How Do You Geotag Your Photos?

Posted by Justin Korn

on March 20, 2009

Do you geotag your photos? How accurate are you with your geotagging? Do you think it is important to have accurate geotagging? How often do you take your camera out for a photowalk only to find out later you have no idea where you took the picture?

If you answered yes, somewhat, yes, all the time to the above questions, then you answered them the exact same way I did, and I am out to fix the ‘somewhat’ answer and the ‘all the time’ answer.

Currently, when I’m out with my camera, I try very hard to keep track of where I am, where I’m going, and where I’ve been. When I upload my pictures to Flickr, I geotag them there. I can usually look at the Google map and figure out roughly where each picture was taken, but 1) It’s a long, time consuming process and 2) The photos on my computer are still not geotagged.

I’ve been thinking about grabbing myself a geo-tracker to track my whereabouts for me and then go through the process of matching my photos up with the devices log by the time stamp. There are a few photographers out there that do this now. Matter of fact, just today I was browsing around FriendFeed and came across this thread. Jeremy Brooks points out his method for geotagging his photos, which in the end, it’s probably better and quicker then my current flow, but still doesn’t satisfy what I’m looking for (but is pretty darn close).

So, what am I looking for? Ideally, a device that will geotag my photos as I take them and write that data to the EXIF data in the RAW file (not JPEG). If that is not possible, a program that will use data from a geo-tracker and write the EXIF data to the RAW file when I am back at home in front of my computer. The key is to be as painless and least time consuming as possible. Is this too much to ask for?

At this point, I do not have an answer. Looking through the above mentioned thread on FriendFeed, it seems there is no good answer right now. Jeremy’s approach might be the answer, but I am hoping to get some ideas flowing with other photographers as to what they currently do. Is there a device out there that will do what I am looking for? A good software/hardware combination? Am I being too picky?

If I get a few good ideas (that are affordable), I’ll give them a try and review them for everyone else’s benefit.

Till next time…