GPS Location in Lightroom Incorrect

[Richard4911]

Hello,

I use Geotag Photos Pro 2 on my Android phone to record my photo trips.

I recently recorded a trip out from Southampton Marina to take some pictures of the yachts in the Cowes Week event.

The tracklog generated was shown as correct when loaded into Lightroom.

My problem is that when I 'autotag' the images the first 10 to 20 images are shown on the map several miles out of position, further along the track.

The main images taken out in the solent and around Cowes itself are correct.

That's what is leaving me confused in that most (but not all) of the images are showing up in the correct place.

I've un-installed tracklog and the GPS data from Lightroom and re-installed it again with the same results.

The location data on my phone works great with Google Maps when driving.

Might you have any answers that could help solve my problem?

Thanks.

[Laura Shoe]

Were the times of the two devices in sync? If not, adjust this in the auto tag dialog.

[Richard4911]

Laura,

Yes, the time on the camera and the time on the phone were synced and I've checked again and it's still so.

It's the fact that the images on the tracklog are correct throughout the whole journey except for the start of the trip.

For instance, the first image I took is within the Southampton Marina but on the Lightroom map it shows up as being taken where Southampton Water meets the Solent, miles away.

Later on images taken on the River Medina at Cowes are showing as being in the correct place.

Very confusing!

[Laura Shoe]

I'm afraid I don't have the answer, then, Richard. Have you tried viewing the map of the tracklog in a different application, such as the Android app you recorded it in, and have you verified that the tracklog did start recording before you started shooting?

If all this looks good, then I'd suggest posting your issue, with supporting information, on this Adobe page for reporting problems.

[johnrellis]

LR always interprets the times in photos as in local time time zone of the computer running LR, whereas the times in track logs are always in UTC (aka GMT).  So you often have to use the Map > Tracklog > Set Time Zone Offset command to tell LR the time zone offset of the photos: Work with the Map module in Lightroom .

I'm guessing you're in the UK and the current time zone is BST (UTC + 1), so the Set Time Offset command could be required.

If this doesn't help, upload a sample tracklog and two photos, one that seems to work and one that doesn't, to Dropbox or similar and post the link here, and we'll get it straightened out.

[Richard4911]

John,

I am in the UK and the time on my phone (where the .gpx file was created from) matched the time on my camera exactly.

I experimented with just one image and changed the Time Zone Offset in Lightroom to be +1 and then tried -1 hour and it made no difference to the location of the image; both times it showed the image in the same location regardless of the offset.

I've uploaded the two of my images in the original.nef format as well as in .jpg format together with the .gpx file to Sync.com as this is the cloud service I use.

The reason for uploading two images is that the first one was taken within the Southampton Marina and the other at Cowes on the Isle of Wight and therefore it's obvious if there is anything wrong with the placement of these image on the Lightroom map.

Sync.com | Control Panel

If you have any problem accessing these files let me know as it's not something I do that often.

Thank you so much...

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

LR's Auto Tag command correctly assigns GPS locations to the two photos based on the contents of the tracklog and the capture times recorded in the photos.

Your problem is caused by the fact that the tracklog segment for 2017-08-01 doesn't start until you're already in the middle of the Solent, after you've left Southampton (and after you've taken the first photo).  The track proceeds south, then east past Cowes, then west past Cowes, then east again and into Cowes harbor, then north back to Southampton. (I used Garmin Basecamp to easily visualize the tracklog.)

Perhaps you didn't turn on GPS logging until you had already left Southampton.

Details

Here's where the Auto Tag command assigns the two photos:

The two photos have recorded capture times of:

_DSC3424.NEF:   2017-08-01 10:27:49

_DSC3725.NEF:   2017-08-01 15:21:43

The GPX file has multiple segments.  The segment for 2017-08-01 has these starting and ending entries:

	Time (UTC)	Time (BST)	Lat/Lon
Start	2017-08-01 10:18:35	2017-08-01 11:18:35	50.799553 -1.297635
	2017-08-01 14:21:17	2017-08-01 15:21:17	50.757130 -1.291749
End	2017-08-01 16:23:16	2017-08-01 17:23:16	50.895557 -1.394352

The first photo's capture time (10:27:49 BST) is before the starting entry in the track segment (11:18:35 BST). So LR's Auto Tag command assigns the photo a GPS location near the start entry, 50.80116506583, -1.294584183065, in the middle of the Solent. (It isn't exactly the starting entry's GPS location, because LR is interpolating between that and the last entry for the previous track segment from 2017-07-16.)

The second photo's capture time (15:21:43) is very close to the middle entry in the table above, so LR assigns it a GPS location very close to the middle entry, 50.757146252193, -1.2912105836633, in Cowes harbor.

Set Time Zone Offset Command

I was misspoke about the Set Time Zone Offset command.  It is only necessary to use that command when the computer running LR is in a time zone different from the time zone in which the camera clock was set (or if the camera clock was set incorrectly).  Since your camera appears to have been correctly set to BST, and your computer is set to BST, it isn't necessary to use the command.

[Richard4911]

John,

Thank you so much for your help with this, it really is very much appreciated.

I set the journey to record prior to getting on the boat in the Marina so I'm now unsure as to if it's a problem with my phone or the Geotag Pro app I was using.

I have been in contact with the people who created the Geotag Pro app and I'll forward your information on to them to see if it helps with any future updates.

If I zoom into the track-log on the Lightroom map I can now clearly see where the track-log started, something I should have done in the first place.

Once again, thank you so much for your help...

Richard

[johnrellis]

Please do update this thread with what you learn -- it might help others.  In general, the tools for manipulating GPS info are pretty bad at helping you figure out what's going on when things go wrong.

[rayv56912865]

One other thing I would suggest, is that when you turn your GPS Tracking On, that you also open a map and check the location that the GPS is picking up.  And confirm that it is correct.