Best GPS receiver for geotagging photos?

[Paul490]

I am a travelling photographer and so often I cannot remember where I took a particular photo. Is there a GPS unit that's good and cheap? I did see some units but they wanted £130!

Cheers.

[pkr]

To plug into the camera or via a tracklog system?

If you're a Canon user and want to plug into the camera, you'll also need their wireless add-on ( not cheap ). With Nikon, you can plug a receiver directly into the D90/D200/D300/D2 series/D700/D3 series.

If you want to use a log system you can get an ordinary handheld receiver that can record tracks ( even the cheapo yellow Garmin eTrex will do ).

The other alternative is a dedicated tracklogger. I've seen the yellow Holux M241 on eBay (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=44&url=http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HOLUX-M241-Bluetooth-GPS-Logger-Receiver-NEW-UK_W0QQitemZ370160730147QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CE_GPS_Accessories_Software_ET?hash=item370160730147&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318) for about £40.

Have a look at http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/default.asp?group=2

They have loads of info on dataloggers.

Incidentally, if you end up with a handheld Garmin, don't save the log out to a saved location. It'll strip out the time information and render the tracklog useless. Only ever use the current log.

The other aspect you need to consider is if you're using raw. That can be a bit of a minefield.

[pkr]

As far as handheld gps or dedicated loggers are concerned, the main things to consider are :

Battery life
Samples per second
Track capacity

Some loggers allow you to reduce the sample period to allow longer track logs. That can reduce the accuracy of the log ( although you can recover that by ensuring you stand at the same place for the sample period before and after the shot ).

Ultimately, what you get depends on how long you anticipate recording log data. The variables are : AAs or rechargeables and log capacity and sample period.

Incidentally, the yellow Garmin eTrex I mentioned before has a serial connector and not USB. This can be an advantage ( when connecting to Nikon cameras ) but it can also be a pain for hooking up to your PC to extract the log.

[roar349]

Probably not an option (not the cheapest anyway), but my new mobile (Samsung Pixon) does geotagging, camera isn't too bad on it either...

[pkr]

That's a good point. I have read of people taking a second picture at the same location with a GPS enabled phone to match up later.

[KennyVader]

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=14672487

Not available here yet, but soon (maybe).

If I understand it correctly, it's a GPS device that you carry around with you all day, it quietly makes a track log. Then you take the memory card out of your camera, but it into this device, and it automatically updates all the photos on the card with the appropriate position data. Hopefully it does that without changing or corrupting any other aspect of each photo or their data! I like the idea in principal but I'd be quite nervous to use it in practice.

No good for cameras like mine that are compact flash though!

By the way, there is already an excellent thread by pkr on geotagging here (http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=489496&highlight=geotag).