Marking geo location

[jp]

For work, I often photography utility poles, conduits, radio towers and their viewsheds. Good to know where it as as they start to look the same in many cases.

For LF / fun photography, I often visit a nearby spot and the light is not right or I run out of film and I want some sort of reminder of the possibilities, so a GPS tagged digital snapshot has all the details one needs for that.

[Jmarmck]

Ah, viewsheds so much fun to work with.

[vinny]

I understand that Fixing and recording the geographic co-ordinates of a location is easily done today.

In what photographic endeavor is it critical to document the location with GPS precision?
Having fixed and recorded the position; electronically, how does one get the information onto the film?

It's called scouting. You're driving, you see a great place to shoot, you mark it's coordinates. I've traveled to 45+ states so there's no way I can remember all the places I'd like to return to.
faster than carrying detailed maps of the entire country. get it?

[Delfi_r]

I bought the Hunter Theodlite just for this purpose. Works well on my IPad and is available for the iPhone. http://hunter.pairsite.com/theodolite/

Roger

thanks Roger for the pointer, I'll take a look of this app.

Having fixed and recorded the position; electronically, how does one get the information onto the film?

You can always translate the detailed information to a scan of your image, or print it on the back or your silver copy.

[David R Munson]

At least for my purposes, I see GPS information as being of primary importance for scouting. Coordinates tagged with notes are searchable, and as I'm wandering around I often have ideas I can't act on at that time, so being able to record a place along with a note about why it matters is pretty useful.

[Doremus Scudder]

When scouting close to home and for places I want to come back to or be reminded I'm close to, I've just been using the reminder app that comes with the iPhone. I'll enter the place name and a few salient remarks and then set the app to remind me "at a location," which I set to be where I'm standing at the time. So, I can check the reminders and go back when I want, or, when I'm out photographing and not even aware I'm close, the reminder function will give me a little jingle and let me know I'm near a place I wanted to work.

Works for smaller numbers of near places.

Doremus

[Drew Bedo]

I guess I am just getting old—I still use a flip-phone. I have never had the need for the precision of FPS co-ordinates to go back to a place that I have already been to. A few notes were enough.

So let me get this right: The reasons for GPS documentation are either related to digital photography for commercial work or for remembering a promising location for later LF photography. , The data is never actually transferred to the film.

[Jmarmck]

No. The data is not transferred to the film. I looked at some EXIF editors last night but found nothing that would allow me to insert Lat/Lon on my neg scans.
I was hoping to put other info in the metadata but was unsuccessful.

[Drew Bedo]

I have an 8x10 dark slide that came in a box-lot of surplus medical imaging equipment. This particular dark slide has a narrow clear plastic window along one edge. I have never used it for anything, but never got rid of it either. I assume that one could mark on the plastic with a grease pen or other erasable marker, then insert a loaded film holder into a camera and pull the its dark slide out. The window dark slide would be inserted and the shutter tripped. The window dark slide would be removed and the actual exposure made and the original dark slide re-inserted. As I write this it seems akwqrd and complex, but I'm sure that its not really.

That could be a way to get the location data on the neg. I can't think of any other reason for a glazed window in a dark slide.

[Drew Wiley]

This is all foreign to me. Location was always determined and remembered by simply looking at one mtn then another, this canyon or that. Guess I'd have a hard time in Kansas.