John_Nevill
New member
With Sony's recent announcement of their GPS tracker device for photographers, I thought it worth raising the subject for broader discussion.
GPS devices have been around for a few years and now range from $100 handhelds to >$1500 in-car SATNAV fixed devices.
So are Sony offering something new or repackaging existing technology to a new market segment, namely the more affluent photographer.
In essence the Sony GPS unit is a tracking device which once sync'ed with your dSLR's date and time enables photographers to recall geo-locations of where their images were taken.
It does it by capturing tracks (interval timestamped geo-cooridnates) of your route and then overlaying them on a map on your pc via Sony's website (post event).
This enables you to correlate your image time with the geo-cordinate and wite the data into the image's exif header, hence you then know where the image was taken and so do others....Well, within >10m of it.
Ironically your humble <$100 handheld GPS can do much of this and more.
For instance take a look at the Garmin, Navman or Tom Tom series, they provides tracks, waypoints and even allow you to navigate.
If you're prepared to spend a little bit extra, say $300, you can get a GPS with your own maps (offline correllation) and POI (point of interest) functions.
Such functions allow you to store and recall your image locations (on the device) and ultimately provide you with a means to navigate your way back to the them.
Who would use such a device?. It may prove useful to wildlife and landscape photographers who wish to recall exact locations of their subject matter. e.g. that rare bird or butterfly snapped when out walking the hills. Or better still, keeping a POI log of drunk celebrities when roaming our cities )
So is the Sony GPS really offering something different?, maybe in the sense of EXIF revision, which translates into organising your images by location, but at a cost of $150 with limited functionality, I'd stick with my Garmin Quest II and use a DAM application for such custom fields.
What do others think?
GPS devices have been around for a few years and now range from $100 handhelds to >$1500 in-car SATNAV fixed devices.
So are Sony offering something new or repackaging existing technology to a new market segment, namely the more affluent photographer.
In essence the Sony GPS unit is a tracking device which once sync'ed with your dSLR's date and time enables photographers to recall geo-locations of where their images were taken.
It does it by capturing tracks (interval timestamped geo-cooridnates) of your route and then overlaying them on a map on your pc via Sony's website (post event).
This enables you to correlate your image time with the geo-cordinate and wite the data into the image's exif header, hence you then know where the image was taken and so do others....Well, within >10m of it.
Ironically your humble <$100 handheld GPS can do much of this and more.
For instance take a look at the Garmin, Navman or Tom Tom series, they provides tracks, waypoints and even allow you to navigate.
If you're prepared to spend a little bit extra, say $300, you can get a GPS with your own maps (offline correllation) and POI (point of interest) functions.
Such functions allow you to store and recall your image locations (on the device) and ultimately provide you with a means to navigate your way back to the them.
Who would use such a device?. It may prove useful to wildlife and landscape photographers who wish to recall exact locations of their subject matter. e.g. that rare bird or butterfly snapped when out walking the hills. Or better still, keeping a POI log of drunk celebrities when roaming our cities )
So is the Sony GPS really offering something different?, maybe in the sense of EXIF revision, which translates into organising your images by location, but at a cost of $150 with limited functionality, I'd stick with my Garmin Quest II and use a DAM application for such custom fields.
What do others think?
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