Oregon 550 and geotagging

[+phlatlander]

Never to old to learn new tricks.

 

The screen on my old Garmin Legend was becoming problematic and I was tired of manually entering geocache info so after seeing how easy it was to download poi's and geogaches to my Garmin Nuvi 1350, I started to consider a replacement hand-held gps. We are planning a European river cruise this coming fall, another reason for a newer gps. Some of us seniors like to have a back-up way of returning to where we started after a day of sightseeing...

 

This past December a friend lent me his Oregon 450 for a couple of weeks. I liked it and put it high on my short list. As it turns out GPSCity (Calgary) had a good sale so I decide to spring for an Oregon 550, I figured a geotagging camera might a good idea. Well, it is, but the gps does better than that!

 

Resolution of the 550 camera is 3gb, not big by digital camera standards and the screen is limited to 240x400 pixels - not impressive numbers but still... I began to get familiar with the camera and then used PhotoShop to create some 240x400 images, changed the wallpaper and added a few photos of the grandkids, etc.

 

My next step was to use GoogleEarth to drill down to an address (Kolkovna restaurant in Prague CZ for example) and save this image and resize it for the gps. Ok, a small snap but ok. Another forum member in a different posting, suggested the program GeoSetter which lets you store lat/long info in the exif photo tag data. Hmmm, so then I could modify the picture and add the lat/long - getting better.

 

In the meantime I used Openstreetmap.org to download quite good maps of Europe. I next created a .gpx file of some places in Prague and found the openstreetmap was excellent. So now I could have a poi entry and a small photo. Ok, but not great. And then I thought, what if...

 

I used GoogleEarth, located Kolkovna, used street view and created a large image (1400x900 for example, PrintScreen and copy into PShop), added lat/long exif data, and loaded that image onto the micro sd card in the 550. Getting better!

 

Go to "Photo Viewer", select the picture and have it display either horizontally or vertically. While the screen is small, by using the +/- on the touchscreen, you can zoom in/out to quite acceptable resolution, AND you can use the touchscreen to move around the image - neat! Because the photo is geotagged, press the small globe icon and the display shows the street map of the location! Press "GO" and you can create and save a waypoint if you want. Who needs a .gpx file! Once the waypoint is set then you don't have to access the picture unless you want to see the scene. Turns out the 240x400 screen is not useless after all!

 

While I travel with a Canon S5is, I am considering a newer camera with geotagging of course! The only thing I don't like is how the Oregon shows thumbnails, they apparently display in order of file date, not names! To see the file name you need to press the globe.

 

Some of the jpgs on the Oregon's micro sd card. BTW, there is a Zagg Screen protector on my Oregon.

 

 

Select an image, if the image is geotagged then a little globe icon is displayed

 

 

By using the + - screen buttons you can zoom in quite well. Note the time on the clock!

 

 

Press the little globe. And you have a good map you can go anywhere. Here is the city map of Prague.

 

 

Again using the + - keys you can zoom in the city map.

 

[savant9]

Nice little write-up!

 

Since you are up to learning new tricks, goto setup--> display--> screen capture--> ON Then if you tap the power button it will take a screen shot of the gps. Pics can be found in the Garmin\scrn\ folder of the unit.

This makes it easier to show what is displayed on the gps, instead of taking a picture of it.

 

In no way am I trying to belittle your post, just thought I would throw in that tip in case you didn't know about it.

[+martov]

Congrats and very nice tips.-

With Kind Regards

Adolfo

[+phlatlander]

Thanks for that tip savant9. I seem to recall reading about that feature but never investigated it - neat. Sure beats holding the Oregon between your knees and trying to get good lighting for a screen capture!