A few thoughts: I've owned several handheld GPS units, all either Magellan or Garmin. I've found all the Magellans to be much more user friendly.
For the past couple of years I've been working on a book about hiking and photographing on the extensive trail system around Grandfather Mountain. I've been gathering GPS data for the trails and for the places where I've shot particularly good landscape shots, visiting every place for which I intend to give co-ordinates multiple times with multiple different units, so I've gained a *lot* of experience in gathering GPS data for photographs. Here's my take: I would never even consider a camera with built-in GPS. Nor one of those add-on GPS units that goes on the hot shoe (neat idea, though). I will *only* consider a GPS unit that shows me the co-ordinates *and* the margin for error *and* the number of satellites it's tracking. The amount of variance you can get with GPS (especially if you're somewhere interesting like a mountain) is astonishing. Don't believe the accuracy statements you read in the advertising, real-world accuracy can be orders of magnitude worse (that's in the fine print of the ads). On the top of a mountain or on a wide open plain you get amazing accuracy. Low on a mountain or under heavy tree cover or in a valley or some combination of those... you get awful accuracy. In between? You get in between accuracy, of course. You want a GPS that will *tell* you where you are in that vast expanse called "in between". -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
