FYI (because I also use lightroom and my map module is also inactive) if you just click “ok” on the little window that pops up about the map being inactive, you can still load a tracklog and sync photos with it even though the map display will just sit there as a grayed-out global map. I actually think of this situation as an improvement, as the map module (when it was fully operational) was SO SLOW and all I wanted to do was sync photos and go back to normal editing.
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Does anyone have a good app for an iPhone user? Free preferably but I am willing to look at paid options as well.
Also, does anyone have any good tips on taking pictures with the iPhone? The iPhone that I have is 8, so it is a couple of versions behind (I’m going to start saving up for the newer version soon).
-The reason on why I’m asking is because I have noticed if I take pictures of small creatures (ie spiders) when I try to focus on them, the image becomes blurry.
Here is a link to my posts if anyone is curious:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=bookworm86&verifiable=any
Thanks in advance and great video!
@bookworm86 re macro photos with older phones.
Older phones typically were designed with photographing people and so on, so the focal length isn’t short enough to get super close and fill up the frame, hence the autofocus struggles once you get too close. A diopter will shorten up the focal length.
You can buy small clip on macro lenses, usually as a set of 3 with a tele and fisheye options as well. I don’t think I ever bothered with the tele and fisheye parts, but the macro on it’s own was brilliant. You can get very cheap ones made of plastic, which will be fine to get the hang of them and decided if it achieves what you want to do, and you can get more expensive ones with good quality glass optics which will give better results and last longer.
The more expensive ones can come with multi-element, meaning they have more than one lens so that they can correct most of the distortion that a single lens will introduce. Search the forums or google for Raynox, which seems to be the most commonly recommended as far as top of the line go. I found the distortion only occurred around the edges of the photo, and I typically was only photographing for identification and having the subject in the center third of the frame I wasn’t bothered by the distortion. At a difference of $5 vs $200 (approx, from memory) budget will be a big part of the buying decision!
I used to have my bridge camera (Sony with 50x optical zoom) as my “bird and tree” camera, and then my phone with macro clip for bugs. I clicked on that I could do the same thing with the bridge camera by holding a magnifying glass over the lens! If doing this though, be careful that the lenses don’t ever touch… a small piece of tissue on the lens the first time you try it to see if they would contact is strongly recommended.
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Ok, thank you for replying! I did a search on amazon and brought myself a fairly cheap one which I will get in a couple of days. So far, I think that this has become a new hobby of mine.
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There is so much out there, every day and every place becomes an adventure!
I’m using it too.
Here a brief documentation on how to add GPS coordinates to a bunch of photos with exiftool:
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/geralda/27237-how-to-add-gps-tags-to-images-with-exiftool
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@photographybynicolen welcome to the iNaturalist Forum! Definitely read through this topic to learn more about geotagging (adding geographic coordinates to image files), and ask any questions about geotagging.
Other forum topics that might interest you:
Good cameras for nature shots
How do you photograph?
Photo taking recommendations by taxon?
Glad you have joined us here!
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Does your phone have expandable memory, like a MicroSD card? Then you should be able to move some of the apps from your phone to the card to free up space (and prolong having to upgrade).
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On Android version 9:
Settings > Apps > “AppName” > Storage
Under Storage Used, tap Change, choose Storage Location (SD Card), then Move
If you don’t see the Change button, the App can’t be moved to the SD Card
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GPS Essentials has stopped working for me over the last few months. Now every time I use it, the GPX file thinks the date is 19 years ago, and this doesn’t sync with the camera images any more. I wonder if other people have this problem, or my phone is getting too old, or if it is actually the Geosetter desktop program which is malfunctioning.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_Week_Number_Rollover
Should be fixable by updating your software to the latest version.
I hope so, because your wikipedia article does mention cell phones sold in 2013, which mine was.
Update: I couldn’t make GPS Essentials work, but I did have success with a test of GPSLogger. If anyone else has this problem, you might have to try switching apps.
Hi…I am able to run an app on my phone that communicates with my camera and geotags my photos. I use a Canon SL2 camera and the app, Camera Connect, was a free download from Canon. I do have to check the maps because the location is sometimes off track, but it is usually very accurate.
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I (a Mac user) finally learned how to use HoudahGeo, a Mac-only app, and registered it. In fact I was only able to learn to use it once I had it registered.
i recommend it highly. At last i can open a bunch of photos in HoudahGeo, see where they were taken according to their current geotag if any, import any track log or logs, eg the .log file from an Olympus camera or a .gpx file from iPhone (using MyTracks) or android tablet (using A-GPS tracker).
Once ordered by time (that’s what I prefer anyway) , the images can be opened in sequence and their location pins simultaneously show in the houdah map or satellite view. Photos that got mis-tagged or have no tag can be instantly moved into my best guess, or Houdah’s estimate based on any track log files that have been imported into that Houdah "Project.
Then the geo data can be exported back into the photos concerned.
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I switched to using GeoSetter over darktable to add the GPX file tracks to my photos (both raw and JPG) since it’s simple and faster, as described by iPhil. darktable exports really slowly, even just for adding the GPS locations, as cmcheatle said.
Unfortunately I recently switched from Windows to Ubuntu and GeoSetter is only for Windows. It’s been frustrating trying to find a replacement for it (and other programs I use for photo processing). Geotag is the most popular suggestion but it doesn’t seem to work with the type of GPX file I get.
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there are a lot of online file converters that you could use to convert the files to the right format - I use the Olympus tg-5 to record a track file, but that saves to .log, which I can’t use with the geotagging program I currently have. I’ve been using https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert_input to convert the files to gpx, and that usually works fairly well
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That worked, thank you!
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If you’re comfortable using the command-line, I’ve always used the open-source exiftool. It works on Windows/Mac/Linux and can handle any kind of file I’ve ever tried (including GPX). For more information, search the forum. I know it’s been discussed here before.
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Just to add a counterpoint, I use darktable on my 2012 Macbook Pro to geotag and export all my photos and I’ve not had problems with export speeds. It works well. I typically export 95% quality JPG files for uploading to iNat.
You could just use a dropped pin in Google Maps. The simple instructions are below.
I get the coordinates from the dropped pin, copy/paste the coordinates into my SimpleNote app so I don’t lose it, and then add it to the iNaturalist observation entry.
(My Sony camera does not have GPS/WiFi abilities. My phone doesn’t take photos as well as my Sony Camera. So, this is my workaround.)
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