GPS data as part of the metadata in photographs is a relatively new addition to my workflow. I increasingly value this as part of the ‘worth’ of my photographs and would just like it to work automatically – as iPhone photos do. Sadly, not all cameras provide this data as standard (nearly all do not). Top end DSLR’s do have this facility – via an add on device and unsurprisingly, these are expensive add-ons.
I had 2 systems of getting this data onto my photos and now I have a third.
The first or basic one was to use Aperture, select a spot on the map where I think I took the photos and then ‘pin’ the photos to that location. This has the advantage of making you think about the location of your photos, but it is not automatic and therefore, falls down pretty much at the first hurdle. There is also a tendency to lump photos together and although the general location is clear, the GPS data is not too helpful if you want to go back to that exact place to take more photos, or even to find the place again.
The second system I thought about was to use my iPhone. I would religiously take a photo with my iphone and therefore tag the location and therefore all the photos I then took with my DSLR could be tagged by a process of copy and paste of GPS data. Great system, but I have forgotten to take photos of new locations with my iphone – especially when moving around or between two adjacent locations. It is also labour intensive and not automatic – it requires a lot of phaffing around in post process – this system was ok-ish until I found my latest solution.
GPSPhotoLinker Help
www.earlyinnovations.com
This is a program that runs on the Mac. The process is to start your GPS tracker on your iPhone or similar when you go out on a photoshoot, when taking the big camera out (Canon 7D for me). At the end of the trip (I use Motion X – gps on the iphone – but you can use dedicated GPS trackers eg Garmin) stop the tracking program. You then save the track. On Motion X, you can email yourself a .gpx file which is an xml file with your timings and geolocation.
Then download the photos from your camera to your computer – I put them into folders – Photoalbum/DVD_27/130616 photos folder for example. Read the workflow from ‘The Dam Book’ by Peter Krogh ( a must buy – go out and do it now) ‘DVD’ for me is a superfolder and I keep it to the size of a DVD to help backup to DVD storage.
You then load the .gpx file and the photos into the GPSphotolinker program – click on auto convert and the geolocation for the photos is matched up between the times on the .gpx file and the camera time (make sure that your camera time is up to date and the same as the iPhone)
It writes the gps data to the photo metadata on the original photo files .. in my case .CR2 RAW files and then you can upload your photos to Aperture or Lightroom for further processing.
Automatic and so far, works a treat.
Here are some geolocated photos from our walk this am in the sunshine.
