- Compatible with 3rd party GPS navigation software, serve as PC GPS receiver as well.
- Water-resist hardware design, suitable for rainy days, skiing, water sports
- Compatible with all digital cameras and camera phones, coolest GPS tracking gadget for your journey.
- Export in multiple file formats, supports popular web album
- Create and share your live travel blog with all your friends quick and easy
We're not at the point of having all cameras equipped with built in GPS. It's just a matter of time before this happens. In the meantime, if you want to geotag an image, you either find a GPS unit that works with your specific camera, or you do it manually.
What I've noticed is that doing it manually is a lot of trouble for most folks(I know it's time consuming for me), so a lot of people will just indicate what city, or state, or maybe just the country they were in at the time a particular photo was taken, or the indicate nothing at all and leave you guessing.
For me, this just doesn't work. In fact, even though I manually tag all of my photos on a map after they've been uploaded to flickr, and carry around a GPS unit on trips to areas I'm not completely familiar with, I want a better and more accurate way of geotagging images, that lets me cut down on the time it takes.
The problem is that I've got several digital cameras, going the route of getting a GPS unit for each camera doesn't work. Not all the cameras will support this.
What to do? Well, I did some research and found the i-gotU unit which will support any camera, provided the images are shot in jpg format.
It's a little stand alone GPS device, very simple and in fact the only button it has is to turn it on, and it's about the size of a matchbox.
I tried it for the last few days, and have been very impressed with it. I made sure that my camera's clock was set the same as that of the i-gotU (which is how this thing works) and then went out and took some pictures.
After returning home, I downloaded the images I took, and plugged in the I-gotU GPS device and had it map my images. It was spot on. It even saved the info to the EXIF data.
I'm going to love this thing. I wish it worked with camera RAW files, but for the time being it doesn't and it's not too much trouble for me to work around this limitation. In fact, I've already found a freeware solution that uses the gpx data and will work with RAW images.
Still, I can't wait for the day when this doesn't have to be done and cameras come equipped with built in GPS.
I do wish this had a little case that I could clip to my belt or camera strap, but that's a minor issue.I live on 20 acres surrounded by much larger properties and there are large gaps in our fence and when our dogs were disappearing for several hours at a time I wanted to know where they were going. Using this little device I logged them going everywhere they were not supposed to go and places I had no idea they could get to. The track was so good I could even determine that they had been chasing something through the hills. I found an old knife case that fit on their collar and made it waterproof by putting it in a baggy. Came back wet on the outside and dry on the inside.
They are now grounded and lost their run privelidges. Now I am going to find a new use for this great little gadget. Worked great and software was very easy to use.I had this unit for one day. The included disc is useless for Mac users, it is a mini-CD that doesn't even fit in the slot in my iMac (so you can't even use it with Parallels). However, I found freeware sofware that will do most of what the included software will do (igotu2gpx). MyTracks and GPS Babel will also download waypoints to a GPX file, which is all I really need to do.
There's no manual or instructions with the thing, not even a PDF download from the manufacturer's web site. However, I found a blog written by some guy, where he explains the very confusing behavior of the LED lights on the unit.
I charged up the thing, and took it for a test dog-walk. It doesn't have any kind of strap to hook, you have to improvise something from a camera wrist strap or a hook-and-loop strap. Frankly, I'm not entirely clear how you can secure this unit to a camera bag, but I guess I can improvise something. I got a great signal, it's really small, very nice. The LED's blink to tell you that it's on.
I got home and connected it to my Mac. Easy-peasy download to MyTracks and GPSBabel. The accuracy of the unit is very high. I download the GPX file to the computer and use Jeffrey Friedl's Geoencoding plug-in for Lightroom to geoencode my photos. I'm very pleased.
However, after I disconnect the cable, I discovered that the proprietary cable was broken. It's not a standard USB connection, it's a weird connector with strange plastic latch. The latch broke; now I can't connect the cable to the unit. I can't find replacement cables anywhere online. This renders the unit unable to connect to the computer; unable to charge, unable to download data. This would be a disaster in the field or on a trip. So, due to the flimsy connector, I returned the item, and got a full refund.From the first time I saw this logger it was love at first site! I was using the AMOD AGL3080 and was somewhat disappointed with the size of it...and that it kept banging against me as I was walking (I had it attached to the camera strap), it also would get in the way when I'd try to take macro photos or wanted to get a different angled shot.
This unit is so small that I hardly notice it on my camera strap. I have no trouble with a satellite finding it when I start it in the RV (or even inside the house for that matter). The biggest plus is the rechargeable battery that gets charged when you plug the included cable into your computer. Another plus is the included software that makes it so easy to get your logs from the unit, synchronize your photos and upload it all to the a-website. I love the help that is available both on and offline.
If you're just getting into geotagging your photos I highly recommend this unit.
No comments:
Post a Comment