GeoTagging GPS Accuracy

GPS Performance Standard Document Updated - GPS World

The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) has released an updated civil GPS Standard Positioning Service Performance Standard, committing the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to an improved level of GPS accuracy for civilian signals.

It is the fourth revision of the standard positioning service (SPS) performance standards document, and the first update since October 2001. In addition to specifying GPS minimum performance commitments, the SPS performance standard serves as a technical document designed to complement the GPS Signal in Space (SIS) Interface Specification.

The most significant change in the updated SPS standards is a 33 percent improvement in the minimum level of SIS range accuracy, from 6 meters root mean square (rms) accuracy to 4 meters rms (7.8 meters, 95 percent), according to the document, which is drafted by the DoD and released through the PNT committee.

While the stated dedication to improvement is notable, it has a built-in conservative margin for minimum performance; as the documents authors note in the executive summary: "with current (2007) SIS accuracy, well designed GPS receivers have been achieving horizontal accuracy of 3 meters or better and vertical accuracy of 5 meters or better, 95 percent of the time."

The full SPS document can be found on the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing website.

Nikon GeoTagging - Blue2CAN Nikon Review

Here's how to use geotagging to add location data to your image files.

Here's how to use geotagging to add location data to your image files.

Dave Johnon
PCWorld

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:00 AM PDT

I remember showing photos of my trek through Grand Cayman to a friend a few years ago. "Where were these taken?" she asked me about a particular set of photos. "Hmm," I replied, "I don't remember. The East End, I think. I took so many photos, I can't keep track." At the time, I wished there was some automatic way to tag my photos with location information, so I'd always know where they were taken. Yet another thing I'd never have to remember ever again!

Well, my wish has come true: Geotagging is here. Geotagging is the term for adding location information to your photo files--and it's one of the coolest things ever to happen to digital photography.

The Magic of GPS

How can a camera know where it's taking photos? With the Global Positioning System, of course! The system of navigational satellites that a lot of people now take for granted also lets you geotag your photos. In a perfect world, GPS chips would be built into all digital cameras. But that's not the case right now. Instead, we need to somehow marry GPS and photography to make geotagging work.

The available solutions range from amazingly elegant to somewhat less elegant. Take Red Hen's Blue2Can, for example. In my experience, there's no better geotagging solution.

Blue2Can is a thumb-sized gadget that plugs into a small port on the front of several Nikon digital SLRs, including the D200, D2X, D2Xs, and D2Hs. It communicates wirelessly to any Bluetooth GPS receiver, like the kind that sits on your car's dashboard, the clip-on GPS device that I reviewed in May, or the Pharos gadget that combines multimedia features with GPS.

Blue2Can automatically tags your photos as you take them with GPS data (latitude, longitude, and altitude) that mapping software can read. Take a few pictures with Blue2Can attached to a Nikon camera, then upload them to your Flickr page, for example. Flickr adds a "map" link to each picture--click it and you can see where it was taken. Even cooler: You can view all your photos as pushpins on a map, so you can go on a virtual tour of that Grand Cayman vacation.

Manual Geotagging

But what if you don't have a Blue2Can-compatible Nikon camera? You can add location info after the fact. To do that, carry a GPS receiver with you while you shoot, and then use a program on your PC to synchronize the GPS data with your photos. RoboGEO is a clever program that can read the log from your GPS receiver and mark all your photos with the appropriate locations. And Sony has a gadget custom-designed for just this sort of track-your-movements photo duty, the GPS-CS1.

It is a pretty simple process, but it does involve an extra step to batch-process all your photos when you get them home.

If you aren't quite ready to step into the world of GPS, there are ways to mark your photos with locations manually. In Flickr, for example, you can display a photo and click the link labeled "Place this photo on a map" to pick a location off a map by hand.

It's not as glamorous as letting a billion-dollar military satellite system do it for you, but the end result is the same: You and your friends can see the photos were taken.

Blue2CAN Review

Review of Red Hen Blue2CAN GPS Unit

Ruth Happel/Wild Portraits

The Red Hen Blue2CAN unit is one of the latest emerging technologies allowing photographers to encode GPS data with their photographs. I have earlier explored the many reasons why this is important (see http://wildportraits.com/gps.aspx for more details on GPS and photography), but the most obvious is the ability to sort photos by not only time but place.

As an early adopter of combining GPS with photography, I am always looking for the ultimate solution in allowing me to collect location data automatically with my photographs. I have had the pleasure of using the Red Hen Blue2CAN for the past month, and can fully endorse it. My early adoption of GPS units with my Nikon D200 has kept me searching for the optimal geotagging solution, and this latest unit from Red Hen is a welcome addition.

The Blue2CAN is a BlueTooth unit, and locks onto signals relatively quickly. The Red Hen unit works automatically with many Nikon DSLR cameras, including the D200, D2X and D2Xs), D2Hs, D3 and D300. It connects to the Nikon 10-pin remote on the front of the camera. It is also necessary to have a BlueTooth GPS receiver, as the unit connects to any nearby GPS receiver. If for some reason you have 2 BlueTooth devices, simply move one out of range (approximately 30 feet) until the desired unit connects to the camera, and then it stays locked on.

When first attaching the unit, the camera should be off. Once the camera is turned on, the light on the unit will flash 3 times, then search for a GPS unit. It continues to search at 20 second intervals until it makes a connection with a GPS. In field testing the unit, it locked on slightly faster than other units I have been using. In my experience, it kept the signal reliably, as long as the GPS unit is located within about 30 feet. Once it has locked on, it stays locked, allowing very fast startup.

It is a very small, measuring only about ¾"by 3/8". Unlike other units I have been using, it plugs right into the 10 pin connector, requiring no bulky mounts or cables. It is therefore by far the easiest of any unit I have ever had, adding a minimal footprint to the camera. Another major plus is its battery usage. I have found with other units that my camera is drained quickly when I leave the GPS unit attached, even when the camera is turned off. With the Red Hen unit, I have seen very little difference in battery life with the unit attached, so I have just left it on all the time, ready for instant use.

In practice, the Red Hen is very easy to use. In setting up the properties, through the menu, I simply enabled the Auto Meter function. Since the unit is designed to work with the Nikon technology, this then ensured all my pictures were stamped with the GPS data.

After a month of using the Blue2CAN, I can honestly say it is my new favorite GPS technology. It is so light and easy to use, I am really happy to be free of all the previous contraptions I have had connecting the GPS to the camera. This, combined with its significantly lower battery usage, make this unit a real winner. I strongly recommend it to anyone considering integrating GPS data with photography.

Blue2CAN Updated - faster, lower power use, better geotagging

Blue2CAN UPDATE:

You asked, and we delivered!

The firmware in the Blue2CAN has been re-architected, Rev C, to enhance the functionality and improve compatibility with various types of Bluetooth GPS units. WAIT! What if you have the earlier version of the Blue2CAN? Contact beth@redhensystems.com for more information.

GeoTag Icon

What's this all about in a nutshell?

http://www.geotagicons.com/

The Geotag Icon is intended as a web "standard" icon for identifying geotagged content to humans.

The advent of inexpensive GPS devices and free tools like Google Maps or Flickr Map mean that more and more people are associating their content (typically blog posts or photos) with a specific geographic location. Such "geotagging" stores coordinates within metadata or microformat tags—where machines can find them but people can't.

That's where the Geotag Icon comes in. It provides a visual reference to a map link, or if no link is yet made helps viewers recognize the geographic relevance of the content.

It's free, easy to use and helps us all visualize the developing semantic web.

Blue2CAN GPS and Nikon D Series Cameras

Red Hen Blue2CAN for Nikon D3 and D300 GPS cameras review
Article by Mike Barrett
March 29, 2008

Pocket GPS World

Last year Nikon announced the latest in their range of Digital SLR cameras, the D3 and D300. These are targeted at the top of the range with a price tag of £3400 for the D3 (yes that is three thousand) and a slightly more affordable £1300 for the D300.

Red Hen Systems have produced a tiny Bluetooth adapter that connects to a bluetooth GPS and transmits the GPS data to the camera: the Blue2CAN. The Blue2CAN retails at $279 USD.

Both new Nikon cameras have a special 10 pin connector which amongst other functions allows you to connect a GPS to the camera. This then provides a NMEA datastream from which the camera can extract the positional information and stamp the image meta data with the location that the picture was taken.

In the last year I have reviewed a number of GPS systems that offer a mechanism to match GPS tracks to digital photos. Whilst these do work they add an additional step into the workflow and the possibility of errors creep in with each additional step. The beauty of this system is to have the camera stamp the image when the shutter is pressed.

To get started the Blue2CAN and your Bluetooth GPS need to connect to each other. Technically this is known as pairing.

The Blue2CAN should be attached when the camera is switched off. As soon as you switch on the adapter's LED will flash 3 times within a second and will then start looking for GPS devices. If it doesn't find a Bluetooth GPS then it will go to sleep for 20 seconds and then search again. This will continue until it manages to pair with a GPS. There is little feedback during this process and it can be a little disconcerting whilst waiting for it to happen.

Once paired you need to tell the camera to record the GPS position with the image. This is achieved by pressing the menu button, selecting GPS, then "Auto meter" then select "enable".

I was amazed how simple Red Hen had made this process. The main issue with Bluetooth devices is getting them paired, for some reason it is either simple or very complex. I am fortunate enough to have over 20 different Bluetooth GPS receivers and in my tests only 3 failed to connect to the Blue2CAN. These were a Globalsat BT-359, a B-Speech GPS 20C and Evermore BT GPS receivers. I suspect that this is because they need a passcode to pair.

Another interesting feature is that even if the camera is switched off the Blue2CAN will still remain active and paired to the Bluetooth GPS receiver. This enables it to instantly have the connection when the camera is switched on, a great idea! Unless of course you use the GPS with a phone or a PDA. The GPS can only connect to one device at a time. It took me a while to work out what had gone wrong with my PDA navigation, with my camera in the boot of the car the GPS was still connected so my PDA couldn't get a connection. I overcame this by luck by switching the GPS off and on again.

Although the Blue2CAN is constantly powered whilst connected I found there was more than enough power in a charge to take hundreds of pictures over a 3 day period (some including the built in flash) and still have about 30% left in the battery.

The Red Hen Systems Blue2CAN is a Bluetooth adapter for the high end Nikon digital cameras allowing the connection of a Bluetooth GPS receiver. The compatibility of the adapter was impressive, working seamlessly with a huge range of Bluetooth GPS receivers.

The installation and setup is simple and required no technical knowledge. If you are capable of operating one of these Nikon cameras then you are well over-qualified to set up the GPS for the camera.

One Billion GPS Chip Sets by 2011 - SiRFs UP?

In a report published today ABI Research forecasts one billion GPS chipsets will be shipped annually in 2013. According to ABI Research, in 2007, SiRF held a commanding 70% share of the GPS IC market. "It achieved this by getting in early and aggressively targeting the market for consumer devices: while professional GPS has been around for some time, it is a much smaller and slower-growing market segment", explains the report.

Industry analyst Jamie Moss comments, "Three factors will intersect to shape the future of the GPS IC market. The average price of the chipset will fall to $3.50 or below by the end of 2008, permitting a true mass market adoption. This past fall ASP is driven by manufacturers' goal of producing receivers that can be included in lower-margin devices such as mobile phones: handset-based GPS will be critical to strong market penetration. The benefits will filter down to more traditional GPS uses such as in-car navigation. Meanwhile, we're seeing growing numbers of acquisitions: large chip manufacturers buying up specialist fabless GPS IC vendors in order to include their technologies in solutions that combine GPS with varied wireless RF product offerings, especially Bluetooth."

ABI's interest in GPS fabricators suggests manufacturers of personal navigation devices are facing continued stiff competition and will likely seek to stand out in the market by adding speech technology, multimedia capabilities, 3D map content and other features to their products. ABI Research predicts worldwide sales of these convergence devices will surpass more than 100 million units by 2011. Examples of such acquisitions in 2007 include Global Locate, acquired by Broadcom (June); GloNav by NXP (December); and u-Nav by Atheros (December). Additionally SiRF acquired Centrality to integrate System on Chip (SoC) solutions in its product range and u-blox went public on the Swiss stock exchange.

"In terms of absolute performance," says Moss, "there's not a lot to choose between rival manufacturers. To win important contracts the chipset must be as inexpensive as possible and as easy as possible for device manufacturers to integrate with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM radio and cellular solutions. As it was with Bluetooth, there is no great proactive consumer demand for GPS in mobile phones today, but once it's there, people will use it and expect it."

The dominance of Mobile phones that increasingly offer GPS as a standard feature has driven SiRF to play the commodity game as new entrants erode their legacy domination of the GPS chip supply. They took a significant hit in their stock due to this increase competition. But they have an answer that could shift the opportunity back their way in a few quarters.

In February Sirf announced a new GPS chip design, the SiRFprima platform. SiRFprima is a technical jump in that it combines an industry leading GPS/Galileo location engine, powerful application processor, rich audio and video recording and playback capabilities, high-resolution 3D graphics and a host of peripheral interfaces - all tuned to operate concurrently. Playing to the smartphone manufacturers, it supports both WinCE and Linux operating system environments which suggests SiRF intends to play with Google's Android handset.

The SiRFprima platform includes an ultra-high-speed, multifunction processor comprised of an advanced ARM11 core, a high-performance location engine that supports both GPS and Galileo satellite systems and an on-chip DSP. It also includes hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and multimedia encoding and decoding engines based on the gaming-grade PowerVR MBX 3D graphics accelerator core, vertex geometry processor and PowerVR MVED1 video encode/decode accelerator from Imagination Technologies. The SiRFprima multifunction processor delivers SiRF's renowned, industry leading, GPS-enabled location performance, featuring 64 channels with -161 dBm sensitivity. The hardware scalable location engine, with more than 1,000,000 correlators, is among the first capable of working with both GPS and Galileo signals simultaneously. Additionally, the SiRFprima processor has been specifically designed to support SiRF's proprietary GPS technologies, providing, for example, a dedicated accelerator for the SiRFInstantFixII(tm) technology.

Wintec's Affordable PDN - the WGS-1000

Wintec WGS-1000

Wintec Tiawan has recently added a nifty new handheld GPS device, the WGS-1000. It is the grown-up replacement to an earlier device, the WGS-100.

Brand new to Europe its March'08 release is just now getting attention. The suggest retail is around $100 euros or likely $150 US. Depending on how its functions and screen are used it has very good power longevity of up to 20 hours as a data logger. And data logging is 130,000 points/bread-crumbs large that can be set at time or distance interval logging is quite impressive. The WGS-1000 can be set at rates of up to 4 hertz. Built on a ubox chipset it has well know sensitivity as well as corrected accuracy via WAAS and EGNOS. The WGS-1000 also includes some great sensors: compass, barometer and thermometer. It can be interfaced via either Bluetooth or via a mini-USB connector that doubles as a charging port.

With included software the device's setting can be set, photos geotagged, and tracks downloaded and converted to KML for placing into Google Earth.

• High Sensitivity Atmel / u-blox Antaris GPS chipset
• 1 - 4 Hertz epochs setting WAAS / EGNOS
• LCD display with easy menu structure
• GPS Data Logger 130,000 points
• Various screen selections:
• Navigate, Satellite info, TrackBack, Performance
• Lunar and Solar Sunset/Sunrise Lunar phase Display
• TrackBack Feature with Directional "steer-to" display
• Barometer
• Electro Magnetic Compass
• Thermometer
• Bluetooth and mini-USB connection
• Rechargeable, replaceable lithium-ion batter (BL-5C format)
• 20 hours of continuous data logging
• Water resistant

Wintec may have an entry-GPS winner this time around. While essentially a datalogger with a minimalist PND interface, the WGS-1000 will offer strong competition to entry solutions from Garmin like their Gekos and Colorado handhelds that cost four to five as much.

100 Million GPS SmartPhones?

Wireless Developer Net

Wellingborough - February 1, 2008 – The big names in the digital camera world are all at PMA from today and there is no doubt that GPS will be a hot topic amongst attendees. The reason for this is a host of recent announcements from GPS companies such as Air Semiconductors, SiRF, Qualcomm, u-blox, Glonav and Geotate (NXP Software’s spinoff). These companies are finally paving the way for intelligent integration of GPS in digital cameras.

All the major GPS IC companies are looking at the digital camera market because of the volumes involved (over 100million units shipped in 2006 and growing) and the interest that digital camera manufacturers are showing in the technology. These manufacturers have been looking at GPS technology for years now and they have all been facing the issue of the usage mode of digital cameras (click and go). This conflicts directly with GPS, which can require tens of seconds (or sometimes minutes) in order to get a location fix (TTFF).

As outlined in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices”, solving this conflict is a key element for a successful uptake of the technology in the market. Matia Grossi, author of the report, said “camera manufacturers are unsure of traditional solutions because they are too power hungry, too expensive and take too long to get a location fix. The imminent arrival of GPS-enabled cameraphones, has placed increased emphasis on addressing this capability. Furthermore in the past years their margins have thinned significantly, with the commoditization of their products and the competition from the cellular market, making the issue even more complicated. At the moment there are limited GPS-enabled solutions, mostly in the high-end SLR market using external (and expensive) devices”.

“A new wave of GPS techniques are emerging that will solve the issue in different and innovative ways. As a result, IMS Research’s forecasts that the GPS camera market will show very strong growth over the next 5 years growing from a sub-million unit market in 2006, with a CAGR of over 200%. Currently, two of the most interesting ones are those brought to the market by Geotate and Air Semiconductor.

Several Intrresting Links

An interesting set of bookmarks...

My del.icio.us bookmarks for January 28th

January 28th, 2008 8:51 pm jeff Posted in geek

These are my links for January 28th:

• Science Library Pad: GPS loggers and Macs: why can’t we all get along? -
• ATP Photo Finder -
• Red Hen Systems - Blue2CAN -
• MMISoftware - PhotoGPSEditor -
• GPSBabel: convert, upload, download data from GPS and Map -
• GPSPhotoLinker: Overview -

IsWhere Quick Demo

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras and Mobiles

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras, Laptops, Says IMS Research
November 13, 2007

Traditionally, geo-tagging has been a complicated procedure, restricting the market to hardcore enthusiasts and professional users. However, new GPS and LBS advances are enabling this market while also driving consumer growth for GPS into cameras and laptops.

As analyzed in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices – 2007 edition” GPS is going to be integrated in a number of portable devices, such as laptops, PMPs, cellular and digital cameras. The overall market is set to increase 5-fold by 2011, with laptops and digital cameras representing over 20% of the market.

Matia Grossi, author of the report, says “Photo sites and online communities, e.g. Flickr and MySpace, need to maintain financial growth through traffic-based business; camera manufacturers need to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market; end users need new and innovative management functionalities for their offline pictures libraries. GPS is potentially the answer”.

“Looking at the camera market, only a small number of companies have introduced real-time GPS capabilities into their high-end SLRs”. It is difficult to integrate current GPS solutions cheaply and effectively. Camera manufacturers have razor thin profit margins, so it needs to be cheap and it needs to work. A traditional hardware solution is not well suited for the digital camera space for a number of reasons, including cost, battery drain and performance. Furthermore, people expect to capture the moment in an instant and do not want to wait for 30 seconds or more to get a fix. A GPS system, targeting the camera space, needs to address all these fundamental industry requirements”.

A new software approach is being developed by NXP Software targeting the laptop and digital camera market. SnapSpot is a low cost/low power alternative that easily integrates into these devices, requiring little additional hardware (i.e. antenna, LNA and RF front-end). When taking a photo, SnapSpot captures 100ms of digitized GPS signal and stores it in memory. On downloading the photos to a PC, the location is calculated using remote servers.

Asus has already introduced SnapSpot in its US3 laptops. Currently, other laptop and camera manufacturers have caught the navigation bug, which requires a more traditional GPS approach. This has driven the recent announcements from Qualcomm and other GPS suppliers in relation to these markets. While hardware GPS is fine for laptops, it will slow initial uptake in the camera market. IMS Research believes that software-based technologies will force manufacturers to change their minds and drive uptake of GPS and geo-tagging.

Nikon GeoTagging - Blue2CAN Nikona Review

RedHen Systems Blue2CAN Review
By Jeff Bower (jdbower)
Blue2CAN Review by Nikonian and Jeff Bower

I recently had the pleasure of testing a RedHen Systems Blue2CAN adapter. This will connect to any Nikon 10-pin remote port (found on the D200, D2Xs, D2Hs, and similar discontinued models) and provide a Bluetooth interface to a GPS unit. If you’re looking for a refresher on GPS usage in photography, please take a look at my preceding article entitled “What is GeoTagging?”


Blue2CAN - The Product

When I first learned about the RedHen Blue2CAN I thought it was tiny but it’s even smaller in person. The Blue2CAN measures 28.5mm high by 18.3mm wide by 9.2mm thick (13.9mm thick including the 10-pin connector) and it weighs in at a whopping 7 grams - no need to get a sturdier tripod when using one! Installation couldn’t be easier: just take the 10-pin remote cap off the camera and push the Blue2CAN on. There’s a small click as it seats into place and a mostly hidden red LED flashes once, then three times rapidly a few seconds later when it’s ready to find a GPS.

Summary

The RedHen Systems Blue2CAN works very well and I would recommend it to someone who already has a BlueTooth GPS and wants as tiny a solution as possible. Battery life is acceptable and slightly better than the hotshoe GPS solutions. The biggest downside is that there is no ability to use an external remote with the unit, but there are workarounds. It also may be worth the investment of a CapKeeper to prevent the Blue2CAN from getting lost if it falls out.

Ken, the Red Hen Wizzard, took note and innovated....

As Suggested :


As Implemented - Your wish is our solution:

Blue2CAN - Wintec - HoudahGPS for Apple Geotagging

HoudahGPS - Blue2CAN and Wintec WBT-201 data logger

HoudahGPS is a front end to the open source command line tool GPSBabel.

Features

HoudahGPS allows you to transfer track log and waypoint data from your Garmin, Magellan or Wintec GPS devices. It connects via USB to the Garmin and Magellan devices. It interfaces with the Wintec WBT-100, WBT-101 and WBT-201 devices using Bluetooth.

HoudahGPS may also be used to convert between the GPX, NMEA and KML log file formats. The Sony GPS-CS1 track logger uses a special variant of the NMEA format which may also be read.

Benefits

Possible uses of HoudahGPS include:

- Creation of backup copies of track log files for later use with HoudahGeo
- Conversion of track logs to KML for visualization in Google Earth.

Screenshot

HoudahGPS is freeware

HoudahGPS is available FREE OF CHARGE.

Blue2CAN - Take the Picture. Get the Point!

"Photos That Know Where They Were Taken"

Here's how to use geotagging to add location data to your image files.

Part 1 of a special five-part series
Digital Focus - PC World
Dave Johnon
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:00 AM PDT

I remember showing photos of my trek through Grand Cayman to a friend a few years ago. "Where were these taken?" she asked me about a particular set of photos. "Hmm," I replied, "I don't remember. The East End, I think. I took so many photos, I can't keep track." At the time, I wished there was some automatic way to tag my photos with location information, so I'd always know where they were taken. Yet another thing I'd never have to remember ever again!

Well, my wish has come true: Geotagging is here. Geotagging is the term for adding location information to your photo files--and it's one of the coolest things ever to happen to digital photography.

The available solutions range from amazingly elegant to somewhat less elegant. Take Red Hen's Blue2Can, for example. In my experience, there's no better geotagging solution.

GeoTagging With NIKON

Put a Billion Dollar System to Use

From Zombie Dinosaurs by Dave Johnson... you know the one?

A few years ago, I went on a little photo trek and showed off the photos. I vividly remember getting grilled about the various locations by a friend of mine. “Where were these taken?” she asked me about a particular set of photos. “Hmm,” I replied, “I don’t remember. I took so many photos, I can’t keep track.” If only there was some automatic way to tag my photos with location information, so they’d be able to tell me where they were taken. Yet another thing I’d never have to remember ever again!.....

I’ve recently been experimenting with what is surely the most elegant geotagging tool ever made. I’m talking about Red Hen’s Blue2CAN.

In my experience, a better geotagging solution does not exist. It’s a small gadget about the size of your thumb that plugs into a small port on the front of several Nikon Digital SLRs, including the D200, D2X, D2Xs and D2Hs. It communicates wirelessly to any Bluetooth GPS receiver (like the kind that comes with inexpensive navigation programs and sits on your dashboard).

More on Blue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

More on BLue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

The Blue2CAN connects automatically (and silently) to ANY Bluetooth GPS in range (within 10 m of it's location) The idea is that in the rare event there is more than one Bluetooth GPS in range that any one will do as it's "close enough". However these receivers only connect to one device at a time, so the GPS device must be on, in range, and NOT connected to something else, it's most likely yours. If the GPS is separated from the camera Blue2CAN loses the connection and starts searching again. If the same one, or a different one comes it range it uses it. The advantage is that it is AUTOMATIC, and therefore easy to use.

Connection speed is not really a problem because the Blue2CAN stays connected to the GPS as long as the GPS receiver is on, even when the camera is turned off (yes, Blue2CAN gets power from the camera even when the camera is off). In this way the GPS data is available immediately when the camera is switched on. Note that it is best to turn the camera off when you’re not shooting because the GPS does hold the meter on (Nikon's design) and the meter takes quite a lot of power. Fortunately Bluetooth takes very little power so it does not put much of a drain on the camera battery in any case. The drain is so small that the D200 camera battery can keep the Bluetooth radio working for more than 25 days (and nights). GPS takes a LOT more power, so the batteries in the Bluetooth GPS device will probably not last more than about 14 hours.

If the Blue2CAN is not connected to a GPS when the camera is turned off it will search for 10 minutes longer, if no GPS if found it will turn itself off. It will start searching again when the camera is turned on, and takes about 5 seconds to connect in this case. It usually takes GPS receivers at least this long to get a fix from power up, so when the GPS data is available the Bluetooth is already connected. I'm sorry if this description was too complicated, but the complexity was necessary in the implementation to both manage power and make sure no GPS data was missed when a picture is taken...

The two real advantages of using a Bluetooth GPS instead of a camera powered GPS are that 1) the power systems are separate. And 2) the GPS antenna can be placed in a good position regardless of where the camera is.

Power: The GPS must be on all the time to “keep a lock” otherwise you have to wait for the fix before you take a picture (not a good use model). The GPS takes a lot of power, so it can put quite a drain on the camera battery, if the GPS battery goes dead you can still take a picture, it just won’t be geo-located.

Antenna: To maintain a fix the GPS antenna must have a clear view of the sky, if your shooting from inside a car or other vehicle it’s better to have the GPS on the dash than on the camera. Also if the camera is “stored” between shooting where it will not “see” the sky, a camera mounted GPS will loose lock and may take to long to re-acquire when you get the thing out to take a shot.

Red Hen does offer a camera mounted GPS unit for the D200, D2X as well, it's called the "DX-GPS" we’ve had it available for some time, these are the things we’ve learned from use and customer feedback.