DetectingWales.com

I am looking for a bit of advice on mobiles with camera and GPS facility. I do a lot of field walking and on my busy flint sites it would be a lot easier if I photo and GPS tag each artifact as I find them. Then when I get home it is simple process of transferring data to my records.
 I have done some basic asking around high street phone shops, but obviously they will only want to sell latest models and at £150ish is a bit expensive for this exercise. As I gather the options so far are new smart phone with geotaging ,downsides my main search areas are signal bad/black spots so Android based OS are a no brainer. (need constant updating and dont like losing signal) and would be to costly to run on P A Y G . orange or vodaphone (only systems available round here).
Has anybody got any suggestions for older model phones that may come close to what I want to do
Cheers Ian

Ian I think as you say the price is going to be upward of £150 especially with the macro facility you would need. I'm not sure if you have thought about the system I use which is a "photo logger" I turn it on when I start detecting (battery lasts well over a day) and just take my "clod shots" as normal, then when I down load my photos I also download my track log which the software will tag to the corresponding photograph. The end result is that you don't have to fiddle with tagging  or inputting waypoints in the field and you can use your normal camera so far better quality results.
This is the unit I use;
http://www.maplin.co.uk/gps-travel-tracker-227620 (http://www.maplin.co.uk/gps-travel-tracker-227620)

Obviously if you're after a new phone anyway then this suggestion is about as useful as a chocolate teapot ;D

Horses for course In my opinion.

I think to do any aspect justice you need to have dedicated equipment. Not only are you expecting a phone to take
good quality images but it would really need to be capable of quality close-up work and also have flash facility!
You'd probably be better off getting a good compact camera and a 'Memory Map' Unit like the ADV 350 which will give you precise
map locations on 25:000 maps which you can then upload to your computer.

http://www.memory-map.co.uk/adventurerGPS/index.php/adventurer-3500.html (http://www.memory-map.co.uk/adventurerGPS/index.php/adventurer-3500.html)

Mike

Sorry mike but that is a stupid amount of money for a recording device, as Ian has said "£150ish is a bit expensive for this exercise" so £300 is not really going to fit the bill. If you were willing to spend a bit more then rather than either of these suggestions then I would be inclined to buy a Panasonic TZ10 camera which comes with a GPS logger built in, it has a Leica Elmar lens so the resolution is about as good as it gets and can be bought for around £180.

If you want good GPS positioning on a phone, the iphone 3 will run google earth with pretty good accuracy. There are loads of apps with gps add ons and conversion to OS coordinates. So far I have found it doesnt deviate by more that 5 feet if the reception is good and it can update correctly. Photos are good quality and it can record video which would allow a panoramic view and line of site positioning.

You can even record an account of extended digs for hoards etc and stream it on to youtube.

I use a 3 broadband dongle when I am out too which means you can email yourself photos so they dont get lost or out of sequence. Having broadband in the middle of a field is pretty wierd I know but it adds a bit of dash to my records.

I have recently moved up to the iphone 4 which is no more expensive with the contract I have with orange than my old iphone. My missus has pinched it now so I cant offer it for sale cheap but there are plenty advertised on EBay and Amazon.

Eric



Eric

Oops, didn't see the budget was only £150 on this enquiry so that being the case, I agree that the system I use is way over the top.

Know what you mean about cost Geoff but I've spent most of my life walking hills and mountains, (twelve years as a member of the Brecon Mountain Rescue Team) so for me the cost of having an accurate instantly known location anywhere regardless of weather, terrain or location is well worth it. Link that with a good compact camera and you have a system that's very effective. 

Mike

Oh I agree Mike as I used to be a qualified mountain leader, but in that situation where you need to know where you are, but in this circumstance you need to know where you've been.

 ???Umm something weird going on here.....Mountain leader----- mountain rescue,     Photographer--------photographer, motorbikes-------------motorbikes, ever done any diving Mike? after that I think we better think about DNA testing  :D

Blimey... Yes - Second Class. Was diving in the Irish Sea two months ago. Haven't dived for many a year and though it was like riding a bike!!!!!
I think that WILL be my last dive.

Hey mike thinking on gettin the canon coolpix i8000 does this camera gps on it and would you recommend it.

Sounds like a cut and shunt job to me  ;D Nikon make coolpix not Canon ???

Quite right chef oops

Not sure but I don't think Nikon do a GPS enabled camera. Honestly Al check out the Panasonic TZ10, I use the TZ8 (no GPS on mine >:() the quality is very good.

i personally think my canon is great 6 weeks out in the rain and still all good , must remember 2 tie it around my neck next time  :D :D :D :D

Not too sure on the GPS front, but camera wise you won't go far wrong with the camera I use to record all the finds made on DW rallies,

It cost over £300 new way back in 2004 and boasted the highest meapixles at 5.1 in the market at the time for a compact digital. You can now buy one secondhand for £30 on E-Bay! Its the Nikon Coolpix 5200.

I have upgraded several times since but for robustness nothing beats it. Over 18,000 photos taken and still going as strong as the day I bought it.

Neil

Many thanks for the info guys, I did think about going down the camera/ GPS system rather than phone. I wasnt really looking for super quality images in the field, more of a (failing ) memory jogger. I can do this under studio conditions at home. I have checked out the 3g and above systems and these are basically unfeasable due to lack of supporting signal and network availability. The only way you can get Broadband up here over dial up speed is via satalite (I have explored all the options for my home PC set up) Dongle speed in the middle of local towns is only bits per sec -not Kbs .I appreciate the suggestion of i phone or similar , but to operate with google maps , they need constant signal to update your roming position otherwise it could involve waiting for lengths of time while the device plays catchup.
To keep the bulk of kit down in the field , the maplins travel tracker looks like the most sensible and convienient cost effective solution(Secretly I was looking to get a new toy as well )  Geof how do you sinc it to your camera ? I would be intending using my old Olympus u600 compact.
Thank you again for your imput(s)

In the software of the tracker there is a "Time synch" button so that you can ensure that the clock in your camera is exactly the same as that on the unit, once you have set this then it's just a matter of downloading your photo's in the usual way to a folder for that day (or however you do it) then when you plug in the Tracker, it will ask you if you wish to log photos and which file they are in. Just click on that file and it does the rest, at the end it brings up a google earth image with the photos attached. If you check the "properties" of those photographs you will see that the coordinates have been added to the metadata.

Thats a very clever and sensible idea Geoff, I think you may have just solved my problem.

Teachers pet..  ;D

oops sorry Mike
      :-[ :-[ :-[

 ;D ;D

iPhones can be a gd tool when out detecting. Photos are automatically geotaged within a couple of meters. Plus you can post pics/videos on the field. Also there's more and more detecting related apps released regular.

I have a Garmin 60 GPS that I bought for use on my boat before I got the permanent fixed one for it.

It was cheap at the time, because it has a black and white display rather than all singing and dancing colour one.

If you create marks on a track as photo titles when you take the photo, you can download your track and waypoints on to google earth at home and it shows your complete track with highlighted waypoints and titles overlaid on the google map.

It can also show you how accurate your gridding has been if you are methodically scanning an area.

Nice bit of kit.

Eric