GPS in Cameras
Still a fairly new concept, but one that is sure to become more and more popular is that of having a built-in GPS receiver in your digital camera.

Camera GPS Tagging
The idea is that it the location data where the photo was taken is automatically embedded with its latitude and longitude in the EXIF data. These geo-tagged images can then be pinpointed on the maps of social media internet sites, including Google Maps to be shared with your friends and families.

Not only does this make remembering where you took that particular holiday snap, but it gives you a new way to sort and search your photos. On safari this can be ideal and I can even imagine wildlife researches and professional photographers finding this feature very useful in the future.

Digital Cameras with GPS
Nikon GPS Cameras are some of the most popular and it is included in many of their models but just about all of the major camera manufacturers, including Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic, are pushing it hard, wich means that it’s implementation is bound to improve at a rapid rate.

Panasonic DMC-TZ10 (DMC-ZS7) GPS Digital Camera

One of the best compact GPS cameras is the Panasonic TZ10 superzoom (Lumix DMC-ZS7 in North America) with it’s GPS that geo-tags and identifies over half a million locations.

If you forget the GPS for a moment and are just looking for a compact camera with a power zoom that is ideal for taking on holiday then the TZ10 with it’s 12x optical zoom (25-300mm equiv.) ticks most of the boxes. Include the GPS into the equation then it makes an ideal holiday camera.

Excellent Travel Companion
In built up areas, the TZ10 Panasonic GPS camera also shows the name of the town, area and landmarks using an internal database to give users real-time information of the place when taking photos to add fun of photo shooting during travel. The information of landmark exceeds 500,000, covering 73 countries which is pretty impressive!

The photos and movies with their location data are automatically sorted in the virtual folder alphabetically in the camera allowing quick access. You can also refer to the location names via the included software.

The Panasonic TZ10 also makes easy to sort or search images by the location names. If this wasn’t enough, the internal clock of the camera is automatically adjusted to the local time of the place where the camera is, so you do not have to set the clock manually whether you go abroad or come back home.

Further Reading

For more information as well as expert and customer reviews, take a look at the Panasonic TZ10 on the TestFreaks Website.

Price and where to buy:

I often use Amazon as a guide to price as they usually have what I want and usually available at the lowest price:

When I was taking out guests on safari on an overcast day, I would sometimes hear the wildlife photographers in the group complain that they would now not get great wildlife portraits.

Don’t be too concerned as overcast conditions can create a soft light that is not as harsh as direct sunlight, it also makes for even illumination and rich tones in areas that would just be highlighted as almost pure white in direct sunlight.

On an overcast day, your photography time is actually increased because you don’t have to worry about the very harsh midday sun, it also means that the animals may stay out a little longer rather than sheltering from the heat giving you more opportunities to capture them.

To get the best Safari photographs on a cloudy day, try and zoom into the animal as much as possible (get a tight portrait), this is unless the clouds are are making the scene dramatic they will not enhance the photo, the softer light will enable you to capture fine details like the eyelashes of an elephant as I did on the bull elephant (pictured above) not far from our safari lodge in South Africa on an overcast day.

Overcast conditions are also a great time to photograph insects and even flowers around the safari lodge, get you micro lens out or set your camera to it’s micro setting and go and capture some of Africa’s ‘Small Five’, namely the  Lion Ant, Rhino Beetle, Buffalo Weaver Bird, Elephant Shrew and the Leopard Tortoise.

If you have ever watched or been directed by a wedding photographer, you may notice how they often look for a large shady tree to place the bride (dressed in white) and groom (dressed in black) under, as this gives him the best chance to capture the contrasting tones under what is known as ‘open shade’.

More >>

• Safari Holiday Tips for Photographers
• African Safari & Wildlife Photography Tips
• Elephant Photos