible way to add geotag information. If you try it but still have questions feel free to ask them here.

Comment by Randall Sherman on January 3, 2010 at 1:56pm

To everyone that has joined this group -- thank you! If I failed to extend a personal welcome excuse me -- must have missed it when you joined!
Because this group is small I can give lots of personal attention so if you have any questions about geo-tagging, just ask. It is sometimes a bumpy road but it is fun to see your photos eventually mapped at GoogleEarth! There is no better way to get your neighborhood noticed worldwide so map photos of your local area as well as your trips to famous places!

Comment by Randall Sherman on December 28, 2009 at 7:58am

Yes! It is an unfortunate fact of life that software developers other than Adobe are reluctant to devote time and resources to a niche product like the Mac. It isn't just geotagging but many other areas you can't do on a Mac as well. I was chatting about this with a photographer friend yesterday and he said running windows on the Mac works for him. If you don't want to do that, I suggest you try the LightRoom plugin for geotagging -- the main thing you need to learn there is to be sure you set "write metadata to file" into every catalog's preferences. Then after running the plugin, be sure to select all and write metadata to file again -- to put the lat & long into the exif data. Let me know which approach you take -- I can be more specific where you hit bumps. After you have reached the goal of a few pics accepted for GoogleEarth a few times, this will all become routine -- it is just the first few times the steps seem so mysterious!

Comment by John Daly on December 28, 2009 at 2:32am

Randall,

I am so new to this some of what you wrote makes sense and some i still have to learn.
One question I have is that I use a MacBookPro and I have heard that you have to download some software for Mac in order to use the GPS. Do you know anything about this?
I have not installed the Trip and Waypoint Manager CD as it wanted to open in PC mode and I don't want to go there, even though my Mac can work in PC with my Parallels program.

Comment by Randall Sherman on December 28, 2009 at 12:15am

Great Christmas present! I think you will find the 60CSx to be very capable. When you download the tracks, be sure to save a back up copy just as you do your image files. Also, in addition to saving in Garmin proprietary .gdb also save a working copy in the common exchange format .gpx. If you haven't selected a GPS program yet I highly recommend GeoSetter (http://www.geosetter.de/en/). It is free and very good. If you choose this program and have any questions feel free to ask. However, it comes with presets that work very well and I doubt you will have any trouble or need to change much. If you use LightRoom it is good to run GeoSetter BEFORE importing into LightRoom so the geotags are imported. LightRoom has a pretty good geotag plugin -- not free -- but it requires a lot of hoop jumping to get the tags loaded. If you shoot Canon RAW .CR2 when you upload to Panoramio to have your photos posted on GoogleEarth, the geotags won't be read properly and they will ask you to "Map this photo." You can avoid that by exporting .jpg files to a folder and then running GeoSetter directly on that folder. I think this is most of the pitfalls that slowed my learning curve but I am glad to try to help anywhere you have a question. Happy New Year.

Comment by John Daly on December 27, 2009 at 10:59pm

I got the Garmin 60CSx and will be working with it in Death Valley this week.

Comment by John Daly on November 20, 2009 at 8:54am

Great to have this site. I am about ready to buy A GPS. Any suggestions that do not cost a lot of money. Garmin is the brand I have been looking at. Are there others as good?