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Geotagging


How to use technology to stay organized and track your photography


By Josh Weisberg
Labels: How-To

This Article Features Photo Zoom
geotagging
A white wolf in British Columbia.
Like many photographers, I take a lot of photos and struggle with the organizational aspects of my imaging workflow. While I do my best to tag images when importing them to my PC, I typically rely on the date and my memory to find the photos I’m looking for.
That was before I started using geotagging. Geotagging is a way to add location or GPS data to your photos to help you organize, search, find and share your images. In the past, it was difficult for even the most advanced photographers to geotag images. There was a patchwork of technology that could do it, but it was by no means easy. Recent technology has taken geotagging mainstream, making it accessible to all photographers.

One problem that most outdoor photographers have is staying on top of their photo-tagging. When you’re on the road much of the time, it’s hard to find the time to manually tag each photo you’ve taken from your travels. I look back at photos from a few years ago, and I’m lucky if I can remember the country I was in, let alone the specific location.

To solve this issue, I started carrying a GPS so I had a way to remember where I took my photos. I discovered that with the right combination of cables, I could connect the GPS receiver into my D-SLR, and it would embed the GPS coordinates into the metadata of my images, including RAW files.

geotagging
Photo-sharing sites like Flickr take geotagging a step further by allowing users to put their images on a map and create a visual record of where each shot was taken. After uploading an image, there’s an Additional Information section on the right side of the page where you’ll find an “Add to your map” link. A new map pops up on which you literally can place your photo.
While this ensured my images always would have location data embedded in them, GPS coordinates are just a set of numbers, and the actual location isn’t easily recognized. So, if you take a picture of a white wolf in British Columbia, you don’t get a tag that reads British Columbia, you get one that reads 49°, 22.38 N 123°, 5.88 W. To most people, this information is meaningless. And while I had the essential data I wanted, there were no tools to help me search, organize and share this information online. As I talked to other outdoor photographers about geotagging, I realized a lot of people were struggling with the same issues.

The good news is that today there are new tools for tagging, searching and sharing images with location data. The most accurate and automatic way to geotag your images is to carry a handheld GPS. Certain D-SLR models allow you to connect a GPS directly to the camera, automatically recording the latitude and longitude into the file. But you also can create a track route on your GPS and import the track route to your PC, then extract the GPS coordinates into your images. As the director of Microsoft’s Rich Media Group, I have a preference for Microsoft’s free Pro Photo Tools, which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/prophoto. Pro Photo Tools allows you to import the track route and automatically tag the images with GPS coordinates, which then convert the coordinates to plain text such as the country, city, state and address. This information is stored in the image file itself, including RAW files.
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  1. Pesto makes this comment

    Saturday, 31 October 2009

    To OrganizePictures, Take a look at this if you are planning to add geotags with Picasa (at least with version 3.5.0 []79.74,0]). In: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=56c7f584f0691581&hl=en Here is a summary of the changes Picasa made to the metadata (the image was a JPEG image straight from a Pentax K20D camera): 1. The caption was written to the IPTC Caption-Abstract. 2. All maker note information was COMPLETELY DELETED! (So all information about camera-specific settings is lost.) 3. The byte order of the EXIF was changed from big-endian to little-endian! (Which goes against the current MWG Recommendation.) 4. The EXIF software tag was changed! (From "K20D Ver 1.00" to "Picasa 3.0".) 5. An EXIF ImageUniqueID tag was added.

  2. Mark makes this comment

    Saturday, 17 October 2009

    I have used MetaGPS unit mounted on my Nikon D300 and D90. It is designed to insert GPS and heading info directly into the picture. No additional work needed after the pictures are taken. It is small and easy to use. Recommend it. Check out their product information page at: www.metagps.com

  3. Fotografo Matrimonio Milano makes this comment

    Tuesday, 15 September 2009

    I tried Microsoft Photo Tools but does not support NEF files. I found Geosetter (also free) and I works fine.

  4. OrganizePictures makes this comment

    Thursday, 27 August 2009

    I have used Geosetter as well and was impressed by how easy it is to do bulk geotagging. However, the software is very slow to write the geolocation information to the pictures. Also, many times it doesn't connect very well to the server for geolocation information. After a while I started (again) using Picasa...their newest version supports geotagging very well via Google Earth...so you have to have both installed.

  5. Bryan makes this comment

    Wednesday, 26 August 2009

    Hi, how can I contact with Josh Weisberg? For there will be a new and more convienant geotagging device available on the market. Wanna introduce it to him.

  6. Rick makes this comment

    Tuesday, 09 June 2009

    Being both a GIS analyst and a photographer, what's frustrating is that we're stuck with using Long/Lat when geocoding our pictures. Which makes automating the integration of geocoded photos into a GIS project just that much more difficult when we're working in UTM, or Albers, or some other coordinate system. Long/Lat is not really the best choice for land navigation and topo issues.

  7. Seb makes this comment

    Thursday, 30 April 2009

    Unfortunatly direct connection of a GPS is not common until now. Nikon is on top with some DSLR (D2x -D3x, D90, D200-D700 and the new D5000). I use the "Solmeta Geotagger N2 Kompass" as it saves the direction of view, too. It writes directly to NEF and/or JPEG. It is placed on the hotshoe and connects directly to the body with a short cable. Easy! Info (mostly in German) on www.gps-camera.eu

  8. Stuart Brown makes this comment

    Saturday, 11 April 2009

    I bought a Jobo PhotoGPS last year because I do not want to be tied to the camera by USB cable. This is a simple to use hot shoe mounted device which allows me to attach the geotags to my photos when I download them to my PC. My only irritation has been that some of the tags come with only arabic or chinese characters for the street address depending on where I use it, if somebody out there knows an easy way of translating these into English I would like to know about it.

  9. Jason Corneveaux makes this comment

    Thursday, 26 March 2009

    I have been using gpicsync (code.google.com/p/gpicsync/)for a long time. I like it because it will tag RAW files, something other programs sometimes have problems with... It takes GPX files, and a directory of images, and tags away. It will even generate a google earth kml file that can be handy for uploading to a website to share. Also -- if you geotag, Lightroom will show coordinates that can be clicked which will open a browser and then go right to google maps :)

  10. Franco makes this comment

    Thursday, 19 March 2009

    Hi, I'm new to photography and I wa wondering if i should start with a film camera or a D-SLR?

  11. Kevin makes this comment

    Tuesday, 17 March 2009

    After using several different software packages for geotagging, I went for Geosetter (http://www.geosetter.de/en/). I found it superior to everything else out there, on the market. What I REALLY want, is like what Nikon has, but for Canons. The ability to just plug in a GPS unit, and auto-log the coordinates when you take the picture. Better yet, add a small compass to it, so it shows location, AND direction. I know my android G1 has the above capabilities. I like MS programs, and I keep meaning to check out the Pro Photo tools again. When I last tried them, they were still pretty new, and not very feature complete.

  12. Pros makes this comment

    Tuesday, 10 March 2009

    I use my iPhone as a GPS data logger. The big advantage is that it uses GPS outdoors and automatically switches to WPS (WiFi based position like the EyeFi) when indoors. I'm a Mac user, so the latest release of iPhoto with the Places functionality makes it very easy to organize my photos based on location. The iPhone app I use for geologging is GeoLogTag. It's easy to use and accuracy is very good. http://www.galarina.eu/GeoLogTag/News/News.html

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