Photo - Photo GPS is unreliable

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Sun 21 Jul 2024    Mon 22 Jul 2024

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Philip S. Sat 20 Jul 2024 Mon 22 Jul 2024
Sun 21 Jul 2024
Philip S.

During this same trip walking to Geschandalm, later analysis of the GPS locations of various photos showed a lot of variability. This is a particularly clear example where the location is obvious in the photo (it is definitely on the path) but the GPS location stored by the phone camera is 60m away.

I had one phone (Xioami) continually tracking my location (using OSMand) which produced the GPX track, and another (Pixel) used for photographs. The GPS data in the photos is clearly completely wrong for some of the photos - presumably because I hadn't left enough time for it to get a decent GPS fix before taking the photo. This is particularly clear when there is a well-identified spot in the photo, such as this one right by the shady cliff (photo EXIF GPS locations are orange dots):
   

The lesson to take away from this is to always take TWO photos at any one position, and throw away the first one. This will nearly always work for most people, and is sufficiently simple that even undergraduates can remember it. Alternatively, always continually record a GPS track on the phone you are using to take photos with - though this is unfortunately not always reliable either, as the camera app tends to cache locations and doesn't always get a fresh one from the "location" module in the phone.


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Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/264/lower_balkon/gorgonslair
Wallets on this date:
    2024#14 Gorgons lair ['-svg-', 'gorgonplan', 'gorgonplan', '-therion-', 'README', 'gorgonplan']
Logbook trips on this date:
    basecamp - New arrivals today
    plateau - Surface walk from col to Geschwantalm
    Homecoming - A satisfying but not very useful result
    Homecoming 359 - Second Coming Re-rig
    Photo - Photo GPS is unreliable