On 12/29/2017 8:13 AM, John Hudson wrote:
Does anyone have a wrist watch like GPS device for tracking their physical location when taking photos or are out
walking and can make a recommendation.
I have, use and like the Garmin Foretrex 401.
It's the smallest device I could find that does what you want - well.
Although it comes with a wrist strap, it seems awkwardly large to be toting around on my wrist. I typically put it in my
shirt pocket. The display when tracking isn't something to follow, anyway.
It tracks much more accurately in difficult situations, such as under tree cover, than the iGotU or iPhone I used
before. I've been geocoding my images for years. The 401 is the best device I've used. I assume any other Garmin or
other brand high sensitivity GPS unit would work well, but they are all large, hand held devices. The 401 uses two AAA
batteries, with settings for different types. My eneloops last a full day. The interface and software seem rather
goofy/unintuitive to me, but work. Or one may simply use a file browser.
I am not interested in a device which records 1001 facts about heart rate, steps per mile, elevation, air pressure,
body temperature, yards to the next golf green, etc.
All I would like is a quality built wrist held device to record GPS co-ordinates to at least five decimal places or
better.
Here's a trackpoint from it's GPX output:
<trkpt lat="27.40217800" lon="89.42070700">
<ele>2224.630</ele>
<time>2017-09-26T02:21:12Z</time>
The last two digits of Lat/long appear to always be zero, so it records six digits. Do not, however confuse precision
with accuracy. It has the same accuracy as other high sensitivity chip GPS units, and that will vary with location,
surroundings, etc.
There is also the question of accuracy in matching track points to photos. If time in the camera differs from the super
accurate GPS time, geocoding can be off.
You must keep the time on the camera accurate. There are cases where this isn't at all easy. I used it on a cross
country flight, just to see if it worked, and it appeared to work well at tracking, even inside the aluminum tube,
window seat. However, I didn't change the camera time as we passed over time zone boundaries, so I didn't really know
where many shots were taken.
Go inside buildings where there is no signal, and it just repeats the last good fix until you leave. Inside one where
some signals come in weakly, maybe bouncing, and you may get a series of points in the general vicinity. I had this
happen in a temple in Bhutan. Easy enough to fix in my usual geocoding app, GeoSetter (free, good), by attaching a good
point to all the bad ones. LR Maps Mode is also a decent geocoder, although with less detail control than GeoSetter.
There is also the question of how the photo time and track times are matched. There is a choice between matching exactly
to the nearest track point or interpolating between track points.
I don't mean to say the whole process doesn't work. In fact, it almost always works quite well. But any assumptions of
absolute, always accuracy are false. I deeply appreciate having geocoding for my Bhutan images. It's so easy to get
confused in memories of so many places. Just jump in to the Map Mode in LR, and it's all clear.
Any recommendations ?
I guess I did have one. :-)
Where in the World Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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