By Peter Cochrane, 30 August 2005 13:05
COMMENT Written from Colyton, Devon via free domestic Wi-Fi
This summer I have been working and playing in the UK and the US. The locations have been both interesting and spectacular, and as a result I have taken rather more digital photographs than normal, in fact a lot more.
Looking through the (metaphoric) pile of downloaded pics this morning, I found myself struggling to remember where some of the scenic and people shots were actually taken. So in a couple of years I can guarantee I will definitely have no clue as to where I have taken the majority of my photograph collection!
Whist digital cameras just get better and better in terms of capacity, resolution and other features for the money, and have always annotated pics with time and date, they give no clue to location or occasion. And like everyone else, my collection is getting vast. The only clues available to me, apart from date and time, are the general context of the album concerned.
As an avid user of digital cameras, what I really need is a built-in GPS system complete with a microphone that would let me do real-time annotation. A date/time/location stamp augmented by a few voice notes would solve all my problems.
And guess what? It is now easy to do, so why not? I just hope someone is working on it fast because my pic backlog just went through the 8GB mark and the cataloguing challenge is growing fast. If I don't get it fixed soon my photos will become another sea of bits, and especially so for later generations.
What do you think of my idea? I'd like to hear about your feature requests for digital cameras too. Go ahead and post a reader comment below.
Comments
There are 23 comments. Join the discussion
1. Jeremy Wickins
Great minds think alike! I have been renaming digital photographs with location information recently, and thinking that a camera with built-in GPS would be be very high on my wish list. How difficult can it be?
2. Stephen
What about having a search engine for images? Rather than putting words into it - why not images?
3. Neal Welland
My three year old Minolta Camera (F100) has a 5 second voice snippet that can be used to record the picture "context". A GPS facility would be the icing on the cake.
4. Simon Cox
I thought exactly the same thing 3 years ago when I got my first digital camera and started to look into the subject. The amount of old photographs we all have that we have no idea where they were taken must be huge. GPS in digital images would save the information for future generations. So I dug deeper:
And guess what - GPS co-ordinates were already part of the specification for Exiff (Exchangeable image file format). Now if only gps devices were cheap enough to add to cameras and you may need an altimeter and compas to get serious final readings.
5. Nick Harwood
I agree that GPS location (friendly with description of location rather than just grid ref) + quick audio annotation features would be useful. Perhaps even a (fold out) keyboard ... ?
I've now given up on the locations where many of my older pictures were taken!
6. anonymous
Your request for GPS in a camera seems completely over the top.
Firstly, it would add a non-insignificant amount to the cost.
Secondly, a voice memo saying "Cousin Fred's barbecue" is going to make alot more sense in a few years than "26 Acacia Avenue".
7. RM
GPS by itself won't be enough. It may be neccesary a new file format (lile .jpgg = .jpg with gps info) and a software/plugin that can read that info. Maybe programs like Photoshop will be able to read these files and ask for additional info, where you can add any additional text commentary. Adding audio to a pic - altough elegant - is not too savvy in terms of space. An if you can not tell what the picture is about with the date/time/and geographic location, you are looking at somebody else pic.
8. anonymous
How obvious! My mobile phone has GPS built in and by accessing a hot-key function it adds the GPS location to my calendar.
I have then been transferring these details to my PC and linking up to a GPS site to track my movements with meaningful names (a project for my daughter).
My phone also takes photos/video. the technology is all in the one device so it should not be to hard to link it all togther. Even it just meant being able to connect a mobile with GPS to the camera such as the minolta decribed earlier.
So who will be first to colaborate between the phone and camera manufacturers?
Will we see the MInokiaLTA?
9. David Fletcher
Bluetooth GPS receivers are now available.
So all we now need is a bluetooth enabled camera that can pick up the location from the GPS receiver that we're carrying anyway for navigation.
10. Jim Bradford
How about cell phones with plug in capabilities for digital camcorders to transmit videos?
11. Peter Cochrane
As far as I can see it is getting simpler by the day...and will probably arrive on mobile phones first!
12. Peter Cochrane
It turns out to be easier said than done - people have been workling on this for over 20 years...the computing power is enormous and the results less than impressive so far. When it works I'll but it for sure!
13. Peter Cochrane
You bet it would! I have no idea why they abandoned that feature later!
14. Peter Cochrane
The more info the better as far as I'm concerned - anything that helps my memory!
15. Peter Cochrane
If only I could get rid of all those keyboards in my life...but I suspect I am due to see even more...
16. Peter Cochrane
It would cost zip - and that's the great thing about our tech world - we can all have what we want OTT or no...oh, it is difficult to define where you are in some locations like the Rockies et al..
17. Peter Cochrane
I'm a bit lazy on that score, like I don't fill in all the document data in Word et al either....
18. Peter Cochrane
Brill - and no doubt you have voice notes too....just need to link it all together...and mobile with GPS to a really good camer with BlueTooth...hmmm
19. Peter Cochrane
So long as it is automated and doesn't involve me in an hour with a keyboard, mouse and a handbook...I'll buy it!
20. Peter Cochrane
Yep - BlueTooth or hard wired - I'll buy it!
21. Richard Gledhill
It's here already. Pro digital cameras such as the DX2 from Nikon will do it and write the information into the existing image meta information. Of course what you need then is a nice bit of software to link that to your maps, but that's easy.
My photography wish, is not in the camera. Instead I'd like a Wi-Fi enabled ipod to grab the images as they come off.
22. Martin Read
Peter,
My Palm has a 'worldclock' feature which has a built-in placenames database, so wherever you click on the worldmap, a placename with local time appears.
Being a Palm application, it is memory friendly.
So the addition of a GPS card (they are so small now) linked to a similar database should be cheap, compact and easy!
You could then automatically have a locality and local time stamp.
Go out and copyright it!!
23. Zoe Hellar
I am aware that there have been a coupel of cameras introduced recently that provide not only a time stamp but a location fix associated to google maps so that you are able to know exactly where the picture was taken. No doubt there is some in built GPS hardware involved.