Hello all.  I just wanted to share a bit of a success story. 

I had been searching for a way to geotag my photos from my Nikon D200 raw files (*.NEF).  To geotag while shooting, the Nikon solution is expensive and tethered with Garmin devices on the camera, adding weight and heft at the expense of ergonomics.  There are also a couple of expensive ($200) Bluetooth dongles for the D200, but again they interfere with ergonomics and drain battery life.

I decided I did not need to geotag my images while I shoot, so I started looking for a GPS logger.  I had an older Bluetooth GPS receiver (old i***) that worked great for traveling for navigation on vacations, but it did not log waypoints.  Sony's solution was expensive and could not be used a GPS mouse.  So, I decided to get a logger that also had Bluetooth.  I ended up with the qstarz BT-Q1000.

Now, there is some effort involved in geotagging NEF files.  I am currently using a nice bit of freeware appropriately called geotag.  Geotag takes GPX files and tags pretty much any photo file that DCraw can read.  So, using gpsBabel to convert the BT-Q1000's NMEA file to GPX takes all of about 10 seconds, and then I load the file and match the photos in geotag!

Hope this helps someone else out there!  It should also work for other image files, but I have not tested anything other than D70/D200 NEF files and jpegs.

 Cheers.

Thanks a lot for your post. Do you have any sample nice picture you could share with us here (with the geocoded info on it)?

I am assuming you are using Mac, right? (Because most PC users will use the included Travel Recorder to download the logged data into GPX format and just use Locr PC application to geocode all your pictures located on your local PC folder).

I'm actually using Windows Vista.

Locr looks very interesting, but I do not believe it will work raw image files, only jpegs.  I could be wrong, as I have not tried it out.

Other than geotag, I have heard Google has a piece of code out there called GPicSync that will work with raw image files.

I'll throw an image up when I get home tonight.

Cheers. 

Attached is a quick and dirty I took while testing.

Workflow was;

1. Capture
2. Transfer photo (NEF) to desktop
3. Transfer GPS log to desktop
4. Convert GPS log from NMEA to GPX
5. Tag NEF with geotag
6. Open NEF with IrfanView, Resize, Save as JPG

So, the photo is completely untouched other than geotagging and resizing.

If you open the image file with a geotag sensitive tool, like IrfanView, Picasa, etc., you can see the coordinates.

-- Notes from Sales Team: --removed duplicate pictures, scroll down for the corrected picture with valid EXIF info --

Hi. Thanks for the nice picture but I checked the picture with Picasa and it says "No EXIF data available".

Would you please email me a copy of the Geotagged picture and I will do a screen capture of how this will show up in Picasa?

Thanks.

Interesting...  the forum must strip the EXIF data on upload I guess?  I checked the JPG for EXIF data and it was intact.

I'll provide a direct link later to my photo server.

Let us try this one more time...  I think there may be a bug in IrfanView when saving NEF raw files. 

I used Nikon's CaptureNX this time.

Yes, it works well this time.

Sharing this info with all readers: 

Screen capture 1: Shows the properties of this picture if your right click and select properties from Picasa2 (Free Photo Album software from Google).

Screen capture 2: Using Google Earth, you will be able to tell where exactly this picture was taken from. 

(Tip: From Picasa, click on Tools | Geotag | View in Google Earth)

Thanks. 

The only complaint I have about the Qstarz BT-Q1000 is the switch; it is too easy to move between the three modes, especially when taking it in and out of the supplied case.  I might be applying some gaffer's tape to resolve that issue.

Yes but the case provided / included should be made of flexible clothes material and it is not suppose to give a tigh fit that would effect the switch.

Do you have a picture to show this problem?

The case is neoprene and fits like a wetsuit.  The switch has a raised center point for "grip" which catches on the rolled lip of the neoprene case.  The case is actually very nice and has a belt loop and a closed loop that is perfect for a carabiner.  If anything, I would change the switch by either making it flush or stiffening the action or both.

It is a very minor issue at most. 

I can snap a couple of pictures to show what I mean.

Here are a trio of photos that highlight the switch in question.  Again, on occasion the switch move when placed into the tight (flexible) neoprene case.