Angie

I have been using a Nikon D300 for aerial photgaphy - this has a slot on the side for linking a GPS unit.

I attach a Garmin GPS 60, and set the unit to record a waypoint every 10 seconds (in the air we are movoing at 100mph)

The camera retrieves the Lat/Long and Alt from the GPS for each exposure and adds this to the EXIF data in the camera.

 

After the flight we download the waypoints from the GPS unit, convert lat/long to OSGB NGRs and import to our Arcview GIS

In the GIS we have a tool to convert points to lines and this gives us the flight path.

We download the images from the camera, export the EXIF data, convert Lat/Long to NGRs and import to the GIS as points.

We then get the display as shown on the attachment (F94 on OS map)

 

We use EXIFPRO (a free download) to extract and manage the EXIF photo data – this can be set to import the ‘path’ to the image.

If this is included in the data transferred to the GIS you can set thing up so that by clicking on the image you open a window to view the table; the table includes the path; clicking on the path opens the image.

(See attachment F94-88 on GIS map)  

 

I have some caveats:

The GPS unit sometimes loses it location so not all images get Lat/Long added to their EXIF data.

The location is only approximately accurate

The Lat Long records the location of the camera, not the subject of the photo.

The Nikon D300 isn’t exactly a compact digital, and there are attachments which can be attached to the camera’s hot shoe which do a similar job, but I haven’t tried them.

I thought that you might find our experience useful

 

That said, its been a real leap forward – its makes cataloguing a flight so much simpler and  its been one of our objectives to try to work out not just where we have taken photos from the air, but also what areas we have overflow without taking photos.

This does the job.

 

Steve Hartgroves

Principal Archaeologist

Historic Environment - Information

Cornwall Council

 

Tel: 01872 323606

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angela Johnson
Sent: 24 March 2011 11:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Digital camera photo geo-referencing

 

Hi

 

Has anyone had any experience of using compact digital cameras with GPS to allow what is termed "geotagging" i.e. geo-referencing a photograph when it is taken?  Sony have one priced at c.£200 on Amazon and I will be looking into the specifications in more detail but would appreciate anyone's comments in the meantime.

 

Also, I attended a demonstration and sales pitch for GeoField Mobile Mapping Solutions by Sigma Seven yesterday and, again, am wondering if anyone has any experience of this or similar non-GPS devices.  It's basically a powerful handheld computer with a c.A5 size screen that allows on-site (customised) datalogging (form filling, notes, plotting etc. including taking photos and geo-referencing them) onto your own downloaded mapping (including OS).

 

Thanks

Angie