Re: Data Logger (of sorts) for GPS

On 4 Jun, 03:21, mpm <mpmill...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 3, 4:56?pm,crispin.proc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi All,

I have recently built aGPSreceiver which attaches to my camera
(Nikon D200).

HelloCrispin.
I'm not familiar with the D200 that much. I have a D70, with a D50
backup (as a spare).
I'm curious, are you writing the coordinates directly to the camera's
flashcard memory (on mine, its CompactFLASH on the D70, and "SD" I
think? on the D50).

If so, I'm wondering how you get access to the card slot....?
Or are you doing some offline data storage (in yourGPSdevice) and
then merging the data later in sequential shot-take order?

FYI, I was wondering when consumer grade cameras would getGPS
capability.
I was at an SBE meeting last year (Society of Broadcast Engineers),
here in the US and Sony demo'd one of their new digital HD cameras -
for broadcast news trucks and the like...
Unpaid plug: FANTASTIC CAMERA by the way, that is if you have $70,000
budgeted...

It had aGPSoption built-in, and it was tightly coupled to the
camera's "Digital Rights Management" capabilities. Both location and
local time were encoded directy to the video's metastream.

I was just wondering how close your approach is to that, and secondly,
if it would be worth it (to me) to do something similar with either my
D70, or less likely, the backup D50.?

As to your question about small, low-power solutions, the Phillips
LPC903 chip comes to mind.
It's an 8-pin 8051 derivative, lots of low-power and idle modes,
etc.., and supports serial RS232. It even has an interrupt for
RS232. I don't recall if it comes in a DIP, but I know it comes in
SOIC. Some of the Phillips LPC90x come in both flavors but one of
them doesn't. You'll have to check.

Admittedly, it's not my favorite microcontroller, but given space and
power constraints, it's probably worth a look. Good luck. -mpm

Hi mpm,

The D200 natively supports GPS capture in the EXIF for each file.
The one I have built uses a gutted GPS receiver I bought of ebay and a
levels converter (MAX232) which is housed in a small box which mounts
to the top of the camera (Hotshoe)
It then plugs into the 10pin socket on the D200.
An example of it's use:
http://crispin.smugmug.com/
and the gallery: http://crispin.smugmug.com/gallery/2836753#151905852

See the google plugin for GPS location of pics.
It is all housed in a nice little box (http://www.maplin.co.uk/
Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=1681&doy=4m6)

During testing, it worked well - however...
During a recent trip to Italy and real life use, I found the following
issues:
- Power.
She be hungry and flattens two batteries in a couple hours of
shooting. This is due to a number or reasons. The GPS, the converter
and mostly, the fact that the camera does not turn off metering when
it is receiving a GPS signal.
- Lock loss.
Walking around built up areas it looses it's lock and as such, data
not logged. For this reason, I want the added functionality mentioned.
- Logging.
I would like to log the data onto a separate card for later use.
(Google Earth)
- Did I mention Power?
I am looking at an option for a small Li-ion battery to power the GPS
alone and not rely on the camera power.


I am not aware of any options for the D50/70 directly but have seen
some applications which will take GPS logs and merge the info with
images at a later stage based on file times.

If you have a scratch around google you'll find a number of solutions.
I'll stick stuff up on mine shortly (Time permitting).
Mine, if I may say so myself, is by far the prettiest solution I have
seen on the net :) Small and neat where as other have numerous cables,
D9 plugs etc etc. Ugly.
My only drawback is that I cannot use the flash when GPS is mounted.


Cheers,
Crispin

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Data Logger (of sorts) for GPS
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  • Re: RS232 convertor - Why?
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  • Re: Nikon D200 / D300 and GPS
    ... Seems all the $100 cable does is us a $2 chip to convert the serial level RS-232 signals to TTL level. ... Well I have found a GPS that has TTL level output along with the serial level signals. ... is there a way to pull the power the GPS needs to run from the camera? ... If I can avoid making a battery pack for the GPS, that sure would make for a nice very small and simple solution to having a GPS on the camera instead of having it in your pocket with wires all over the place. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
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