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On 12/09/2012 21:28, Alan Browne wrote:
>
> The a99 is announced in two flavours, the 'v' model having a GPS
> receiver to tag photos. (Though there is a 3 hole "GPS" position behind
> the accessory connection panel suggesting the GPS is an "add on" and not
> a "built in" - need to see more on this).

No, the 3 holes are there as well on the A77, on the panel not behind
it, and the GPS is not an add-on.

I'm very happy with the GPS on my A77.



--
audentes fortuna iuvat

On 14/09/2012 21:10, Alan Browne wrote:
> On 2012.09.14 02:28 , Joe Kotroczo wrote:
>> On 12/09/2012 21:28, Alan Browne wrote:
>>>
>>> The a99 is announced in two flavours, the 'v' model having a GPS
>>> receiver to tag photos. (Though there is a 3 hole "GPS" position behind
>>> the accessory connection panel suggesting the GPS is an "add on" and not
>>> a "built in" - need to see more on this).
>>
>> No, the 3 holes are there as well on the A77, on the panel not behind
>> it, and the GPS is not an add-on.
>
> Thanks. Good to know.
>
>>
>> I'm very happy with the GPS on my A77.
>
> Or does it simply tag photos with position and time and that's it?

The GPS function writes the position into the EXIF data of stills. The
time is taken from the camera clock.

The only other function the GPS offers is to sync the camera clock with
GPS time. Optionally. I turned it off again as it was consistently out
by a few hours, despite setting the time zone.

> What other data (if any) do you get out of the GPS?

None.

> Is there a display for it on the camera?

No.

The menu has a simple on/off setting for the GPS.

> Can you record your tracks as well, record POI's, etc.

No.

> Does it tag video with position? (Start or continuous?).

As far as I know, no. There is no implementation of positional data
tagging in the .AVI file format.


--
audentes fortuna iuvat

On 15/09/2012 00:46, Alan Browne wrote:

(...)
>>>> I'm very happy with the GPS on my A77.
>>>
>>> Or does it simply tag photos with position and time and that's it?
>>
>> The GPS function writes the position into the EXIF data of stills. The
>> time is taken from the camera clock.
>
> They got that wrong. It should stamp with GPS time (corrected to UTC
> and optionally time zone).
>
>> The only other function the GPS offers is to sync the camera clock with
>> GPS time. Optionally. I turned it off again as it was consistently out
>> by a few hours, despite setting the time zone.
>
> Bizarre.

Well, I might have gotten the whole setting the time zone business
wrong, I really didn't spend much time figuring it out. It's not that
important to me.


(...)
>>> Does it tag video with position? (Start or continuous?).
>>
>> As far as I know, no. There is no implementation of positional data
>> tagging in the .AVI file format.
>
> Really? How odd.

Actually, I don't know of ANY video format that supports GPS data, so I
really don't know how one would do that.

> So, Sony's GPS tagging is quite undewhelming.

It does exactly what I want it to do. Without any faffing around, it
just works and I don't have to spend any time on it.

> I'll stick to my phototracker and EXIFTOOL. That way I get a recording
> of my outing, I can tag my photos. Only "downside" is I have to sync
> the camera clock every few weeks. That time I can get from my phone or
> other GPS.

Well, if you have the time for all that, fair enough.



--
audentes fortuna iuvat

On 14/09/2012 22:53, Joe Kotroczo wrote:
[]
> The GPS function writes the position into the EXIF data of stills. The
> time is taken from the camera clock.
>
> The only other function the GPS offers is to sync the camera clock with
> GPS time. Optionally. I turned it off again as it was consistently out
> by a few hours, despite setting the time zone.
>
[]

FWIW, I just got a new Sony HX200V and it behaves in a similar way to
what you describe, except that the time correction function seems to
work as described, and very well indeed. It's almost good enough that I
might leave the Garmin GPS 60CSx at home, but not quite. I do keep the
camera set to UTC, though.

The HX200V is an 18 Mpix "bridge" camera, with a 27-810 mm equivalent
zoom. Of course, the images don't stand up to a 1:1 pixel peeping zoom,
but look not bad on a 2 MPix or 3 MPix display (which is my normal
output medium). But it's one heck of a lot lighter than the D800 with
28-300 mm zoom my Dutch friend Ferdinand recently bought!
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

Alfred Molon <> wrote:
> In article <>, Alan Browne

>> They got that wrong. It should stamp with GPS time (corrected to UTC
>> and optionally time zone).

> It's better if it uses the camera time, because so you will be able to
> know where you have been at what time, without having to make manual
> time zone calculations.

So basically you're saying "it's better if you can read the EXIF
data manually, without using a computer", which leaves me to
wonder why you're printing your JPEGs with EXIF on punch cards.

If you were using a computer to decypher the EXIF-data, a
transformation from UTC into the time zone time based on the
geo-location embedded in the EXIF would be quite trivial to
implement ... in fact, a UTC-local time transformation is done
by every well designed computer time system, as you'll get badly
ordered time stamps when switching from summer time to winter time.
The same happens when having to adjust the clock backwards when
changing time zones. Thus you run on UTC and adjust from there
to the local time zone.

And it's well known where one time zone changes to the next ...

-Wolfgang

On 15/09/2012 11:01, Eric Stevens wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 07:31:33 +0100, Joe Kotroczo <>
> wrote:
>
>> On 15/09/2012 00:46, Alan Browne wrote:
>>
>> (...)
>>>>>> I'm very happy with the GPS on my A77.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or does it simply tag photos with position and time and that's it?
>>>>
>>>> The GPS function writes the position into the EXIF data of stills. The
>>>> time is taken from the camera clock.
>>>
>>> They got that wrong. It should stamp with GPS time (corrected to UTC
>>> and optionally time zone).
>>>
>>>> The only other function the GPS offers is to sync the camera clock with
>>>> GPS time. Optionally. I turned it off again as it was consistently out
>>>> by a few hours, despite setting the time zone.
>>>
>>> Bizarre.
>>
>> Well, I might have gotten the whole setting the time zone business
>> wrong, I really didn't spend much time figuring it out. It's not that
>> important to me.
>
> I suggest you check whether or not it pays any attention to your time
> zone. Some just set the time to UTC (Greenwich) time.

Well, my time zone _is_ UTC... Greenwich is just down the road.
Daylight Savings is set to "On".

I've just switched the "GPS Auto Time Correction" to "On" again, to see
what it does.


--
audentes fortuna iuvat

Alfred Molon <> wrote:
> In article <kb6ji9->, Wolfgang
> Weisselberg says...
>> So basically you're saying "it's better if you can read the EXIF
>> data manually, without using a computer", which leaves me to
>> wonder why you're printing your JPEGs with EXIF on punch cards.

> Did you drink too much apple juice or do you really print JPEGs on punch
> cards?

None of the above, although using punch cards as paper to
print upon sounds interesting.

>> If you were using a computer to decypher the EXIF-data,

> What are you talking about? I use ACDsee to check the exif data.

So basically you're complaining that ACDsee is unable to calculate
and display the local time of the shot from the GPS data and UTC
timestamp in the EXIF, you just haven't noticed that yet, right?

-Wolfgang

On 20/09/2012 07:18, Alfred Molon wrote:
[]
> I never change the time zone of the camera, only the internal clock to
> adjust for local time. This works nicely, with the photos always showing
> the correct time. For instance if I take a photo at 8am in Malaysia,
> when I go through the exif when I'm back in Germany I will see 8am at
> the time the photo was taken.

I'm in the set camera to UTC and leave it camp. Many of my Australian
photos appear to be in the middle of the night, though....
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

Alfred Molon <> wrote:

> I never change the time zone of the camera, only the internal clock to
> adjust for local time. This works nicely, with the photos always showing
> the correct time. For instance if I take a photo at 8am in Malaysia,
> when I go through the exif when I'm back in Germany I will see 8am at
> the time the photo was taken.

Try shooting when they switch from summer time to winter
time. Either your camera clock will be off by an hour or
later photos (in that repeated hour) will partially appear
earlier than earlier photos.

-Wolfgang