Finally flawless photos geotagging with your N95

[SuBmArU]

Hi to all!

Discovering my brand new Nokia N95 is an everyday joy: I've been catched by the geeky photos geotagging opportunity, and I have discovered a whole new world!

Well, reading many posts on the net, I thought that the only service able to do this was Shozu: you need to install the Shozu client on your N95, and Shozu can upload photos to Flickr, also geotagging them (using the trick of keeping active a "GPS switch on" app like Nokia Sports Tracker). Then, inside Flickr you can see your own photo linked to a map.

This has been quite tricky! But worst of all ... it DOES NOT WORK on my N95: I don't know why, but there are many posts, in the official Shozu forum, about the problem (Shozu uploads the photo, but Flickr is not showing it).

I was quite giving up, but searching for a solution I discovered ZONETAG, a wonderful service offered by the guys behind Yahoo and Flickr: Zonetag claims to work with my N95, giving the opportunity to geotag a photo and to upload it to Flickr.

I gave it a try: I downloaded the client and installed in on my N95 ... and my jaws dropped down! IT WORKS flawlessy!

ZONETAG (+):

- works flawlessy with the N95

- no "GPS switch on app" trick! The gps can be turned on directly from ZONETAG client

- no resident apps, you can turn on and of completely Zonetag, whenever you want

- complete geotagging and Flickr integration
Technorati Tags: N95, geotagging, shozu, zonetag, google, earth, google earth, gps

, before uploading (you can set to show or no location tags, coordinates, public or private and so no)

ZONETAG (-)

- absolutely nothing for know, after 1 day test

P.S.:
you need to have a yahoo/Flickr account to use it.
This is a great piece of work!

[Leong]

Hmm, seems really interesting. Good find! will try it out and provide feedback

[Mechdon]

Thanks a lot Submaru. Just wondering why you require a yahoo/flickr account...is it because the location tags will only be shown after you uploaded the photo into flicr? Will it be on the Exif data?

[bainsworld]

Originally Posted by Mechdon

Thanks a lot Submaru. Just wondering why you require a yahoo/flickr account...is it because the location tags will only be shown after you uploaded the photo into flicr? Will it be on the Exif data?

From initial reading and the stuff you have to agree to in the sign up it says that the cell tower id is stored with the picture and they work out the location based on someone providing a postcode at some point.

ZoneTag can automatically tag your photos with the location, based on the cell tower, in which they were taken. The location of the cell tower is not known until our user community updates the city, state, or zip code of their photos on Flickr. ZoneTag is then able to map the cell tower to the location.

So not exactly geographic information but a specific service they offer that relies on Flickr for managing their tags etc. I'm not saying it's not useful ...

[SuBmArU]

EXIF data ... You are right! I have to check the EXIF datas of the photos that I have uploaded. But from what I have red, I don't think that the N95 is able, due to firmware limitations, to "stamp" gps datas on a the EXIF datas of a photo. Like Shozu, I think that it's the Zonetag client that is able to capture gps datas and to send them to flickr.
I will check later.
Sure the map service on flickr is a very nice added value: displaying geotagged photos directly on the map.
What is missing right now, and I have to test it, is the opportunity to upload the photo later: I mean I've not verified if it's possible to upload the geotagged photo not as soon as it has been taken ( maybe if there's no cell line of wi-fi available where you're taking the photo, for example), cause right now I've uploaded all the photos as soon as I've taken them.

[coreyg]

Zonetag is a great program that doesn't require too much memory. It will only geotag photos if they are uploaded immediately but you can use it's log to geotag after the fact (see below). I don't know of any program that updates the exif information but if anyone knows of one I'd be interested. As far as I know the zonetag location is based on the cellular network if gps is not available but I've only ever used it with the gps active.

I'd recommend that you go into Settings and set Location Logging to Continuous (the logs are small). That way if you take pictures but do not immediately upload them you can geotag them later by doing the following:
- upload the desired pictures to flickr (these can also have been taken by another camera but this works best if you synchronize the phone & camera clocks first)
- within zonetag, select Location Logging->Upload Log
- go to the zonetag website and select the link 'Add location to your digital camera photos'. This will scan your flickr photos and match them to the uploaded log and add the geotags.
- you can then select Delete Log within zonetag to clean up some space and start a new log

Previously, I was using sportstracker to continuously record a log but now use zonetag. Once you upload the log to the zonetag site, you can then download it in GPX format. I then use gpicsync to tag (exif) pictures that I take with my digital camera using the GPX log. It's an extra step because I don't think you can get the GPX directly on the phone (never actually tried though) but it saves me from having to run zonetag and sportstracker at the same time.

I'd also recommend checking out zurfer from yahoo labs. It uses the gps information from zonetag to show pictures taken near your current location which is really neat. It will also show you pictures from your contacts, based on tags, etc. and makes a nice flickr browser on the phone.

[SuBmArU]

Originally Posted by coreyg

Zonetag is a great program that doesn't require too much memory. It will only geotag photos if they are uploaded immediately but you can use it's log to geotag after the fact (see below). I don't know of any program that updates the exif information but if anyone knows of one I'd be interested. As far as I know the zonetag location is based on the cellular network if gps is not available but I've only ever used it with the gps active.

I'd recommend that you go into Settings and set Location Logging to Continuous (the logs are small). That way if you take pictures but do not immediately upload them you can geotag them later by doing the following:
- upload the desired pictures to flickr (these can also have been taken by another camera but this works best if you synchronize the phone & camera clocks first)
- within zonetag, select Location Logging->Upload Log
- go to the zonetag website and select the link 'Add location to your digital camera photos'. This will scan your flickr photos and match them to the uploaded log and add the geotags.
- you can then select Delete Log within zonetag to clean up some space and start a new log

Previously, I was using sportstracker to continuously record a log but now use zonetag. Once you upload the log to the zonetag site, you can then download it in GPX format. I then use gpicsync to tag (exif) pictures that I take with my digital camera using the GPX log. It's an extra step because I don't think you can get the GPX directly on the phone (never actually tried though) but it saves me from having to run zonetag and sportstracker at the same time.

I'd also recommend checking out zurfer from yahoo labs. It uses the gps information from zonetag to show pictures taken near your current location which is really neat. It will also show you pictures from your contacts, based on tags, etc. and makes a nice flickr browser on the phone.

Thanks for your added infos about Zonetag, so the picture about Zonetag is complete!
In my testings, I have to confirm that it's a wonderful program; I've only noticed that's it's not compatible with Tracker (The task manager alternative app): I have to turn off Tracker, otherwise the Zonetag popup to upload a photo, won't appear just after taking a picture.
I'll try Zurfer asap (I thought it was a pc browser, but it's an app for the phone) ... the only prob seems to be the amount of data downloaded (due to the photos), it's really suggested a wi-fi connection or an unlimited data plan with a phone operator.

[bainsworld]

Yes, I guess it does "geotag" but not in the way I would prefer. The photo itself is untouched but rather it is uploaded to Flickr with various tags based on the cell tower ids etc and if there is a GPS position available, latitude and longitude tags. These only make sense on Flickr as far as I can see. If adding geotag info to the actual photo (in the EXIF information) is important, then I find the Picasa option to Geotag using Google Earth works well. Then the photo can be positioned by whatever service you happen to use...

[GPSfantatic]

Another GPS tagging and photo display service to try is RedZebra Mobile. Find it at REDZEBRAGPS.COM . Quick download onto my N95. Open your camera shutter and GPS finder. After taking the picture, you have the option of sending in the pic by MMS, email, WAP, GPRS etc. Then view your pics in your own online gallery with all the data you could need including the Longitude, Latitude as well as the postcode/zipcode, town or city name, country, and date/time pic was taken. Very cool. The free gallery service is accessed by opening an account online at www.redzebramobile.com but I did it straight off my phone by sending a pic by MMS to pic@redzeb.com . It seems to work with any mobile phone operator, and claims to do so everywhere in the world. Cool service! Also has a map to display all your auto/geo-tagged pics and each pic is displayed after clicking on the pin. Works very well.

[GPSfantatic]

The RedZebra Mobile geo-tagging service just gets better and better. All geotagged pictures can be viewed on a one map, with a pin at each location. Pics can be geo-tagged on your N95 or other N series running Symbian S60, with onboard GPS, or standalone GPS via blue-tooth. And pics not auto-GPS-tagged on phone, can be manually tagged, or dropped onto a GoogleEarth location map online afterwards, though they system has an indicator to distinguish which pics were auto-tagged (for certainty, evidence purposes etc) and for those that were manually tagged (still useful/fun, but commercially cannot be relied on as to location of the event in the picture). Pics are also date/time stamped on arrival at the RedZebra server, providing 3rd party time reference. See the demo at RedZebra Mobile® - Mobile Image Management Solutions .