Friday, October 30, 2009

What the heck is a geotag?

In one of his comments about a photo I took, TenMile asked where's the geotag. I have to admit, at the time I didn't really know what the hell he was talking about. Since then, I've done some googling, and found out a little about it. Wikipedia discusses it here.

When you right click on a photo (using a PC that is -- with a MAC it's different, perhaps you control click, MAC users help me out) it gives you some information: which camera took it, the speed, the ISO and other stuff. When you geotag a photo, it adds the latitude, longitude, elevation and even more information. If you go on vacation, you can create an album online that shows a map of where the photos were taken. Nice.

I've also heard that eventually, ALL cameras will include a GPS that will automatically geotag photos. Right now, even expensive ones don't have that capability.

The good news, is that you can geotag your own photos manually. In my case, I went into Picasa and clicked on geotag. Google earth opened up, I entered the address when I shot the photos, and it added that to the properties (as I mentioned above) that can be seen if you right-click.

Fine, I went into Picasa, and did this. When I right-click on the image in Picasa, it shows this:

If you click to enlarge and look near the bottom, you'll see the coordinates of Tom Lee Park where I shot with Jusdealem a couple of weeks ago.

My problem is that this looks great, but when I import the geotagged photos into my blog, it loses that information! Ouch! Does anyone know why or what do do about it?

In the meantime, on the photo shoot, I didn't have to worry about finding people to photograph. In fact, a young lady saw me taking photos, and ran up and said: "Do me! Take my picture." Even though I'd never seen her before, I did, and you can see her posing below:



12 comments:

  1. In mac os x 10.6, save full-sized pic to desktop. Option right click opens inspector, which gives you:
    title, type, file size, pixel size, time, canon eos40d, focal length, f stop, shutter speed, and other numbers I am not familiar with.

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  2. But did it show the latitude and that info? I don't see it with a PC.

    I guess I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong, or does blogger not transfer that info, or ???

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  3. Man, I didn't mean to give heartburn Not even mild heart burn, with that question.

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  4. No luck in iphoto, but I saved the model into Picasa for Mac. In the lower right of the screen with that photo expanded there was a pin icon. Hitting that bought up a map with a pin showing at Riverside drive and Huling Ave in Memphis.

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  5. And expanding the map, Lee Park is shown.

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  6. And it has the satellite view.

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  7. @TenMile: hey, I'm glad you did, I learned something.

    @Crash: so, the info is there, it just doesn't show the full EXIF in blogger! Thanks for helping me understand what's going on.

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  8. Geotags manually are way too much trouble...

    This young lady probably thought you were a famous photographer and she is, obviously, a model wanna-be...

    Nice shots, though. Maybe there's a career hint for you here. :-)

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  9. Wow, she sure did strike some poses right on the spot, didn't she? You make taking stranger pics look so easy!

    I don't know anything about geotags. I do know that not long ago, I went to google earth, entered my address and freaked the hell out when I saw the street level panaramic views of my street, house and neighbors. It's weird and I don't like it.

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  10. @Jacob: the fancy camera tricked her!

    @jusdealem: Yeah, it's almost like big brother can watch you or something.

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  11. MoJo - access your Google account, click your Pic account, your settings, go to the second tab across the top of the page and check the "share" button.

    You must tell the program to allow the address information across.

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  12. "access your Google account"

    Thx for the tip.

    Could you be more specific? Do you mean Earth Google, Picasa, where I get my google mail (and other stuff) or where exactly?

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