Geotagging seems to be the buzz word these days

What is Geotagging...."it is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as websites, RSS feeds, or images and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though it can also include altitude, bearing, and place names."

How to tag your images

There are several ways to geotag photographs. I just started using the Expressions Media 2 to do this via software. There is a great tutorial on how to do this, just click on the link below to find out how.

Cameras
Newer cameras have global positioning system (GPS) units built into them. When a photo is taken, it is automatically stamped with the camera's location. This method produces the most accurate results.

Handheld GPS units
Many handheld GPS units will record a route which can be uploaded to your computer. Special software can interpret these routes and compute your location at any given time. The software can then use the date and time on the photos to update the photo's GPS information.

Hardware devices
There are a small number of dedicated GPS units made specifically for still cameras. The Sony GPSCS1KA and GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr are examples. These units do not need to be attached to the camera—they can be kept in a bag or somewhere more convenient. They record their location periodically. When you have finished shooting, the GPS information is attributed to the images using the provided software.

Software only
Several applications allow you to add GPS information to photographs without using a GPS device. These tools allow the user to search on a map for a location and then apply the GPS coordinates to the photographs.

Many asset managers, including Expression Media, allow users to geocode their assets by entering city, state, and country information.

Microsoft Professional Photography: Geotagging

Although Windows Live Photo Gallery offers panoramic stitching today, it does have its limitations for producing the high resolution images for the new technologies like Silverlight Deep Zoom. So Microsoft Research have released Microsoft Image Composite Editor an advanced panoramic image stitcher. The application takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location and creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all the source images at full resolution. The stitched panorama can be saved in a wide variety of formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF

Click on the following link for the full story Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE)

Held annually, the competition aims to find the most stunning and original wildlife pictures taken by photographers worldwide of all ages.

Just seen the preview in this months BBC Wildlife Magazine and the competition has not failed in delivering some stunning images

This year exhibition runs from 31 October 2008 - 26 April 2009

Tickets for the 2008 exhibition are now on sale.
Book your tickets online

Wildlife Photographer of the Year homepage