GPS and location shooting

[Ed Richards]

Anyone using GPS for location shooting? I will be shooting in some areas where the map coverage is not much more than a line indicating a road through a marsh. I would like to use GPS to identify where I take shoots, which will also facilitate relocating the site after the next hurricane, when things like roads and landmarks will have disappeared. Ideally I would like a handhelp I can take readings on and then dump these to a laptop to print maps.

[Mike H.]

Ed, I use Google Earth to search locations I want to visit, then transfer Long./Lat. readings from there to my Garmin 60CS via the software that comes with it. There are city maps and topo maps available from Garmin. Haven't learned all the ins and outs yet, since I only got the 60CS as a present at Christmas, but it has been really beneficial. When I'm in the field I have both the topos, a printout of the Google Earth view and the software transferred to the hand held. The hand held also works with a cigarette lighter plug in for my jeep, so that saves the batteries on the drive out to the desert or the mountains or where ever it is I'm going. The overall system has been really great in helping me locate stuff in areas where I had never been and each fork in the unmaintained dirt road looks like the last and is unlabeled. The accuracy factor is something that may concern you - depending on the number of satellites you can pick up, you could be anywhere within a margin of error of 14 feet to 200 feet. I've gone back and forth over the same route using exactly the same two ruts in the road for my wheels and had the resulting GPS map show two different tracks, side by side. On my last trip Monday, I came out in the dark after having photographed at some indian ruins during the last two hours of light and the GPS was fun to use. I also scared the bejabbers out of a bunch of jack rabbits. :-)

[Daniel Geiger]

I use a cheapo GPS (I think it was about $150 about a year ago) and it works just fine. What you want to look for is the ability to connect to a PC (too bad if you want to connect to a Mac). For some GPS units, software is bundled with it, with some it is extra, so watch for that one. But pretty much all can interface with maps that you can then print. If you are in the US, check out REI as they have a nice comparison chart of current models.

[Erik Gould]

I've been using a hand held gps unit lately so I can geotag my images. It's very easy to mark a location in the unit, give it a unique name, and then download it to the computer later. I use this app: http://oregonstate.edu/~earlyj/gpsphotolinker/ to take the data from the gps to my desktop, and then match it up to scans of my images. Then it can be viewed on a google map like this:
http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1799

click on the blue "pins" to see the images. Eventually this map will be full of points, one of my ongoing projects.

I bet this would work great for what you want to do.

no jack rabbits here, but i did see a fox.

[Erik Gould]

Daniel,
I actually do all this on a mac, using a Garmin unit that cost about 200.00. It just needed a cheap serial/pda to usb adapter.

[Conrad Hoffman]

I do something very similar when hunting and photographing NGS elevation benchmarks. I use a Magellan 210 because it has a Windows file structure and interfaces via a simple USB cable. It is also extremely accurate if you can pick up WAAS signals. I also downloaded a nifty map & photo interface, USAphotomaps. Using this, you can download both topo maps and aerial views from the MS Terraserver, and mark your locations. Excellent interface. You can also do a variety of other things, but this is sufficient for me.

Get two pairs of good NiMH batteries for the GPS unit, and a decent charger made for them. Maha makes good ones. With a permanent marker, label them set A and set B. They'll work best if used and recharged as matched pairs. You can then swap them out when necessary and never miss a beat.

Finally, if for some reason you want a more accurate position, or just want to see how good your unit is under differing conditions of signal and satellite pattern, download a copy of SA Watch. This will interface to the 210 and show you the normal wander in graphical form, and will apply sophisticated averaging based on the quality of the fix, to give you sub-foot accuracy under good conditions.

[Kirk Gittings]

Ed,
I can't answer the GPS question but I think where you are going conceptuallw with this project could be very interesting.

[Caroline Matthews]

Check out stephenwillard.com. I think he has GPS coordinates for all his work and his website shows the map.

[Oren Grad]

Then it can be viewed on a google map like this: http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1799

Erik, that's extremely cool. I'll be checking back in the future to see what else you add.

[Ralph Barker]

Ed, I think you'll find the big difference between the various handheld models is the amount of internal memory it has. I opted for the Garmin GPSmap 76CS a few months back, so I'd have enough memory to store more maps (purchased separately) in the unit. Pretty handy. If you want to use it while driving, you'll probably want the optional external antenna.