So this is the story of this image…

I’ll break down the day as it happened as was planned.  Now Melbourne is not known for its tropical storms.  This is both good and bad for me.  Good as I hate humidity and the last few days in Melbourne have been torture, but very bad for taking storm photos. The BOM had been saying for a few days that big storms were due.  So the night before involved checking all the gear, making sure the camera was charged, the Solmeta GPS was charged and the cards were emptied.  Nothing worse than a rare storm event and not having something right

The above radar image shows the time I left home. I’d been watching the weather all day and had a rough idea on when it was due, seeing this cell and its track meant I knew it would miss me, but it would provide some good shots.

Lucky for me, there was a second cell on the radar.  The second cell was the one that I would get my shot from.  The first cell did provide some nice outflow clouds and I saw a few lightning bolts, but nothing on camera.

There were a number of people down at my fav location.  The trusty End of North Road location.  The advantage of heading here was that I knew how to look at the radar on my HTC Incredible S in comparison to my location which told me to stay longer than the first cell passing as well.

So with all the gear set up, I was ready for the storm.  The second radar image is approx when the shot was taken.

And thus here is the gear as the storm moved in.

It was also the first time I got to test out my new tripod the Manfrotto MT294A3 290 with 804RC2 Head.  Must say it worked a treat even in the strong outflow winds.  (Look at the strap on the camera)

The shot is taken on manual mode to address the issue of the balance from the dark side of the image under the cloud with the bright side of the sun coming through.

Post processing consisted on a small lens correction and crop, with a touch of a graduated filter to address the slightly over exposed right side of the image.

As the storm got closer I timed the run back to the car with about 1/2 second to spare. Whilst the D7000 is listed as water resistant, the Tokina 11-16mm and the Solmeta GPS Pro aren’t. Further given the solid wall of rain that was coming sideways, I’m sure the D7000 would not have coped.

So days of planning went into this shot, and oh yeah mother nature help as well

This shot is now my most popular on flickr for favs and comments…  so thanks to all of your for the comments.

And of course you can buy this image as well ( just think Xmas is coming   )

And the EXIF Data

In this headlong rush to the next great thing, it pays to stop, catch a breath and reflect on some seriously awesome stuff that I and a lot of you have.

Saturday 24/09/2011 was that moment of pause for me.  At 2:45pm I jumped in my car (2000 model AWD Subaru) to head down to on a winning lotto kind of chance to get a photo.  The photo I was prepared to take was of the UARS satellite as it came crashing back down to earth. A Satellite launched via the Space Shuttle ( Retired 2011 )

It got me thinking on the 15 min drive to what kind of tech was I using. It started with the IVF #wolfcatcubs  (1980 for Australia )I had left with mrs wolfcat at home. Amazing tech and science right there before I had even left the house. Now sure IVF had been around prior to the launch of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) in 1991, but it has taken leaps and bounds since then.

So I listened to my 80’s mixed CD in the car. Sure, CD’s were around before 1991, but the recordable CD had only been around since 1990. As for the fact I was listening to a collection of MP3 format songs, well they didn’t come out until around 1993. At least all my music was pre UARS launch.

I get to my location which is my fav place to shoot from at the end of North Road, and grab my camera gear out of the car.  A Nikon D7000 ( Sept 2010), a 16.3mega-pixel DSLR (with full HD video), drop on my 150-500mm OS Sigma lens (2008) and turn on my Solemta Geotagger Pro GPS (2009) for my camera. So in under a minute I have turned on and got ready a swag of technology, most of which people in 1991 wouldn’t have even dreamed off.

I have two GPS devices on me at this point, one for the camera the other built into my phone, HTC Incredible S (2011). Note that GPS didn’t become fully operational until 1994 and it wasn’t until 2000 that GPS ‘Selective Availability’ was removed.  That is the little thing that saw GPS move from 50 meters of accuracy down to a few meters for you and me.

Being at a location where I am “the mayor” I of course used my 3g phone  (2003 in Australia) to check in on Foursquare ( 2009 ) to my location.  Then I fired up Twitter (2006) to follow in near real time the @UARS_Reentry account to get the info I need. Info I was able to get in near real time with no wires as it were.  But then I did check on the WWW (1990) on my home computer using ADSL 1 (8mbits) (2006) to get the info I needed before I left.

I fired up Google Skymap (2009) on my phone to check compass headings and location on the interactive realtime star map just to make sure I was looking at the right bit of sky and waited. I also checked real time weather satellites to check that the cloud cover would remain clear in my location for the time frame I was after.

Of course like all long odds, I didn’t succeed.  But I knew where to look when UARS had passed overhead and that it was time to go home.

Stop and think about just how much cool tech you have you right now…

I am still waiting for NASA to work out where it crashed of course, but it wasn’t over me, but I was thanks to the tech in my pocket prepared for it.

This video is the Moe and surrounds part of the trip. The to and from Moe was just freeway driving, so here is the more interesting 220km (roughly) of the trip. Video was recorded on a Microsoft HD Lifecam at 720p at 7.5fps, then compressed down to a single 5min movie.
Enjoy.

(Choose full screen to watch in HD, or watch on youtube for lower res version )

The Approx Route of the video ( this doesn’t include a couple of dirt tracks that I drove up, like the road to Mt Erica Car Park )

View Larger Map

And what I was after were shots like this of the Power Stations in the Latrobe Valley.

And the trip was timed for sunset… ( which luckily for me had some nice golden colours )

( These Shots are also on Redbubble as well )

In taking this shot, I wanted the whole sky, even with my 11-16mm Tokina, I still didn’t feel I had the whole sky.  Thus I went for the panorama.  When lining up the shot, the one thing I did notice, standing on the foreshore was the small waves lapping on the shore.  When trying to line up a panorama, waves are just a path to heart ache.  So I walked out till I was thigh deep in the water, passed the lapping waves.

This is a handheld panorama of about 10 shots, with a lot of overlap.  When shooting panorama’s always shoot in manual mode.  That way, when the shots merge, you will have consistent levels across each shot. Checking one shot that balances the light and dark will mean that your levels will be averaged out. The final image is 6335 x 4133 ( compared to 4288×2848 from the D90 )

Also this was one of my first sunset walks with the new GPS, but for some reason, my GPS decided I was 10 meters above sea level.

( Linked image is to lightboxed version as well, which looks much nicer )

And you can buy this as a print from RedBubble as well

I have been wanting a GPS for my Nikon D90 since the day I got my camera.  Why, I liked to geotag things.  My work flow has been go out take photos, remember to turn on GPS software on phone, make a track file on phone, remember to turn track file off, hope track file isn’t corrupted, export GPX file, open GeoSetter, plug phone into compimport GPX File, save files……. all rather tedious. Also with a number of fail points built in.

Now, work flow is, turn on camera, turn on my Solmeta Geotagger Pro, take photos, done.  Yes, it worked.  I do like when first impressions are, good.  No manual reading was required ( good for me, being male and all ), and away I went. A couple of quick tests for accuracy seem to be close, altitude seems to wander a bit up and down by a few meters, and took a while to get the first fix in Australia. Also the digital compass seems to wander a few degrees when taking shots.

As for the GPS itself. Wow, is it fast.  Almost aGPS fast actually. First time I fired it up, the display showed the lat and long for China, where the GPS was tested, less than a minute later after putting it on the window ledge at work, it had a fix for the new location.

I am glad I went to the extra expense and brought the Pro version as well, the display and extra functions are really coming in handy.

I love the extended GPS info I now get in my metadata as well.  The number of Satellites is great for giving a level of accuracy to the GPS data as well. And the compass headings, whilst take me a while to get used to working in digital format, will give me directions.

So far so good…

I was considering buying the N2 version, but am after less than a day, glad I went with the Pro version. The LCD, whilst small is still good enough to read, and I know I will use the data logging feature.  That way I still have a backup track as well.

So for first impressions, I am very happy, and already am using a feature set that goes way beyond what the Nikon GP1 model could ever do, and unlike the GP1 model, this thing works as well.  Still lots more testing to do, so that will be my excuse for heading to the beach to get some photos at least for while…

This is the Nokia N8 camera shoot out for that situation. ( Please note, it wasn’t a spectacular sunset the evening I got the shots… )

First is shooting directly into the sun. This is one of those men from the boys tests.

Shooting into the Sun – Nokia N95-8gb Camera Nokia N95 8GB Exposure 0.003 sec (1/333) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.6 mm ISO Speed 100 Flash Auto, Did not fire Orientation Horizontal (normal) X-Resolution 300 dpi Y-Resolution 300 dpi YCbCr Positioning Centered Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:25:34 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:25:34 Light Source Unknown Color Space sRGB Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None Compression JPEG (old-style)	Shooting into the Sun – Nikon D90 Camera Nikon D90 Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture f/16.0 Focal Length 18 mm ISO Speed 200 Exposure Bias 0 EV Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Modified) 2010:10:24 21:24:20 Exposure Program Auto: No Flash Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:24:02.00+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:24:02 Max Aperture Value 3.5 Subject Distance 6.31 m Metering Mode Multi-segment Light Source Unknown Sub Sec Time Original 00 Sub Sec Time Digitized 00 Sensing Method One-chip color area CFAPattern [Green,Blue][Red,Green] Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Focal Length In35mm Format 27 mm Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Unknown Compression JPEG (old-style) Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50 Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Lens 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-6.3 Lens ID 38 Image Number 85557 Color Transform YCbCr Flash Return No return detection Flash Mode Auto
Shooting into the Sun – JVC GC-FM1 Camera JVC GC-FM1 Exposure 1/4029 sec Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 3.9 mm ISO Speed 100 Exposure Bias 0 EV Flash No flash function Orientation Horizontal (normal) X-Resolution 72 dpi Y-Resolution 72 dpi Date and Time (Modified) 2010:10:24 19:22:55 YCbCr Positioning Co-sited Exposure Program Program AE Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:22:55 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:22:55 Max Aperture Value 2.8 Metering Mode Center-weighted average Light Source Unknown Color Space sRGB Custom Rendered Normal Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Compression JPEG (old-style)	Shooting into the Sun – HTC Desire Camera HTC Desire ISO Speed 100 X-Resolution 72 dpi Y-Resolution 72 dpi YCbCr Positioning Centered Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:22:31 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:22:31 Color Space sRGB GPSVersion ID 2.2.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.27″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 8.24″ E GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 12 m GPSTime Stamp 19:22:31 GPSMap Datum WGS-84 GPSProcessing Method HYBRID-FIX GPSDate Stamp 2010:10:24 Compression JPEG (old-style)
Shooting into the Sun – Nokia X6 Camera Nokia X6-00 Exposure 1/1000000 sec Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.2 mm ISO Speed 123 Flash Auto, Did not fire Orientation Horizontal (normal) X-Resolution 300 dpi Y-Resolution 300 dpi YCbCr Positioning Centered Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:21:27 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:21:27 Light Source Unknown Color Space sRGB Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control Low gain up GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.58″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 7.84″ E GPSAltitude Ref Below Sea Level GPSAltitude 1.5 m Compression JPEG (old-style)	Shooting into the Sun – Nokia N8 Camera Nokia N8-00 Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1400) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.9 mm ISO Speed 100 Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Modified) 2010:10:24 21:11:30 Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:21:18.153+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:21:18 Light Source Unknown Sub Sec Time Original 153 Sub Sec Time Digitized 153 Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 0 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 5 m GPSMeasure Mode 3-Dimensional Measurement GPSDOP 0.9 GPSMap Datum WGS-84 Compression JPEG (old-style) Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50 Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.34″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 7.91″ E GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 5 m GPSMeasure Mode 3-Dimensional GPSDOP 0.9 GPSMap Datum WGS-84

Looking towards Melbourne CBD from Brighton.

Skyline – Nokia95-8gb Camera Nokia N95 8GB Exposure 0.009 sec (1/110) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.6 mm ISO Speed 160 Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:27:26+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:27:26 Light Source Unknown Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control Low gain up Compression JPEG (old-style) Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50 Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr Flash Return No return detection Flash Mode Auto Flash Function False Flash Red Eye Mode False	Skyline – Nikon D90 Camera Nikon D90 Exposure 0.005 sec (1/200) Aperture f/7.1 Focal Length 18 mm ISO Speed 200 Exposure Bias 0 EV Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Software Ver.1.00 Exposure Program Auto: No Flash Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:26:33.00+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:26:33 Max Aperture Value 3.5 Subject Distance 21.1 m Metering Mode Multi-segment Light Source Unknown Sub Sec Time Original 00 Sub Sec Time Digitized 00 Sensing Method One-chip color area CFAPattern [Green,Blue][Red,Green] Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Focal Length In35mm Format 27 mm Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Unknown Compression JPEG (old-style) Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50 Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Lens 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-6.3 Lens ID 38 Image Number 85559 Color Transform YCbCr
Skyline – JVC GC-FM1 Camera JVC GC-FM1 Exposure 0.003 sec (1/340) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 3.9 mm ISO Speed 100 Exposure Bias 0 EV Flash No flash function X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Modified) 2010:10:24 21:15:02 Exposure Program Program AE Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:26:52+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:26:52 Max Aperture Value 2.8 Metering Mode Center-weighted average Light Source Unknown Custom Rendered Normal Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Compression JPEG (old-style) Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr Flash Return No return detection Flash Mode Unknown Flash Function True Flash Red Eye Mode False	Skyline – HTC Desire Camera HTC Desire ISO Speed 100 X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:25:39+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:25:39 GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 9 m GPSTime Stamp 19:25:39 GPSMap Datum WGS-84 GPSProcessing Method HYBRID-FIX GPSDate Stamp 2010:10:24 Compression JPEG (old-style) Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.37″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 8.08″ E GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 9 m GPSDate Time 2010:10:24 19:25:39Z GPSMap Datum WGS-84 GPSProcessing Method HYBRID-FIX
Skyline – Nokia X6 Camera Nokia X6-00 Exposure 0.002 sec (1/500) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.2 mm ISO Speed 100 Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:24:11+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:24:11 Light Source Unknown Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPSAltitude Ref Below Sea Level GPSAltitude 7 m Compression JPEG (old-style) Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.83″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 7.72″ E GPSAltitude Ref Below Sea Level GPSAltitude 7 m Flash Return No return detection Flash Mode Auto Flash Function False Flash Red Eye Mode False	Skyline – Nokia N8 Camera Nokia N8-00 Exposure 0.003 sec (1/310) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 5.9 mm ISO Speed 103 Flash Auto, Did not fire X-Resolution 240 dpi Y-Resolution 240 dpi Date and Time (Original) 2010:10:24 19:24:21.534+11:00 Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:10:24 19:24:21 Light Source Unknown Sub Sec Time Original 534 Sub Sec Time Digitized 534 Custom Rendered Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control Low gain up GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 19.5 m GPSMeasure Mode 3-Dimensional Measurement GPSDOP 1.1 GPSMap Datum WGS-84 Compression JPEG (old-style) Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type D50 Measurement Observer CIE 1931 Measurement Flare 0.999% Measurement Illuminant D65 Color Transform YCbCr GPSVersion ID 2.2.0.0 GPS Latitude 37 deg 53′ 51.03″ S GPS Longitude 144 deg 59′ 7.94″ E GPSAltitude Ref Above Sea Level GPSAltitude 19.5 m GPSMeasure Mode 3-Dimensional GPSDOP 1.1 GPSMap Datum WGS-84 Flash Return No return detection Flash Mode Auto Flash Function False Flash Red Eye Mode False

Headline numbers on the Cameras are.

Nokia X6- 5megapixel
Nokia N95-8gb- 5megapixel
HTC Desire – 5megapixel
JVC FM1 – 8megapixel
Nikon D90 – 12megapixel
Nokia N8 – 12megapixel

Whilst I know that sensor size, aperture, glass etc are what makes a great camera, megapixels is what Joe Public know when they are after a camera.

One of the more interesting things that came out of the second test, was that 3 of the cameras that had GPS built into them had time to get a GPS fix. Compare the locations.

KML Google Map Showing, location of the Above Cameras. The HTC was the closest.

View Larger Map

All the EXIF data, is pulled from Flickr’s view EXIF info mode, more data would be available through other tools.

Once again, the Nokia N8 wins in the above tests. ( Well apart from the D90 ). I kept the D90 in the tests for showing what a DSLR can shoot compared to a mobile phone when on auto mode.

I can not believe just how bad the camera on the HTC Desire is, it fails on every comparison test I do. And fails by a long way.

To be fair to my Nikon D90…. this is what you can get, with a DSLR, Manual Mode and a 70-300mm Lens. This is the cheap old 70-300mm lens which costs less cost less than $200AUD.

( This shot is also available for purchase on Redbubble )

As I am on Vodafone sim on my HTC-Desire (more outback trips I use a Telstra Sim), there are a few black spots along the coast I will be dropping back to Edge network as well… so I have no idea how well it work.

(p.s sorry about the frame as well, but all going well this should work)

(p.p.s sorry in advance for the fact that I will forget to turn on the software at some point in time )

Also you can stalk me in the usual ways via Twitter or Foursquare as well.

My UMPC, the Asus R2H which I use primarily as my car computer these days (yes I am that sad I have a car computer).  I’ll need to trick it up a bit.. like with a bigger SD card or two but it could be possible.  The main things I do with the R2H are make time-lapse driving videos (eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwjbluNF3So)  and run OziExplorer for offline detailed topomaps to see where I am and where I want to go.  Google maps just doesn’t cut it when you get off the beaten path. And have some music to sing along badly to.

With a few well choosen Apps I could do this.  It is going to take sometime to work it all out, but I really think that this is possible.

There are a few things that the R2H can do that the Desire can not.. storage and downloading photos from my D90, but I can still take the computer for longer trips, just not mount it on the windscreen.  One of these weekends I’ll get a decent screen mount, and I already have a lighter to USB power supply, plug in my FM transmitter to the headphone jack and I think it can be done.

I really wish that I could get offline navigation for free like I can on my Nokia with Ovi Maps (well not free $10 because I have an old phone) but still… the fact I am even considering this I think is noteworthy about the device.

So here is the trace.

View Larger Map

First things first.. the bad.  There is a known issue with the GPS on the Desire and the Telstra HTC setup.  One hopes that all the people buying the phone from the shop from now on don’t have to do an Over the Air Update to get the GPS working… it needs to ship with the correct firmware. Mine didn’t, but then mine was not factory standard, so I can’t comment on that.

Now on to the good stuff.

WOW… the GPS on the HTC-Desire rocks.  Not just a little, but a lot.  Time to get a fix (even without Cell Tower prefixing) is simply fantastic.  This is the fastest GPS that I have now.  I have 3 others… two Nokia Phones (n95-8gb, N78) and my Asus R2H.. the HTC leaves them for dead.  Time to fix is often under 1 min even when it is a long distance from last fix, strength of fix is always great and it holds it fix very well once you move out of optimal GPS signal range, ie slightly indoors and in built up areas.

Although it took me a while to find the app to suit my needs.  What I was after was something that created either a KML or preferably a GPX file and stored that on the memory card.  No surprise really that the app to do this the cleanest was a Google App called My Tracks http://mytracks.appspot.com/ (See the website for a slightly tacky but helpful introduction.

Once I had the app that suited my need…  It was then easy to show a comparison to my most commonly used GPS (the Nokia N95-8gb) and the HTC-Desire.  So what I did was trace the drive into town I do I both devices.  Now they both were set to GPS only (no wifi) and I hit go within a few seconds on the trace.  Also both phones had a fix approx 2km away the night before.

The embedded file can below can be downloaded here.. n95-htc-samples.kmz (right click save as) to show you the detailed path.  The HTC-Desire got a fix before I had even turned the car on.. the Nokia took a couple of minutes to catch up.  To many this time frame may not seem important, but it means I can fire up the GPS on the Desire much faster to get a trace to log my road trips or just to tag photos on a photo walk.

Of course this will suck battery… but once I managed to turn off all the power and bandwidth sucking default settings battery life is once again acceptable.  Whilst the new iPhone may have the ability to do background apps.. the current ones don’t.  And a background task is what is required to do decent GPS logging.  The HTC did that perfectly.  As a test for a some other apps.. on the way home I ran two different background tasks doing logging to see what I would get, what I got was two different trace files

So here are the traces… Blue is the Nokia, Red is the HTC.  Overall I’d give the more accurate trace to the HTC as well, but I still have to play with the software to get the most out of it.

View Larger Map

This blog post that I did covers how to take a GPX file and marry it to the shots from your DSLR to geocode your photos.

Given that this is a Google App, I really think Telstra should look at including Apps like this on the default setup on the phone, not just fill the phone with apps that are just WAP links.