Everybody wants to connect his digital camera to a GPS system. And everybody wonders why no gadget manufacturer has tried this simple combination yet. Sure, there have been some industrial equipment around. Presently, legendary meter maids all over the world use the combination to record the vivid evidence of parking violation.

But, consumer model? So far, very few. GPS antenna/receiver chips have shrunk so quickly these days that installing them would be no problem at all. Maybe we consumers have to raise our voice loudly.

The digital camera side is ready to accept GPS already. Data-recording format of camera (JPEG) is uniformly standerdized as "Exif". Exif 2.1 has even the space for GPS positional data along with data of the shooting such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO speed. Any Exif-compatible application can utilize these information quite easily.

Ricoh Caplio Pro G3 with IO Data CFGPS2 GPS receiver unit inserted. This model has been discontinued.

Ricoh Caplio Pro G3 was one of the few models that had GPS connection. Its CompactFlash slot accepted a GPS unit. JPEG file recorded its positional information (latitude + longitude) when the shot was taken. Unfortunately, Caplio Pro G3 was discontinued. Ricoh does not produce GPS-compatible digital cameras any more.

Another way. Some of the mobile terminals with GPS function made a smooth GPS-camera coordination possible since quite a long time ago (2002, KDDI/au). But, digital camera and K-tai camera are totally different game. Sending a picture mail with positional/map information is nice, but blowing it up? No way.

Sony GPS-CS1K receiver unit. Single AA battery drives this cylinder for 10 hours. Price: 15,540 yen (US$135).

Sony has another solution for GPS-camera connection. Sony GPS receiver unit, GPS-CS1K, records the positional information with time stamp. When the shooting session has finished, both Exif data from the camera and positional data from GPS-CS1k are matched on PC, and combined together. Quite a cumbersome way, I agree. But on the other hand, GPS-CS1k can work with any Exif-standard digital cameras.

All right, let's go out for shooting flenzy. GPS-CS1K works for around 10 hours with a single AA battery. First, calibrate the timer of digital camera. Crazy time stamp means crazy matching, OK?

GPS-CS1K totally and exclusively relies on GPS. No gyro sensors, nor acceleration sensors. Where no GPS signals are available, positional data can't be updated. So, indoor or underground shooting would be a problem. In this situation, a lowly K-tai GPS is far more efficient because it can use trigonometric calculation of base station signals when GPS satellites can't be reached.

GPS-CS1k records the positional data every 15 seconds. Format; NMEA-0183, the world standard. Memory medium, 32MB flash.

Shoot information is inserted into Google Map.

Bundled software, GPS Image Tracker, matches the camera Exif and GPS-CS1K by checking two time stamps, and combining them. Another bundled package, Super Mapple Digital Ver.7 for Sony, casts the completed Exif data on digital map.

There are so many Exif-compatible graphics/map applications. You can cook the data anyway you like. The sky is the limit. Or maybe, Google Earth is the limit. Anyway, GPS-CS1K is a nice and useful stopgap until real GPS digital cameras become readily available in Akihabara.

 

cheewee
Level:

kaisei1
Level: