This is the first time I’ve been in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit the city three years ago, and I was eager to see what had changed. I had a pretty good tour of town on my ride in from the airport, and I’ve really only noticed that the fences look newer than they did when I was last here.
More to the point, the French quarter is just as I remember it. It’s as old-world as ever, and still haunting to walk around in at night. (This is a view of Chartres St. from my balcony). In daylight, the streets are a a little more prosaic, but I do also have fond memories of piloting an ancient Lincoln slowly around these narrow streets, idling away an afternoon.
While walking around with Geoff and Andra, last night, I gave some thought to trying to recreate — or at least geographically revist — photographs I took when I was here before Katrina. With this in mind, I took a detour on the way back to my hotel to try to find the setting of a photo of an old-style bicycle I’d taken then, and thought I’d found it until I looked at the photo for reference and discovered that every feature of the sidewalk, pillars and bricks was different. I was in the wrong place, but had myself convinced.
This got me thinking of GPS, and, in particular, GPS tagging for photographs. (It’s doubly academic in this case, since the capability didn’t exist when I took the first set of photos, and I was using exclusively film cameras, then). How soon will cameras evolve to include it, rather than relying on a third-party solution?
“How soon will cameras evolve to include it, rather than relying on a third-party solution?”
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08080702nikonp6000.asp
I’m pretty sure that Camera Kingston has stock, since they are now available in many other stores. Be forewarned, however, that the GPS implementation is apparently pretty poor:
“To enable GPS, you have to select the GPS option on the mode dial, which then causes the P6000 to search for a GPS signal and acquire a position lock (if tunred on for the first time, or after the battery has been removed and replaced). The P6000 has a weak receiver, taking over 3 minutes to lock onto a signal in central London, and then often losing the position entirely when moving between high-rise buildings, or simply stepping indoors. It only consistently worked in areas of clear space - not great for all the urban photographers out there, which is arguably when it’s most useful. The other downside is the tremendous drain on the battery when leaving GPS enabled, as the camera subsequently checks for a signal at regular intervals (the default option is every minute), even when its powered off.” - http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews_nikon_coolpix_p6000.php