When I am photographing Very distant organisms (eg. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/21876969), I’m often not sure whether to mark the location as where the camera was, or where the organism was. My camera does not automatically geotag photos, so I am manually adding the locations. Until now I have been putting a broader location which encompasses both, but it would be nice to be able to make the location more accurate.
Thanks in advance for the help,
Alexis
edit:
I added a poll to see what other people do
I mark the location of the organism
I mark the location of the observer
I mark a location in between
I do whichever one I feel like
0voters
If there is anything else you think I should add, please tell me.
i tend to mark the location of where the organism was, if i can. but i bet most people are recording the location of where the observation occurred (where the camera says it was), if simply because it’s too much work to go in and manually change the location. you might want to edit your original post here to add a poll to find out whether people (1) mark the location of the organism, (2) mark the location of the observer, (3) mark a location in between, or (4) it just depends based on laziness and other factors.
An accidental finger brushing the mouse trackpad put my vote down as the first option, but I intended to vote for the last one, which is usually the case. The organisms that I photograph that are distant are either trees or birds. Birds are highly mobile, so the location I observe from is likely to be within the range of that bird’s likely travel. For trees, usually at least one of the photos in the set is taken right at the base, especially for individually notable trees, but if I’m just trying to tally species present in the immediate area from a trail, I’m not going to go through and try to manually guesstimate the location pin over to where the tree might have actually been located.
I do wish that in the upload process there was a way to specify which photo the observation’s location data should sync to (since the one taken at the base is usually not the one I want to be the primary view).
As a more pie-in-the-sky thing, I wish that gps-enabled cameras would use the focus distance and orientation data embedded in the exif to calculate the location of the object being photographed, not just the location of the camera itself. At longer distances at wider focal lengths (like for trees) it wouldn’t be terribly accurate, but probably still realistic to 30m accuracy. With long telephotos shooting birds it could probably be pretty accurate. It would really be an easy feature to implement, just a little extra code in the firmware, just not one for which there’s much demand. I can currently get the same result with any old camera if I take the bearing and a distance reading with a rangefinder from the spot where I take the picture (probably with much greater accuracy), but that means bringing two additional instruments into the equation when one would have sufficed.
One workaround on the desktop upload screen is to have a copy of the tree base that you use as the main image for its GPS coordinates then add all the other images in order and delete the first (tree base) image. That should keep the location data while allowing you to use the next photo in order as the main observation image.
You may already know this, but another way to handle this after an observation has been uploaded is from the individual observation page → [ Edit ] → [ Re-order photos ].
For me it is situational. When I am making ad-hoc observations, I usually just let the camera pick up it’s GPS and it’s pretty close most of the time. For birds, if it’s just as likely to be here as there, then I let it slide, but if it is unlikely to be here than there, then I edit and place it better. But for projects like Hackfalls or the Botanic Gardens, especially where I intend to return and make subsequent observations at other times in the year, then I go to the effort of printing out google maps so that I can use those to help geo-locate to +/- 1m.
As always, strive to make it as accurate as practicably possible when making the observations, and be aware of the limitations when using the data!
For purposes of iNat, or any other system that includes location data for an observation of an organism, it’s really irrelevant where the observer happened to be. You’re interested in where the subject was.
In most cases, the coordinates of the observer and subject are basically one and the same. But if you want to be very accurate, you should plot the location of your record at the spot where the subject was.
I refute this. The observer is carrying the device that “fetches” the GPS reading, and unless they think to change the pin location, then it is going to reflect the location of the observer. Hardly makes it irrelevant.
As an example, the following mapview of an observation showed a much smaller accuracy circle than it does now, because I asked the observer to increase the accuracy range to cover the “true location”. A represents where the observer was (somewhat under canopy), B is where the pin was placed (+/- ~10m) by the device, and C is where the subject of the observation was. I could tell from the photo in the observation that the pin should have been on the other side of the road (it was of a tree on a fence line alongside a walkway between the houses). I could see in Google Street View exactly where the tree was, and based on the line of that fence and the foreground vegetation in the photo, I ucold fairly accurately guess the location the observer would have been in. Rather than trying to ask a new inexperienced observer to move the pin, I asked if they could increase the accuracy circle. They did, but not enough to cover the actual organism location, and subsequent attempts to explain the situation were proving difficult, so I elected to “pick my battles”.
So I can tell you categorically from the above example, that the pin location AND accuracy range do not always cover the actual place the organism was, even if effort is undertaken to make it so. And I would not be able to say that with absolute certainty without knowing the actual location of the observer in at least this one case.
I’m not arguing the various methods of obtaining the coordinates of where the organism was, if all you have is the GPS data of where the observer was standing. I’m saying the location where the observer was is – in regards to what info is biologically important – irrelevant to where the subject was.
If the observer’s (and not the subject’s) location is the best that can be determined, then so be it. Go with that. For most purposes, it won’t be that far off anyway.
In general, I’d expect it to not matter much. For small things that you need to be very close to see, you won’t generally photograph them from very far anyway, so the accuracy will be reasonable. For bigger things, if you could photograph it from where you were, chances are if a person goes to the point indicated and just turns around in a circle, they’ll find what they’re looking for… (thinking about plants and whatnot, things that move are a different case I guess :) )
Agreed. What subjects can a photographer take a pic of at a distance (say, a couple hundred meters) that will be identifiable from the photo? Generally, large mobile animals. The difference in coordinates between the photographer and subject in these cases is pretty much meaningless.
Since I keep a track going while I’m out I just use my own location. As @reosarevok and @jnstuart said, anything far away is likely to be a mobile animal, so its precise location is not as important.
Distant stationary organisms that I observe tend to be flowering vines or trees. I try to put the point near the organism. Usually just taking my GPS location and shifting to the correct side of the river or road. If I don’t remember the direction, the precision circle gets bigger.
