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How-To

Where In The World?

Geotagging puts a new spin on how to track photos

This Article Features Photo Zoom

JOBO photoGPS

Keeping track of where you photographed that last spectacular sunset or a deer roaming a mountain landscape is a challenging task. This is where GPS technology is an outdoor photographer’s best friend. While popular spots like Delicate Arch or Half Dome are well documented, when you’re venturing deeper into the wild, having a tool to mark exact locations, times and dates of when the shutter was pressed comes in handy, especially later when you’re downloading and cataloging images. While GPS isn’t at all new, geotagging your images through the use of a GPS device is a fresh way to manage your photography.

Geotagging
Geotagging allows you to add geographical information to the metadata or EXIF file of your digital image. This data usually includes longitude and latitude coordinates, date, time and sometimes altitude, bearing and place names. Geotagging comes in different forms, but the most precise way is using a GPS device that logs your whereabouts and synchronizes your camera’s clock to the same time. This allows you to find the exact location of any shot.

Using software, combining a GPS unit with your camera or tracking coordinates with new external devices are some of the ways you can integrate this technology into your workflow. While some are easier than others, most of the techniques are easy to master.

Simply setting your camera’s exact time to a GPS unit that can log your whereabouts is enough to pinpoint where you took a photo. Geotagging takes it a step further by matching the EXIF data from an image with the GPS coordinates that were recorded while you were out in the field. Since most GPS devices can record your position, software is later used to geotag (also known as “geocode”) each image.

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