Tracking My Photos

Originally uploaded by bitslice

Before, when uploading photos to Flickr, I had to manually edit each picture's description to match with where it was taken, which would be a pain if I had to edit the whole set.

For as long as I can remember, Flickr has this feature that allows you to add specific position information (latitude/longitude pair) to each photo. It also integrates maps and satellite images onto it so you can browse pictures by the place they were taken. I wasn't so interested in it because I didn't have a GPS unit and thought it's too expensive, too large, and too heavy to carry along.

Only until recently I came across those special GPS units designed for tracking photographers (and their photographs, of course). They are compact, light, and in my opinion not expensive (under USD100). They don't have displays, just some status LEDs, and all they do are just recording GPS position on a time interval or a distance basis.

All you need to do is connect the unit to your PC and download the log files. Usually a program is provided to assist you in geocoding (or geotagging) each photo's GPS position. That's all. When you upload your geocoded pictures, if the web supports it, the position will be shown right next to your photo. Check out my picture above to see how it works.