For some time now I’ve been looking for a simple, but reliable way to geotag my photographs. Following my recent trip to Hong Kong and Beijing, I think I may have found a solution that works. Hopefully these simple tips will prove useful to anyone else looking for a hassle free way to capture the location of their photographs.
- Get yourself a decent GPS receiver
- Understand the geotagging process
- Use the GPS receiver to set the time on your camera
- Forget daylight saving time, and time zones. Use GMT.
- Get over the idea of achieving pinpoint accuracy
The basic idea behind geotagging (the cheap variety at least) is to use a GPS receiver to record your location whenever you take a photo. When you get back to your computer, you can then use some special software (I use GPSPhotoLinker by Early Innovations) to match your photos with their location. The way this works is to use the time the photo was taken to identify your location from the GPS track log. This is why points 3 and 4 above are so key.
This sounds awfully complex, but if you follow the points above, you will be able to throw your GPS receiver in your bag and forget about it. You can then take photos as normal. At the end of the day, geotagging your photos will be as simple as dragging and dropping them into your chosen software.
And, to encourage you all to go out there and get geotagging, here is an example of what is possible with all the data you capture.
Map
Do you geotag your pictures? I’ll be interested in hearing of any innovative things you can do with geotagged photographs.
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