How to link a M9 with GPS data

[scottwallick]

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Since I don't have an iPhone but a BlackBerry, I thought I'd share how to link GPS data from the BlackBerry with images taken with the M9.

 

First, on the BlackBerry, I use freeware called GPSLogger. This software creates a GPX file that you can export or have it sent from the BlackBerry to any email address as an attachment.

 

Second, on my computer, I run GPicSync. It's open source, and I run it on my PC. It's also available for Linux and OS X users.

 

So, when I'm out shooting, I just turn start GPSLogger on my BlackBerry and put it away. It works in the background. Either when I'm done shooting or I get home, I turn off GPSLogger and have it email the GPX file with the GPS data to my email address.

 

Then, I plug in my memory card from the M9 and start up GPicSync. I open the GPX file sent from my BlackBerry and point the application to SD card folder. It takes a moment to tag each image with the geo / GPS data, so have a cup of coffee.

 

When it's done, I then import the files in to Lightroom as usual. It's important to geocode the photos before importing in to Lightroom since, in my experience, if you tag afterwards, Lightroom must be instructed to look forward to new metadata.

 

What I like about GPicSync is that if you have images taken before or after you started/stopped the GPS on the BlackBerry, it doesn't do anything.

 

As to battery drain, I've run GPSLogger for >4 hours with less than half battery loss. It collects GPS data in intervals selected. I imagine I could run it for <9 hours without killing the battery. Wish I could say the same for the M9.

[adan]

OK, Bo - point taken. My diatribe was directed more at the overall "more gizmos for Leicas" concept than GPS per se. Too often, the only questions asked in technological progress is "Can we do it?" and "How do we do it?" - not "Should we do it?"

 

Specific to GPS - I guess I just find the idea of combining "GPS location" with "photography" as alien as combining "GPS location" with "sexual intercourse". At least as far as my own work goes.

 

(But if GPS combined with photography can help in some way to, for example, rescue people trapped in Port-au-Prince - God!, anything is worth a try and worth doing!!)

 

Back to gizmos in general. OK - I used to get thrills looking through Nikon's system brochures, when the system was really extensive and covered every conceivable use for a Nikon: sports finders, waist-level finders, bellows, Speed-Magny Polaroid backs, data backs, pin-register backs, 250 exposure backs, motors, motor grips, orthagonal fisheyes, UV-only lenses, baseplate grips... In the context of SLRs, I really liked the "transformer" ability to field-strip a Nikon down to basically the shutter and film chambers, and then rebuild it into a whole different camera. In fact, I rather miss that in modern SLRs, where almost everything is "built-in" in the first place.

 

As you say, at one time, Leica had a similar range of extras (mostly dating from pre-SLR days as ways of getting SLR functionality out of a rangefinder, and thus already fading away by the 1960's) copy devices, Visoflex, microscope adapters and other scientific imaging tools.

 

Maybe there is sense in a revival of that approach. Maybe. The question is - is it, right now, the best way for Leica to employ their resources? How big is the intersection between the set of people who want to use Leica rangefinders, and the set of people who want to GPS-tag their photos? Or field-strip their camera and rebuild it as a video camera (a la RED)? Or hook up a digital camera to an electron microscope?

 

My local camera store has a fancy Leitz Laborator microscope for sale (dating probably from just before the company breakup). The camera adapter on it is a "Nikon" - probably because by 1984 a Nikon body was a smarter and more cost-effective choice for that purpose than an M4-P.

[Guest BigSplash]

Andy I am not sure where you are coming from. You say:

1. Nikon catalog used to have many accessories that allowed the camera to be customised ...and that was good. However today a Nikon has everything included so it does defacto all that you need without accessories.
   
2. Leica rangefinder camera of the 60's had also a large range of accessories that enabled close up photography and via the Visoflex the camera could move in the direction of being a SLR. However today Leica M is very basic and the accessories do not exist. Leica M's cannot do close up or Telephoto photography, and other accessories do not exist.
   

Purists here would say I guess that keeping the Leica M9 as basic is good and I would agree.

 

Surely this does not mean however as you suggest that Leica should not ask themselves "Should we do it? " ..I would go further ."Is there a market need for certain accessories that has been identified or could be stimulated to differentiate a Leica M9"?

 

I would ask: "Why is it somehow a bad thing to extend the usefulness, through accessories of the Leica M9 product?"

 

A tailored GPS module that interconnects with the camera directly (hot shoe & USB port) is something I would want and apparently others agree with me. Clearly people here are using the Nobo device, or iPhone / Blackberry as Leica provide nothing.

 

Such a device could avoid the need to sync the GPS with the camera at the end of a day's shooting. It could add GPS data directly.

 

Let's be clear some cameras have this feature built in already. It seems likely that Nikon and Canon will integrate GPS at some point .....and that leaves Leica either playing catch up or staying basic.

 

A remote wireless shutter release accessory with electrical connection to the camera seems like a good idea also. I am sure that other ideas such as underwater housing etc would be welcome accessories that could be marketed by Leica, and developed by others. I ask why this is bad.

[adan]

No, I said Nikon today has everything included (which means I can't leave out all the extraneous crap I don't need).

 

It was fine for the Nikon F to be flexible - and really nice to know I COULD add stuff to it of I ever had a professional need - but I never used it myself except with a plain unmetered prism or occasionally waist-level finder.

 

Unfortunately there is no way for me to use a D3x and leave out the motor, the AF, the extra-large batteries.....while at the same time Nikon has not allowed for swappable prisms or the extensive range of focusing screens (split image, full microprism, etc.) that I might actually use now and then.

 

(and before you mention the motor in the M8/M9 - if Nikon can produce a motorized D3x the same size as the M8/M9. more power to them. I'll be glad to keep it in that case. Got any odds to offer?)

 

So while the Nikon F was a basic camera onto which the individual photographer could build (or not build) extra features, the D3x is an overloaded camera which one can NOT field-strip down to just what one needs - and still can't offer all the options their camera from 50 years ago could. They've gone downhill in two directions at once.

________________________________________

 

As to the Leicas - in the 1960's that system had HOLDOVER accesories from an era (the 1950's or earlier) when SLRs did not generally exist. The advent of SLRs meant that those holdovers were obsolete kludges, and they faded away through lack of buyers. When David Douglas Duncan took the new 400mm Telyt to the 1968 conventions, he didn't use a Visoflex on his M's - he took a Leicaflex.

 

The Viso (and most of the other SLR-like accesories) was a kludge originating in the 1930's that had served its purpose and was pointless by the 1960's. If Leica had actually introduced it in 1964 as "our SLR" - they would have been laughed off the face of the planet.

 

In the 40 years since then, the concept of what a Leica is has changed. The world has moved on. It is not an SLR - it is an "anti-SLR" - so what was and is desirable in Nikon and Canon systems may very well NOT be desirable for Leica.

 

Back to GPS and other accesories:

 

Did you actually read this part of my last post?

 

"As you say, at one time, Leica had a similar range of extras...Maybe there is sense in a revival of that approach. Maybe."

 

If you feel it is accurate to restate my meaning as "It is somehow a bad thing to extend the usefulness, through accessories of the Leica M9 product" - well, I said no such thing. In fact, exactly the opposite.

 

It MAY be a good thing to extend the usefulness, through accessories of the Leica M9 product - if there really are markets (and one person's idea is not a market) for them.

 

"Is there a market need for certain accessories that has been identified or could be stimulated to differentiate a Leica M9"?

 

I'd leave out the "need" - is there a market? There are all kinds of "needs" - but a market is enough buyers to make an accesory profitable, or so large that, even if unprofitable, it increases camera sales enough to pay for itself out of the camera profits.

 

For a small company like Leica, I'd put a sensible profitable market for an accesory at 10% of camera sales - you'd need at least 100 buyers for every 1,000 M9s sold. That depends of course on how expensive the accesory is to make in "Leica-sized" batches, and how much the 100 are actually willing to pay.

 

So we have, about now, 4,000 M9s sold worldwide. Where are the minimum 400 people clamoring for GPS capability? You fudge around that by using generalities like "apparently others agree with me" and "clearly people here".

 

The only thing clear and apparent is that maybe a dozen people, perhaps, agree with you. Right?

 

Maybe there is a market: for a GPS accessory, for a wireless shutter release. There are rational ways to find out and know for sure. "Seems like a good idea" - however - is not one of them. Not even close.

[pierovitch]

Anyone tried this ?

JOBO AG international: photoGPS

[bill]

Anyone tried this ?

JOBO AG international: photoGPS

 

Keep up at the back, there, Pierre

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

Jaap,

 

I have one of the Jobo PhotoGPS thingies. It works well in daylight, it use the hotshooe for the flash sync, the shoe triggers regardless of chosen shutterspeed. (at least on my camera it does).

 

When it works it work well. I was really excited when I got it at PMA last year, the sony sticks were retired for a while even. however, the top gps unit sit on a little cube which have the flash connector. the gps unit have shitty metal connectors which is notoriously corroding and having contact problems, meaning this thing consistently do not fire when expected to. also there is no lock, and it is pretty loose in the hot shoe resulting in it being pushed back and disconnecting, sometimes its even been pushed off the camera.

 

The genius of this particular device is that it do not actually calculate the cordinates on location, instead it turns on when triggered and captures a few seconds of gps signal, when you download to your laptop, the software will then do the calculation, this mean that the unit can work for about 1000+ shots with the internal battery. The software matches the "rhythm" of your shots with the rhythm of the gps waypoints, so it will figure the right time and location even if your camera is set to the wrong time. this is very clever but the system completely falls apart when more than a few misfires happens, unfortunately this thing misfires better than anything.

 

If Jobo wanted it, they could make this a much better product, gold plate the contacts and put a lock on the hot-shooe connector. also make it lean a little more forward. and I would be OK with a even bigger battery.

 

Soo, having gone through two of these, I am back to putting a sony thingie in the side pocket of my camera bag.

 

.

[bill]

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Did you actually read this part of my last post?

 

"As you say, at one time, Leica had a similar range of extras...Maybe there is sense in a revival of that approach. Maybe."

 

If you feel it is accurate to restate my meaning as "It is somehow a bad thing to extend the usefulness, through accessories of the Leica M9 product" - well, I said no such thing. In fact, exactly the opposite.

 

In future, to save time and effort I am going to cut out the middle man and misquote myself.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[bill]

So, as I just said, "the market clearly needs a GPS-enabled Visoflex because lots of people including me say so".

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[pierovitch]

Keep up at the back, there, Pierre

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

Sorry I must have slept through a few posts

 

How about this?

 

Leica GS20 Professional Data Mapper - GS20 Professional Data Mapper - Leica Geosystems - Leica Geosystems

Just add hot shoe to rs232 connection.

[stunsworth]

For a small company like Leica, I'd put a sensible profitable market for an accesory at 10% of camera sales - you'd need at least 100 buyers for every 1,000 M9s sold

 

Why did Leica drop all those accessories in the past? I'd suggest because they didn't sell, or rather didn't sell in numbers that made their manufacture and stocking worthwhile. I'd guess that the vast majority of them sold to far less than 10% of the Leica buying public.

[Guest BigSplash]

Andy thanks for your feedback. Sorry if you feel that I misquoted you, that was not my intention. I mostly agree with the points that you make:

1. I would not want a camera that is large, heavy, obtrusive, does everything and has many bits and pieces that can go wrong.
   
2. I too like the basic simplicity of a Leica M9,
   
3. I agree that if AF was added it would add to the bulk of the lenses due to the motors and for me that would be bad news in most cases. However focus verification would add value in poor light conditions without the need for lens motors....So I would vote for that capability in a M10.
   
4. I agree that what I want and several other people want (eg GPS) does not a market make. However the fact that you, Bill, Jaapv, Andy and a few others do not want it is also not a confirmation that there is no "profitable" market for Leica.
   
5. Ultimately there is a business decision for Solms to make and that will be dependant on:
   1. 
      
   2. Market estimate of shipment volumes and the price that can be achieved. You suggest that 10% of M9 buyers would buy a GPS accessory. I think that if the price was right the number would be far higher...but neither you nor I can substantiate our numbers.
      
   3. Cost to develop the unit. I would believe that Leica would do well to take the badge engineering route using something like the Nobo unit as the base. The cost in this case would be presumably low as it would consist of some tooling and some software by Leica.
      
   4. Desirability of increasing the Leica M9 functionality by following a strategy that has the M9 as a basic unit supported by items that enhance the appeal to different market segments.
      

[*]I remain convinced that Leica has a chance to allow users to do more with their cameras via accessories without destroying the basic simplicity of this classic camera.

[redbaron]

Frank, have you ever the saying about being able to catch more flies with honey than vinegar? You can't really expect a company, nor some of its supporters, to take your advice seriously when you berate them so much.

I don't own a large company, but if one of my clients used language like yours about my work I'd drop 'em faster than a hot coal.

[Guest BigSplash]

Frank, have you ever the saying about being able to catch more flies with honey than vinegar? You can't really expect a company, nor some of its supporters, to take your advice seriously when you berate them so much.

I don't own a large company, but if one of my clients used language like yours about my work I'd drop 'em faster than a hot coal.

 

Red Baron....what language are you referring to. I have said:

• M9 is the best camera in the world,
  
• Leica lenses are the best.
  
• I love the simplicity of this very basic camera.
  
• I hope that they listen to clients needs. I think that the M9 can be an excellent base for developing approriate accessories that can widen the appeal of the M system further.
  
• Leica should be client driven
  

I believe all of the above and I have a Digilux2 plus M4,M5,M6, and M8. I hope to buy a M10 if it is what I think it is likely to be. I do not own a Nikon or Canon nor do I want one. I buy my equipment new. Surely I am an ideal Leica client that they should value.

 

Show me the language that offends. If you are correct maybe that is why I am still waiting since two months for a lens hood and a UV/IR filter..!

[jaapv]

Andy thanks for your feedback.[......] I mostly agree with the points that you make:

Now I bet that made Andy's day....

[bill]

New readers, save your time and effort, and start here:

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/customer-forum/88636-challenges-new-leica-ceo.html

 

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

 

[Mauribix]

(But if GPS combined with photography can help in some way to, for example, rescue people trapped in Port-au-Prince - God!, anything is worth a try and worth doing!!)

 

Yep Adan, you hit the point, GPS and geotagged pictures were very useful in the zone of L'Aquila after the earthquake wasted the town in 2009.

Some of my clients (Architects) found very useful for their work the gps coordinates when they needed to indentify zones otherway absolutely unrecognizable.

Those photographers who geotagged pictures, were the first choice in that case.

 

Whether this has something to do with Leica it's far from my argumentations, but while I don't think a built-in gps is necessary for an M camera, I still believe we can't ignore its usefulness.

An accessory device may be something good for those who need it and choose the M as their workhorse.

[adan]

Jaap: Actually, BigSplash's post #111 as it stands is concise and avoids generalities, unwarranted assumptions and sweeping unsupported statements, and I do appreciate that, whether I agree with all the specific points or not.

 

As to GPS geotagging - clearly, on consideration, I see that it can be a serious tool and not just a toy. Back to the "how-to" explanations...

[Nicoleica]

I've just been reading through the release notes on the recent firmware update for my D700. It is interesting to note that several changes have been made there to increase GPS functionality. One example is adding an option to set the camera's clock from a GPS signal. It seems that Nikon see GPS as a useful tool for their cameras. (I have a little P6000 which I carry in my handbag, and this even has a built-in GPS receiver.)

 

It would not surprise me to see Leica including support for such a feature in future models, although this would require some sort of multi-purpose connector. As Leica cameras are now electronic devices with electronic shutter releases instead of purely mechanical ones, this should not be beyond the realms of possibility. This would open up other possibilities too, such as easier wireless triggering, intervalometers etc. As these would all be optional extras, nobody would be forced to use them if they didn't wish to, and the cap for such a connector could remain firmly in place.

 

I now stand ready to be burned at the stake.

[brt3]

...I now stand ready to be burned at the stake.

A witch!

(said with Pythonesque silly accent)

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jaapv]

 

I now stand ready to be burned at the stake.

I would advise you to get an exemption at the Heksenwaag in Oudewater As a matter of fact I am 100% with you. Now we have the silly USB rubber flap. That port could be much better employed to enable an electronic remote release and add-on gizmos like GPS trackers or time-releases, etc.