Using Apple Watch GPS to geotag photos in Lightroom

[Phazer]

Hi everyone, I have an Apple Watch 3 that I regularly use to track my hiking and trekking.
I use the built-in Activity app, and I love the fact that it tracks the route with the GPS without having to use my phone.
I shoot photos on a Canon 5D Mark III which doesn't have a built-in GPS module.
I was wondering whether there's a way to export the data from the Activity app, and somehow use the GPS data in Lightroom to automatically geotag all the photos.

Thanks

 

[Resqu2]

Hi everyone, I have an Apple Watch 3 that I regularly use to track my hiking and trekking.
I use the built-in Activity app, and I love the fact that it tracks the route with the GPS without having to use my phone.
I shoot photos on a Canon 5D Mark III which doesn't have a built-in GPS module.
I was wondering whether there's a way to export the data from the Activity app, and somehow use the GPS data in Lightroom to automatically geotag all the photos.

Thanks

I’m gonna guess no but I may be wrong. Your camera isn’t recording anything about location so no way to get what’s not there. Nice camera you have though! Would of loved to had that one but had to settle for the Canon 6D. If this is real important to you I’d look at selling and getting the 5D mark 4, that thing is a beast.

 

[Phazer]

I’m gonna guess no but I may be wrong. Your camera isn’t recording anything about location so no way to get what’s not there. Nice camera you have though! Would of loved to had that one but had to settle for the Canon 6D. If this is real important to you I’d look at selling and getting the 5D mark 4, that thing is a beast.

Thanks!
I know there's an app that allows you to do this, basically the app logs the whole time it's open, and then in Lightroom once you've imported the photos you can also import the log file, and using the capture time embedded in each photo it will geo tag them based on your gps coordinates at that time. It would have been great if we could have exported the log file from the apple watch somehow, I actually use the activity app and at least I don't have to rely on my iPhone and its battery for it.
I'd love the 5D Mark IV, but now I'm just waiting to see what Canon releases in terms of full-frame mirrorless in September.
I love the colours that Canon produces, but I have been keeping an eye on Sony, and that A7R III looks really good, but I really can't justify selling all my Canon lenses to switch to Sony.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

I was wondering whether there's a way to export the data from the Activity app, and somehow use the GPS data in Lightroom to automatically geotag all the photos.

Does the camera have a built-in timestamping feature? Unless it has, it's not possible to figure out where along your track you were when the pictures were taken, assuming Apple also timestamps your position information. You'd likely have to write some sort of custom script to read the data files Apple creates, as I doubt there's any existing software that can do what you want...

Anyway, Apple seems to keep quite close tabs on your health data for privacy reasons; I dunno how easy it is to export or even if it's at all possible...

It might be much easier to simply edit in the coordinates manually, if you can extract them from the health app and then correlate with when each photo was taken. Annoying if there's a lot of photos to be processed, but maybe still easier than trying to automate to do what you want, especially if you're not a programmer type person...

 

[CobraPA]

The Mark III has a gps module you can add, although expensive, it works really well and is very simple to use.

Also, the Mark III does timestamp photos, so there is no reason you couldn’t use a Watch gps log to transfer the location data to Lightroom. I don’t think the native health or workout apps will export the data though. Some third party apps can. I believe WorkOutdoors will, but haven’t tried importing like you want. There are probably other apps that can as well.

Oh, one thing that is cool about the Mark III gps unit, it will gps and compass direction tag your photos, if you want. So you can even tell which way the picture was taken from a given location.

 

[CobraPA]

Actually, WorkOutdoors can export GPX format routes, and it looks like Lightroom can use a GPX File to tag photos directly. You would capture the track on your watch, then use the iPhone app to export the GPX file.

Any other app that exports GPX should work as well.

(I would double check your clock time on the Mark III before trying this, as the clock isn’t normally synchronized without a on-camera gps. The further it drifts, you may see some problems with the gps sync to the photos, unless Lightroom allows correction for that? The Canon photo download utility also allows time sync to your computer, IIRC.)

 

[Phazer]

Actually, WorkOutdoors can export GPX format routes, and it looks like Lightroom can use a GPX File to tag photos directly. You would capture the track on your watch, then use the iPhone app to export the GPX file.

Any other app that exports GPX should work as well.

(I would double check your clock time on the Mark III before trying this, as the clock isn’t normally synchronized without a on-camera gps. The further it drifts, you may see some problems with the gps sync to the photos, unless Lightroom allows correction for that? The Canon photo download utility also allows time sync to your computer, IIRC.)

Hey thanks, I just downloaded WorkOutDoors and it seems as though it should get the job done!
I'll be testing it out this coming weekend, and see if it'll actually work with Lightroom to automatically geotag the photos.

I know about the gps unit for the Mark III, but as this camera is on its way out, I can't really justify spending that amount of money on an accessory that would become redundant in just a few months.
Hopefully this app will do the trick!

 

[CobraPA]

The developer is active here in the forums too, in case you have additional questions: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-version-of-workoutdoors-the-workout-app-with-a-map.2080047/

 

[Phazer]

The developer is active here in the forums too, in case you have additional questions: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-version-of-workoutdoors-the-workout-app-with-a-map.2080047/

Thanks a lot!