MetkuMods - Because you love your hardware!

ATP PhotoFinder Mini

Geotag your photographs

Author:	Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama
Published:	07.12.2008
Manufacturer:	ATP
Product Group:	Photography
In English Suomeksi

Accuracy of the Photofinder

ATP PhotoFinder Mini

First of all here's the Everytrail-generated .kml file shown on Google Earth. The accuracy of the route is almost phenomenal, even at worse it only is a couple of meters away from the road used and most of the time it's dead on. Also it's worth remembering that the Photofinder was tested in a small Finnish city at the arctic circle and I think it's not Google's main goal to get their maps and images as possible in such a remote location. Altogether I'm very pleased with the results seen here.

ATP PhotoFinder Mini

Unfortunately and for an unknown reason the images taken simply didn't match the map. Here you can see multiple photos from the same location taken on three different trips. The area doesn't have any tall buildings or other objects that should make the GPS-positioning not work properly. On the other hand some of the photos in different parts of the city were again dead-on so the whole system isn't bugged. The distances hilighted in this image range between maybe 50 and 150 meters, which just isn't what ATP and other reviews let to expect.

The disappointing results here almost leave me assuming that the test sample is defective. After all the route is dead on, so could it be the GPS-logger doesn't get the right time from the satellites or something?

Conclusion

PROS

Use of USB-connectors

Easy to use

Doesn't require a computer to work

CONS

JPG only

kml-creating doesn't work

Silver Award!

The Photofinder left me with mixed feelings. For me this product has lots of potential, and I'm especially looking to use this on the oncoming trips. But all the good things don't come without issues. First of all despite the very accurate GPS-data, the images just don't land on the right places. Also the need to use Everytrail to generate the .kml-file is a bit of a show-stopper. These issues sound like they could be fixed with a firmware update, but so far ATP hasn't made one.

Despite the issues I'm going to keep using the Photofinder Mini when photographing. Without the issues the Photofinder Mini would be worth our Editor's Choice-award, but now it unfortunately isn't.