GPS camera

[huey]

Just want to buy another camera with GPS function for flying mission, any advice for Pana ZS20, Canon SX260 HS, Nikon S9300?

[wuzafuzz]

I believe we are required to use CAP owned cameras on missions now.  Someone correct me on that if I'm wrong.

There was a thread on the GPS camera topic a few months back.  You'll find some good camera advice there:
http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=15676.0

[bflynn]

I believe we are required to use CAP owned cameras on missions now.  Someone correct me on that if I'm wrong.

The last I heard this was only on AF missions.  This has to do with Air Force security, although I have no idea why it should apply to us since none of our pictures are ever classified.

In my experience, most members interested in being photographers already have a strong interest in photography and have much better and more expensive cameras than CAP does.  We should take advantage of that as best we can.

[SarDragon]

The Nikon D5100 is what many of the CAWG planes have in them.

[huey]

The Nikon D5100 is what many of the CAWG planes have in them.

Owned the D7000 but want to have a compact long-zoom, point and shoot one so can bring it anywhere or up in the air in unimportant missions. Thanks for all inputs!

[a2capt]

I bought that Nikon P510 that is mentioned in the other thread.

Over all, the GPS is lametastic at best. The lack of an external charger, that the camera is occupied when it's charging are the main weak points. Coupled with the battery size/capacity being kind of small for the feature-set.
This camera should have come with an external charger and the ability to tether it to external power.

To help separate the P510 from the higher end line, the P510 does NOT do any RAW formats .. Perhaps it's a firmware limitation and some enterprising hacker types will modify it like they have done with other cameras. Though I suspect this one isn't going to show up on their radar. But there is a fairly active alternative firmware underground for some camera lines.

But the 42X zoom rules the day. When you can fill the frame with a full moon and darn near see detail, that's pretty good for point and shoot, semi-compactness.

I got an Eye-Fi card, it's a piece of crap. Way too much of a hack product to seriously consider, and the vendors support sucks more than the state of our manned space program at the moment. Ended up not using it because it locks up the camera, or itself, and results in the loss of every photo since it was last powered on as they simply did not get recorded.

I mitigated the charger/battery issue by getting some external chargers and batteries via eBay when I ordered the camera. I got the P510 for $319 delivered after a vendor had, perhaps improperly, applied two different manufacture rebates to it, as they were $70 less than everyone else, though I paid tax, and shipping it overall ended up being $100 less than the average price in July when I got it.

The Nikon AW100 has a much better GPS, that works practically instantly, and has the compass direction of the lens as well. The P510 GPS takes too long to find a link, as much as 20 minutes and they say just "leave the camera on, stationary". Problem is, you do that and the battery runs down. If you don't use the camera for a few minutes it shuts completely off and you start from scratch on the GPS again.

Compared to the Contour and GoPro POV cameras that the GPS might as well be considered instant. This is lame.

But the 42X wins. It's fairly decent all things considere and about 16X more than the nearest comparable camera.