How can I geotag a large number of photos, without GPS log?

Question

Is there an application that allows me to geotag (record coordinates in the metadata) a large number of photos (several hundreds) without a GPS log?

The way I imagine this is that I would manually geotag the first and last photo on a map, after which the application would put all photos in between in a straight line with exact coordinates based on their timestamps. Then I would drag a random photo halfway the set to a corrected location, and the remaining photos would be repositioned based on the new location.

Answer 1

Not an ideal solution, but following is the quickest and most reliable solution I found:

First, geotag a handfull of photos at critical waypoint (first and last on the track, as well as at the major bends). I prefer using GeoSetter for this, but there is a number of good applications.

Next, create a GPS log out of these few geotagged photos using ExifTool, following these instructions: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html#GPX.

Load the GPS log into the geotagging application, and apply to all photos, but DON'T save the coordinates in the photos. Check the track, and drag some photos that were too far off into correct positions. Save the geotagging ONLY for these corrected photos.

Repeat these last two steps, creating a new GPS log and checking the quality in a geotagging application, until satisfied. After that, all remaining photos can be geotagged.

In my situation, I was happy with the result after 3-4 iterations, and the likelyhood for mistakes was very small.

Answer 2

I would think it would be a lot easier to create a tracklog manually. I think you could do that in Google Earth; select a bunch of likely waypoints and then a path to create one and export. I would guess it will not have any timestamps, so you'd have to use a text editor to add some, bracketed by your photos timestamps. Then use any of various georeferencing apps to geolocate the photos; most allow you to set various time intervals to match up with known waypoints.

Answer 3

I don't think there's anything like that. You may be able to find someone to write a bunch of code for an open source program, maybe, but I don't think you'll find that in particular as a default option for a program.

To batch-edit exif data for a single location, however, I find Geosetter to be the best program available. You can pick a bunch of images and then edit the geotag for a specific location - the UI even lets you see it on a map.