GeoLogTag: Geotag With Any Camera for $5 (+ iPhone)

Today Cait and I wandered around Acadia National Park with our SLR (a D50 with Nikon’s 18–200mm VR, both highly recommended, though the D50 has been effectively replaced by the D40). I wanted to geotag the photos (maps on computers are fun) but, alas, the D50 does not have GPS.

The iPhone does though, so I was able to use a nifty app called GeoLogTag [iTunes, $5] to do the tagging for me.
GeoLogTag’s workflow may seem a bit awkward at first, but I think its solution is pretty clever. Here’s how it works:

1. When you start taking photos, turn on GeoLogTag and just leave it running in your pocket. GeoLogTag will continuously record your location via GPS.
2. Back at your computer, use Image Capture or some similar program to dump the photos off of the camera and in to a shared folder with guest read / write access.
3. Then, get the iPhone on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer and open GeoLogTag again. GeoLogTag will connect to the shared folder and update the photos inside with geo information.

The updating was on the not-that-fast side, taking maybe 10–15 minutes for 350+ photos, but still much faster than trying to guess the locations of the photos on a map myself. Also, according to their website, the updating process is slightly less smooth on Windows.

Overall, I’m very happy with GeoLogTag’s results, and I’d recommend it for anyone with an iPhone, a camera, and an obsessive desire to organize their photos as much as technologically possible. The photos we took today were dotted all over iPhoto’s Places map, as you can see to the right.

Some tips:

• Check your camera’s time and date before you go out, since GeoLogTag relies on matching photos’ times to its location record.
• Turn off Wi-Fi when you’re recording locations. This will keep the iPhone from using Skyhook location data, which will not be as accurate as GPS.

Liked this app, or found a support group for geotaggers and facial recognition completists? Let me know in the comments.