GPS suggestions

[Noah A]

I work mostly in urban areas but in January I'm starting a project on the Colorado River. I'll be driving around a lot but also some hiking. I'm thinking that a handheld GPS may be a good idea. I'd like to be able to find the coordinates for places I want to shoot and have the GPS help me find them. Also if I find a good shot but want to return later for the light it could help me find my way back. And of course I don't want to get lost walking around...

Anyone have any suggestions? Do others find a GPS to be a helpful tool for shooting or am I better off sticking to maps (which I like and know how to read). Sorry if this question has been asked before but when I search for GPS I get every post by member with a certain name...

[Kevin Bradbury]

I use the Garmin 60CSx and really like it for hiking. For driving it is not nearly as good, especially in city expressway systems where you need to receive multiple instructions at once. But it is clearly designed as an outdoor/hiking GPS, and for that it's great. The necessary detailed maps of the National Parks and other areas are extra (as are the road maps). I think it has been replaced by a new model now; I don't know if more maps are included with the new models.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

My BlackBerry Storm II smartphone has an onboard GPS chip, and I've downloaded the Google Maps application. It also uses the GPS to work with Heliostat, a software program that calculates the time of day for sunset/rise and moonset/rise for anywhere on the planet, and TideBerry, which gives tidal calendars for 250+ N.American locations, etc. It's pretty useful so far, but I'm not using it for backcountry navigation, yet.

This same BB device is also a camera that geotags images, a wireless modem that tethers to my laptop-- and a decent cell phone to boot! The days of single-purpose electronic devices are numbered.

[Tom Westbrook]

Not sure how generally this is true, but I've found that the maps imbedded in my Garmin GPS to be less than reliable for trail placement, but it's OK for general terrain info. If you take a GPS in the backcountry, take a topo map, too, just in case.

GPS is handy for dropping waypoints where you take photos, but unless you intend to go back to the same spot (I hardly ever do), then GPS isn't worth it just as a photo accessory.

[Chris Strobel]

I own three Garmin GPS units.I use them when offroad in the desert, and use the bread crumb feature when wandering off trail so I can back track and get out alive.Question, never had a smart phone, but have been looking at the latest iphone that has gps.Do these phone gps units work directly off the satellites like the garmins, and can you do similar bread crumb tracking?My Garmin emap has downloadable topo data, can you get the same for these smart phones?

[Nathan Potter]

I'm wondering if any newer GPS units might have some kind of a transmitting distress capability. Satellite phones are very expensive but if I could send an alarm from a GPS indicating the coordinates, and that info could get back to my wife in some fashion, that would be handy when out of cell phone range. Much of my photo work is out of cell phone range and I'm getting old and rickety.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Jim Michael]

Nathan, get a Spot tracker (http://findmespot.com). I use one in the plane and it works great. You can set it to plot your position every 5 min. and you can make tracking info available to anyone who hits the web page with the map. Also has a couple of alert modes, one that signals family etc. and one for emergency responders. It's a subscription service but the yearly and the tracker is pretty reasonable.

[Shen45]

Can you get a GPS accessory that finds the GPS? :)

[GPS]

A good map with personal notes written on a piece of paper is much less distracting. Plus you have a better spacious awareness where you're and it's much lighter too.

[ndavid813]

Though I agree, I find it ironic that GPS recommends not using a GPS.

[Noah A]

I own three Garmin GPS units.I use them when offroad in the desert, and use the bread crumb feature when wandering off trail so I can back track and get out alive.Question, never had a smart phone, but have been looking at the latest iphone that has gps.Do these phone gps units work directly off the satellites like the garmins, and can you do similar bread crumb tracking?My Garmin emap has downloadable topo data, can you get the same for these smart phones?

This is the kind of thing that may be helpful for me. I can imaging wandering off for a photo--just a little off the trail. Then a little more for a better angle...etc. I want to make sure I can find my way back!

Also I do often find a spot and want to return when the light is right.

I have a tomtom gps for the car but I often use my iPhone for driving around the city, since it also gets traffic data. It doesn't have a real GPS, it uses the cellular signals. So when you have no signal, it doesn't know where you are. Can't speak for other phones.

I know the Thuraya satellite phones have GPS, but they're not cheap.

[Chris Strobel]

This is the kind of thing that may be helpful for me. I can imaging wandering off for a photo--just a little off the trail. Then a little more for a better angle...etc. I want to make sure I can find my way back!

Also I do often find a spot and want to return when the light is right.

I have a tomtom gps for the car but I often use my iPhone for driving around the city, since it also gets traffic data. It doesn't have a real GPS, it uses the cellular signals. So when you have no signal, it doesn't know where you are. Can't speak for other phones.

I know the Thuraya satellite phones have GPS, but they're not cheap.

That spot tracker looks like it could be a very wise investment for solo picture trekking in the wild.I'm trying to decide between an iphone 4, an ipod touch, or an ipad.If these igadgets don't have true gps thats gonna work in the middle of the Mojave or Sierra's, I guess I can scratch that off the list of useful features.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

I suspect that at least the iPhone 4 does have a chipset that receives the signals directly. I do know for a fact that the Blackberry Storm II gets signals directly off the satellites. It can acquire a signal even faster due to the assistance of the cell signal when the phone radio is turned on.

Note that the OP is admittedly a city slicker. Personally, I would not rely on a cell phone nor sat phone nor GPS device to get me out of any kind of predicament that I might get myself into. Batteries can die at bad moments. Cell and satellite phones are notoriously bad in canyons. Like the old saw about a 4WD, in unskilled hands they can only get you more stuck-- IOW, take you back in further where nobody but another 4 wheeler can get you out.

Nothing supplants good direct navigational skills and woodcraft. Even maps are just sketches of the terrain. Backcountry trails and unimproved roads often change from season to season, particularly in highly erosive terrain. GPS maps can be years out of date as can be the images on Google Earth in many locales.

[Kevin Crisp]

I used to carry the classic Garmin etrex model for finding places when I knew the coordinates, or marking a spot to come back to. Now that the on dash navigators from Garmin often have a "where am I now?" button, I can get the coordinates off that, which helps with noting where you. It does not help in finding and tracking a route since I don't think you can enter destinations by coordinates instead of an address. So I often carry both.

I agree maps are best. But the most useful thing for me has been the ability to go to an area from above, using Google Earth, to find out how you get to a particular spot. In other words, you see some distance feature of the landscape/mine/structure from a highway. And you can't just start driving over the sagebrush to get there. The dirt tracks and trails and abandoned roads can be very hard to see from ground level, but from space, it's a piece of cake. You write down where to turn on this one and that from Google Earth, put those into the handheld GPS, and it saves a lot of time and wear and tear on the vehicle.

[Noah A]

...
I agree maps are best. But the most useful thing for me has been the ability to go to an area from above, using Google Earth, to find out how you get to a particular spot. In other words, you see some distance feature of the landscape/mine/structure from a highway. And you can't just start driving over the sagebrush to get there. The dirt tracks and trails and abandoned roads can be very hard to see from ground level, but from space, it's a piece of cake. You write down where to turn on this one and that from Google Earth, put those into the handheld GPS, and it saves a lot of time and wear and tear on the vehicle.


This is another possibility I was thinking about. I'd love to be able to pre-scout a location using google maps and google earth, then be able to find the coordinates later. Sometimes with my urban work this can be done with street addresses. But that can be tough, especially overseas. And especially since my current urban project has to do with informal communities, which may not have street names or at least not street names in google maps. Before my last trip to Peru I found some stuff I wanted to shoot in the map and some of the places were just impossible to find.

Another use would be to record the coordinates for my photos. Then I could look them up later to make sure I know exactly where I took the photo. As a documentary photographer I need to accurately caption my photographs including an accurate location.

Since they're small it seems like a handy accessory.

I mostly photograph urban areas but I'm no stranger to the outdoors and I definitely won't allow any machine to cause me to take higher than normal risks.

[Ed Richards]

If you want to log picture locations and have a smartphone with GPS (real GPS, not cell tower location) us it. You have it with you all the time and it is easy. For Iphones, just take a picture of the location and all the GPS data is embedded into the picture file. That took the place of logging POIs with my navigational GPS.

[Jim Michael]

My eTrex can be uploaded with topo data for the area of interest. I notice Spot is selling a new unit that has a map interface and you can tweet your location if you're into that sort of thing. I agree with the others that you should also have a current topo map with you and mark it up as you go. The unit could fail or it could fall and land under your boot.

[bobwysiwyg]

This is another possibility I was thinking about. I'd love to be able to pre-scout a location using google maps and google earth, then be able to find the coordinates later. Sometimes with my urban work this can be done with street addresses. But that can be tough, especially overseas. And especially since my current urban project has to do with informal communities, which may not have street names or at least not street names in google maps. Before my last trip to Peru I found some stuff I wanted to shoot in the map and some of the places were just impossible to find.

Another use would be to record the coordinates for my photos. Then I could look them up later to make sure I know exactly where I took the photo. As a documentary photographer I need to accurately caption my photographs including an accurate location.

Since they're small it seems like a handy accessory.

I mostly photograph urban areas but I'm no stranger to the outdoors and I definitely won't allow any machine to cause me to take higher than normal risks.

Have you tried The Photographer's Ephemeris?

http://stephentrainor.com/tools/

I've used it to do both advance, virtual scouting and to determine when lighting might be better at some time other than when I first find a location.

[GPS]

Though I agree, I find it ironic that GPS recommends not using a GPS.

I'm GPS that leads to the common sense truth...;)


This is another possibility I was thinking about. I'd love to be able to pre-scout a location using google maps and google earth, then be able to find the coordinates later. ...

... As a documentary photographer I need to accurately caption my photographs including an accurate location.

...

I don't know about you but I find Google Earth hopelessly out of date, often showing me pictures in winter while I'm in summer nature. :)
And I have done many documentary pictures but never needed to make captions with GPS coordinates for them. Unless you take special topo maps they don't say anything anyway. Never mind.

[Kevin Crisp]

I haven't found Google Earth hopelessly out of date. It isn't real time, obviously, but the photos do tend to get updated every now and then and that is plenty good enough to find what I need.

[GPS]

Sure, mileage varies. Now and then too. Recently we laughed with my friends from UK over Google Earth pics of their house garden - "these chairs we had them there 2 years ago" - they laughed in the winter time...;-)
When I tried to use Google Earth for pics of Alps they were showing winter in full summer...;-))

[Ash]

I had the Garmin Edge 605, until I dropped it through snow onto concrete. It was excellent, but I mainly used it in cities.

[jwaddison]

Can you get a GPS accessory that finds the GPS? :)
I wish. I've lost two. One from a small airplane (it got in, but couldn't find it after landing) and another in a herd of cows.

I've been using them for years for work (forestry) and find them invaluable, especially when coupled with a good topo map, a compass (and a spare set of batteries). A Garmin etrex will do everything you ask of it and they are relatively inexpensive. Some of them have a built-in compass, but my etrex does not.

[Noah A]

...
And I have done many documentary pictures but never needed to make captions with GPS coordinates for them. Unless you take special topo maps they don't say anything anyway. Never mind.

Of course I don't need coordinates for my captions, but I do need accurate city/town/place names for my captions. My agency and virtually every editorial client I've ever worked for expected that basic information.

Just today I used google to find satellite images of areas I wanted to shoot. But they were urban areas in a city I'm familiar with, so I could note the street names and use a good 'ol fashioned map to find them. But in places where the roads are unnamed or unmarked, being able to find certain coordinates could be a big help.

[Brian Ellis]

I bought a Garmin something or other for the same uses you're planning. However, it wasn't all that intuitive or easy to use and I found that since I didn't use it very often I had to go back to the instructions every time I went out with it, which was a real pain. I'd do as others have suggested and get a cell phone that has a similar app. At least then you'll still have a phone etc. even if you end up not using it as a GPS.