On 5/31/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On the ID thing, what I would really like one day
would be a
bluetooth-enabled GPS that could sit in my backpack not doing much,
but everytime I took a photo, could sync its satellites and provide
the GPS coordinates back to the camera. That would be really nifty for
travel photography, and kill two birds with one stone for a lot of
wikipedia articles: a photo and the exact GPS location of the subject
(providing you're not too far from it when you shoot).
While that's not quite available yet, we're pretty close. There are
carryable GPS thingies that log their location regularly to an
internal buffer that you can download to your computer. Assuming your
camera's set to the right time or near enough, there are applications
that can take this log and apply the logged location at the
appropriate time to each photograph you took. Google for
'Geotagging', I think.
Pretty soon, I suspect, cameras will begin to carry onboard GPS devices.
If you have serious money to spend, Canon's upcoming EOS-1D Mk III
professional camera (about a US$3500 purchase) can be fitted with a
device called the WFT-E2A which is primarily a wireless file
transmitter (thus the title) using 802.11G wireless specifications but
also permits the connection of an external GPS device via USB. I
imagine that news organizations and other professional users might
find that invaluable.
I suspect the next generation after that, in 2 years or so, will have
an inbuilt wireless transceiver and possibly even built-in GPS.
Cameras have been carrying onboard GPS for years. My HP 65xx phone has
both
features builtin, as well as being a pocket PC.
--
Peter in Canberra