Geotagging, Nikon D40 and Weight Loss

It is a wet and windy March night.

I have been using my Nikon D40 a little. Not as much as I wanted. I even ordered a macro flash and it is still in the box after 5 days. I have been using the really nice Nikon external flash I got. Bounce flash is new to me and really much nicer. Being the first DSLR I have ever used it is amazing compared to the point and shoot type cameras I have had. I really want to get a macro lens, and a wide angle lens too. I thought the Canon A620 was ok, but now it is really painfully obvious that it is really limited except in 2 ways (way I think are important) weight, and previewing a shot in the lcd.

I will still use the Canon A620 a lot, but the DSLR really opens up the possibilities.

I am casually in the market for a waterproof, weatherproof point and shoot compact camera I can take out in bad weather. Like today. I have been using a Magellan sportrak that I got as a hand me down and though it is a very limited device, it has one feature that I really like, it is weatherproof. I went walking today in the rain and it was soaked (I was too), but it didn't care. I highly recommend a weatherproof/waterproof gps if you are going to take it hiking. I want that in a camera.

I have been looking into geotagging photos. I really love the idea of it. If you don't know what this is, it is where you can get the information into a .jpg picture with that records the location where picture was taken. If you have a gps trail logger and a digital camera, there are now geotagging programs that will match the time stamp of the picture taken with the location logged on the gps at that time, the program will write the location info to the picture. That is cool.

With google earth you can thumb tack where the pics were taken on a map! That is really cool. I also learned that I could convert the gps track file to a format that google earth would plot on the map. That was another very cool thing.

I want to put a camera on my rc plane with a gps logger and get aerial photos that I can do that with. I just really dig the idea of it.

One project I want to do with my kids is make our own tree identification guide. Basically find good examples of local tree species and take pictures of them, and make a tree guide where we have pictures of the trees, leaves, bark etc. and the location. Simple but cool. Having it on a map is even better.

Another thing I have been thinking about relates to personal protection. I saw this video on youtube where the guy is a paparazzi cameraman. Though he admits to never having to use it he has pepperguard as part of his camera bag setup. He carries thousands of dollars of camera gear and it certainly makes sense to be prepared. Honestly, I like weapons and that kind of thing. I always kinda considered pepperguard beneath me but I was thinking, if someone tried to hijak your gear, should you shoot them? Hmmm, maybe better to deter them with oc in the face. It also got me to wondering, what is the pepperguard of choice of law enforcement? I don't know but am still looking. Anyway I came across this site that was pretty interesting. What I found most striking was the Pink Taser! On another page you can get a matching Pink holster for it. In addition they have color offerings like "metallic pink", leopard print, Desert Camo AND Forrest Camo! That is sweet! I can't decide which color I want to order. I like simpler stuff like the Black Pearl, or Titanium Silver.

Another eye opener was the variety of pepper spray products! I was hoping to find one endorsed by the NYPD or LAPD, with a testimonial of X number of perps down. Instead they had cool stuff like the pepper spray RING! Now is that something or what! Not my style though. Too bad. I really dig that James Bond stuff.

They have Bear Spray too, I immediate did a search on youtube hoping to find a real demo of the product on a bear but found a advertisement that basically says that the bear repellent fails 6% of time. Maybe 6% of bears like pepper with their meals? More convincing is the MANY videos of people demonstrating bear repellent spray on themselves.

This is a common refrain of sellers of Bear Repellent Spray:

WE CAN SHIP ANIMAL REPELLENTS TO ALL STATES EXCEPT MASSACHUSETTS!

The "Cell Phone" stun gun is curiously advertised, part of it's claim is "Because it looks like a harmless cell phone, it will be easy to surprise an attacker." If you were an attacker and somebody you were robbing pulled out a cell phone, wouldn't you be wondering if they might be calling 911 or something?



LINKS:

Geosetter Freeware Geotagging Program


Geotag Open Source Geotagging Program


Geotagging GPS unit from Gistek