Isn’t technology great? More and more cameras have GPS built right into them. The moment you take a photo, your camera records exactly where you took it. But while most of the photography is out there taking advantage of this feature, some of us are left scratching our heads wondering where we can find these magical GPS coordinates. In this article, you’ll learn what you can do to access GPS coordinates and use them to improve your photo sharing experience.


Can you guess where this photo was taken?
Photo By Flickr User: Fikret Onal

Does your camera have a GPS feature?

Before you go searching for GPS tagged photos (also called geotagged images), you might want to know if your camera even takes them. Sadly, most modern point-and-shoot cameras do not feature a GPS system for geotagging. It was a more popular feature back in 2008 when smartphones were first hitting the market, but now that smartphones are nearly everywhere, less and less people want a point-and-shoot camera with GPS.

However, if you do have a smartphone with a camera, you’re in luck. Almost all smartphone cameras geotag the photos they take. As a matter of fact, I would be very surprised if I found a smartphone that doesn’t do this. It would have to be a pretty old model. Note: If your have an iPhone or an Android phone, you need to give the camera app access to the GPS data, so it can store it with your photo.

Some digital SLRs also feature a GPS, but most of them don’t. Nikon and Canon both sell special adapters
that geotag the photos you take, and there are quite a few third-party devices that do the same thing. These devices will set you back about $200. If you do a ton of traveling (and I mean more than just a few trips a year), they’re worth it. Otherwise, it’s a lot easier to enter the location data by hand.

Where is the GPS information stored?

You may or may not know this, but your camera stores a bunch of data about every picture you take. It records the aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed, camera mode, focal distance, and sometimes even more than that. All of this is stored in the EXIF data, an extra piece of information attached to every picture file your camera creates.

EXIF data has been around since the early days of digital photography. Back then, it didn’t really tell you much about the photo you just took, but now it will tell you nearly everything. Other kinds of files have EXIF data. You can access EXIF data in audio and video files as well.

How can I access my GPS information?

There are several ways, and some of them are more useful and prettier than others. It all depends on the computer you’re using. Here are a few ways to get the GPS information from your photos.

On a Mac

If you’re using a Mac, you can access your GPS information by simply right clicking on the photo file you want to view and then picking “get info.”

This will bring up a box showing all of the EXIF data attached to that particular image file.

On a PC

It’s a little different on a PC, but it’s pretty much the same thing. Right click on your image, and then pick “properties.” From there, a similar window should pop up showing all the EXIF data, including the location of the picture you just took.

Using Apple iPhoto

iPhoto, a program that comes with your Mac, does some pretty cool things with location data. It doesn’t just show you where you a took a single photo. It will place your photos all over a map using little pins so you can see the big picture. This is a really awesome feature when you’re showing your photos to your friends.

To get started, open iPhoto. If you’ve never used iPhoto before, it will take a few moments to load all of your photos into its database. Once you’re ready, click on the “places” icon on the left under Library.

Once you’ve done that, you should see a map with a bunch of pins on it, each denoting a location where you’ve taken a picture. To see any of your photos, just click on the pin and iPhoto will take you to a list of the photos.

With iPhoto, you can actually use the location data that comes with your photos. Let’s look at another more public way to do the same thing.

Using Panoramio to share your geotagged photos

Panoramio is a fun service for sharing your geotagged photos with the rest of the world. Simply create an account and upload your photos. Panoramio will do the hard work for you, taking all that geolocation data and crunching it into a worldwide database of images that anyone can access by typing in the name of a place.

Panoramio is owned and operated by Google. If you already have a Goole account, you should be able to get started right away without signing up.

Once you’ve logged in, Panoramio keeps it simple. Just click on the “choose file” button to pick a file you want to upload.

Panoramio allows you to upload as many as ten photos at a time. Once you’ve uploaded them, you can add in a description and tags as well. If you want, you can also look at a map of your photos, just like the one available through iPhoto. To find it, just click on the “Your Photos” link under the title bar of the site.


Panoramio shows your photos, as well as those uploaded by others, near the locations where your photos are geotagged. It’s a great way to get inspired to take different kinds of pictures in your local area.

So there you have it. Those are just a few ways to get the most out of your geotagged photos. If you have any questions about any of these tips, leave a comment below or send me an email. I’m happy to help you out.

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David Peterson is the creator of Digital Photo Secrets (this site, and the book) and loves teaching photography to fellow photographers all around the world. You can follow him on Twitter at @dphotosecrets or on Google+.

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