I'm reading an article at B&H Photo about geotagging and dataloggers. These really small data loggers look appealing, but it's hard to find actual reviews of them. Holux Sony anyone had any experience with them? I do see that the Sony software is Windoze only (I'm a Mac user).
I bought a Track Stick last year to take on a 7000mi trip. I had read about using these track devices and really liked the idea of being able to store long distance tracks without needing to carry a computer to download to as I would have to using my 2610. My favorite way to GPS navigate is to set waypoints - places I want to see, cities and places I want to avoid etc - and then use the offroad feature to navigate. Eliminates all the frustration for me, yes I have to turn around once in awhile but thats part of the fun - no one telling me constantly that I am off route - no route recalculating when I set it for no recalc - just a map and an arrow - I love it. The problem is that when ask what route I took, I have no idea! Anyway I had to take a laptop on my trip as I could not get the Track Stick to operate as advertised but looking back I wonder if I just got a bad one and am considering trying again. I needed this thing to function and I tried it around home for a few weeks - it was set to record position once a minute - in a 60 minute trip I was lucky to have 4-5 plotted points. I had carefully mounted it with a clear sky view. Customer service was sketchy at best - email only, no phone numbers and actually I never found a manufacture address - only Calif I think. I had purchased it because of being a product of the USA. I contacted the store that I purchesed it from in desperation and the salesman told me that they had not had any complaints and that people were actually using these things for surveillance, so they were hidden in vehicles - no clear sky view. I ask him to replace the one I had and I sent mine back. They credited my credit card and I have wondered since if I actually had a bad one or if he was really telling me that was as good as it gets and refunded my money. I notice that the example tracks given by these manufactures seem to be of tracks walked and I have to wonder if we just travel to fast on motorcycles for these things to get a fix? The reading I have done looks like some units operate better than others but then there are software complaints. If you do find a unit that works well would you please kep us informed.
There is also a utility available that will look at the photo's you took along the way and compare their time-stamp with the time-stamp inside your Tracks to create a GeoTag for the Photo. Cheers,
Dataloggers are cool for when you don't have a GPS. We have used them at work, I just haven't found a reason to have one yet, since I generally have a PC or something and the zumo holds a boat load of tracks. I guess if I was running a hand held or something that doesn't have a huge tracklog and didn't want to have a notebook it would make sense. I searched, can't find it, but there was one that would connect directly to a USB data device and transfer the data off without a notebook.
i'm still using RoboGeo software. It works very well and has a lot of flexibility in what it produces. You just keep a GPS recording wherever you go with the camera. RoboGeo will find the closest trackpoint in the tracklog by comparing timestamps with the image files and writing the location data in the EXIF header of the image. Some small high-sensitivity receiver like a Garmin eTrex H (which is sort of like a super-logger anyway) would be very good. But you can use it with anything that records tracks or waypoints. A license is just $40.
I have not used it, but there is a Mac alternative, HoudahGeo Garmin/Magellan/Wintech are supported, and the data loggers might work, bluetooth and a modem profile is generally a no brainer with a Mac, only catch is the format that the logger kicks out. I paid for RoboGeo before I went Mac and still use it when I need to under VMWare on my Mac, works OK.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=422099 Photomapper by Copiks challenges Robogeo. It is free and I am happy using it.
