How can I use an Android smartphone as GPS to geotag my photos?

Question

I have recently bought an Android smartphone and I would like to use the integrated GPS to geo-tag my photos. Does anyone have any experience doing that? (Which GPS logging app to use, with what settings...)

Asked by Erik

Answer

I use OpenGPS Tracker. It is free and open source and doesn't steal your data. You can get it at the link, on Google's Appstore, or through FDroid.

I then start tracking, it will ask for a name of the track, and at the end of the day/journey, I will stop tracking and then go on share.

On clicking share, a tool comes up, where you can choose between KMZ (Google Earth, etc), GPX, or Text (speed and distance). I choose GPX and either send it via email, or store it on the SD card.

I then open it up in Digikam and apply it to the photos. I'd image, you are not using Digikam, so you might want to pick a different format although GPX seems to be prevalent.

More open source GPS apps: 3

---

Digikam:
Go to the appropriate album, select all images and then go to: "Image>Geo-location". In the dialog, go to the Tab "GPS correlator". Open a GPX file and click correlate. Apply, and you are done.

EDIT:

Settings

The settings I use depend on the situation. I would recommend to se the default settings. And change it as you see fit.

You can also set a minimum time and distance to be covered between waypoings.

It really doesn't matter too much. I haven't changed settings much, as I never saw the need. The only thing fancy I can see yourself trying to achieve is long battery life. But I couldn't tell you how to achieve that other than to by a dedicated GPS unit.

Battery life

Battery life really depens on the phone, not on the software (although I've heard software can be blamed sometimes). On my Motorola Defy, I have enough battery for a full day tracking. If you want long battery life, get a dedicated GPS unit (Garmin, etc), they have significantly better chips.

Accuracy

The largest problem with accuracy will be in the GPS signal. It really isn't very good. You can get sudden jumps, and your phone thinks you are 100m to the side. Over time, the results actually get better, as I imagine some sort of filter is used.

The interpolation that Digikam does is quite good. I haven't got a complaint.

For me the use is simply to tell me what town and street I was in (i.e. what building could that be), and in the country side, to tell where I was, 100m is good enough for me there.

The most useful time, I used geo-coding was during a sailing trip. We moored in a river, and it gives a nice feeling to be able to say exactly which river we were in.

Answered by Unapiedra

Check more discussion of this question.

What do you do with your camera clock time in relation to time zones?

Question

I live in the UK and spend most of my time here, apart from a short trip abroad once or sometimes twice a year.

This Sunday just gone we switched from GMT to BST, so our clocks went forward one hour. I updated my camera clock to match the new time, which is something I do every time the clocks change but someone said to me that this was a bad idea and that I should just leave it on GMT/UTC all year around. I guess this is partly due to GPS tracking (although I would normally use my iPhone which automatically updates it's time, so I need to sync my camera with my phone before I begin ideally).

I like the idea of updating my camera so it's on local time wherever I am in the world, but of course there is always the possibility of forgetting to do this. In the summer we are off on Honeymoon and will be in several different time zones, so the question is should I just make an effort to remember to update my clock time as I go, should I just leave it on GMT/UTC or is there a better way?

I am genuinely interested in what other photographers do to tackle this issue, especially with regard to travel and spending a few days at a time in different time zones.

I would also like to know how people handle the metadata when posting images online as the metadata could indicate a photo was taken on a different day due to a time zone mismatch. Also when reviewing photos I think it is often useful to know the times they were taken, especially with regard to sunset and sunrise, so knowing the accurate time can be important. Do you just have to manually work it out or is there considered to be a 'best practice' approach to dealing with this.

Very much looking forward to reading your responses.

Asked by Mark J P

Answer

I like to have date and times on photos reflect local times and date at the location.
Unlike another respondent, I like to be able to search for a photo tane "at out 3pm on the Thursady afternoon when I was in Xian" and, while there are other ways of cataloging and ordering, being able to search on local date and time is a bonus.

Travel from NZ involves long international flights (8-12 hours typical range unless going to Europe.)

I (try to remember to) change the camera date on the flight and change my wristwatch at the same time and take a before and after photo of the watch sequentially so I have a visual reference to the actual time of change in the photo stream.

Outbound from NZ the camera steps back in time so some photos will be out of time/date order. Majing the change early in the flight minimises the impact if I care. eg China is 5 hours behind NZ and is ~ 8-10-12 hours flight time (Hong-Kong / Shanghai / Beijing) depending also on route so the time impact on photo date-sort order is usually minimal.

In the past I used to assign a long file name prefix based on properly time ordered date.
Effecively YY MM DD HH SS in compressed form. It was useful but not so much so that I kept it going.

Related:

Fixing corrupted file date & time: Due to Microsoft's cavalier handling of file date & time format when copying from cameras to hdd you can find time offset by 12 hours and date by one day or both, on occasion. Confusing day and month is another sometime Microsoft specialty due to NZ using ddmmyy format as opposed to the usual US mmddyy format. Use of an EXIF to file date-time copying program fixs this. I use the excellent free jhead progran to do this.
Running "jhead -ft %1.jpg" in a [gasp!] DOS batch file will correct the date time to that shown in the EXIF for all files in a "folder". I believe that Microsoft Powertoys synch manager does this too but I have never tried it.

Travelling backup: I use the venerable and marvellous XXCOPY to incrementally copy in files from camera card to a netbook. When in tourist mode I carry the netbook everywhere and may download from camera card several times during the day. [Just because you are excessively paranoid about data loss it doesn't mean your cards won't fail :-)]. When XXCOPYing I change the archive attribute bit in the process, so that uncopied files can be identified, thus allowing an only-new files download incrementally AND leaving a backup copy on the camera card. I then copy from netbook to portable hard drive (possibly also during he day) and only then, if required, delete files on camera card. [On one journey I lost two of my 3 copies of photos (vanished with no clues, probably stolen) and still lost no photos.

Answered by Russell McMahon

Check more discussion of this question.

For a point-and-shoot travel camera, what features matter the most?

Question

For a GPS-enabled point-and-shoot camera mainly to be used when traveling and hiking, what specific features or criteria can be used to narrow the field of possible cameras?

Ideally this camera would also be good for capturing everyday outings.

---

Original Question:

I'm a noob photographer who needs the camera mainly for snapshots. Particularly there are three opportunities when I take pictures, ordered by priority:

1. Taking pictures while traveling. There I want to make pictures of sights, but also landscape or persons
2. Taking pictures when hiking, both in the summer and during winter.
3. Taking pictures when going out and having fun

So as you can see these are three very different kind of pictures. Additionally, I have some further requirements. It is absolutely necessary that the camera supports automatic geo-tagging with GPS and it should not be too heavy since I'm carrying it even when doing sports.

Based on these features (not too big, geo-tagging), I have selected all possible cameras on www.digitec.ch. The problem now is that there are almost 100 possible candidates. So what additional criteria can I use to choose a camera?

Answer

For a camera that's going to be used during hiking and sporting, drop and weather resistance might be beneficial. You can find those cameras by selecting the "Waterproof" options.

"Going out and having fun" suggests looking for good light gathering ability for better quality of low-light shots and faster shutter speeds in action shots. This is usually achieved through larger sensor size and lenses with smaller f-number. Unfortunately there are no search options on Digitec for such info; you might have to skim some reviews and look for "low light performance", "high ISO handling" or something similar.

Check more discussion of this question.

Can you use the built-in flash in a Canon EOS 450D with a hot shoe GPS geo-tagger?

Question

As far as I can see, the answer is no, the flash cannot open if anything, is plugged on the hot shoe of a Canon EOS 450D:

Can anyone confirm that I wouldn't be able to use something like the Jobo photoGPS and the flash at the same time?

Answer

There is a sensor in the hotshoe to detect a flashgun; this inhibits the pop-up flash from coming up (or even firing, even if you trick it). You might be able to chip off the relevant part of the slide so the camera doesn't detect the hotshoe flash, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.

Check more discussion of this question.

How do I work with multiple timezones and GPS logging?

Question

I'm embarking on a trip across Europe in a few weeks. I have a QStarz GPS logger that I intend to use to log the trip and I will use the tools built into Aperture to geotag my photos when I return.

My only concern is crossing multiple timezones. What should I do to ensure I can tag my photos when I return without a lot of extra work adjusting metadata?

Answer

Another solution is setting you camera and GPS to the GMT timezone and never change it.

Then you can geotag your photos and time-adjust the GPS time-staps. Geosetter is an alternative geotagger that can do this:

You can also add or subtract hours/minutes/seconds if the GPS and the Camera aren't perfectly synchronized.

Check more discussion of this question.