Geotagging photos

Jacob Allred
#random

My family has a habit of stopping at attractions when we are out traveling. For examples, parks, museums, and unusual stores. We also have a habit of logging all the places we visit, which leads us to a problem: we often don’t know where we were.

I’ve found geotagging to be the solution. I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone that lets me geotag images automatically. When I go to snap a photo, the GPS in my phone turns on and records the location in the photo’s metadata. You can easily pull the data out using something like Google Picasa or IExif (both free). My phone (like most phones) has A-GPS, so it gets a rough idea of the location within a matter of seconds, so I don’t have to wait for it to get a solid GPS lock.

We also like to use our Nikon D7000. This also has the ability to geotag photos but requires a separate GPS gizmo that you have to buy and attach to your camera. I’ve read a bunch of reviews on the official Nikon GPS and several non-OEM GPS units, but none appear to be very reliable or fast at getting a GPS lock. Our solution is to always take a quick snapshot with my phone, and then take the real photos with the nice big Nikon. This at least lets us quickly save the location, but doesn’t require us to wait around for the camera to get a GPS signal.