EXIF GPS data incorrect for southern hemisphere

Interesting -- I was trying to figure out why Flickr can't use the iPhone camera's embedded GPS info from my 1st gen iPhone. iPhoto shows my location (USA, so N and W), but Flickr, after importing the info, says that it was taken N and E (but same numerical values).

My guess was that it has something to do with this: Many apps (like Google Maps) use + and - signs to indicate hemisphere: Eastern hemisphere is + longitude, Western is - longitude. So here, I'm at -71 longitude, according to Google Maps. If Apple doesn't send a "sign", maybe it's interpreted by other systems as positive -- meaning that all these locations will be N and E.

But now I don't know -- you're in the E, so I would have expected that your longitude would be right, but not your latitude. From what you said, sounds like they're both off.

I'm also in Australia and having the same problem with co-ordinates. I am going to contact Apple Support on Monday and log a call. Didn't this happen with the first iPhone???? we will probably just have to put up with it until they release the first update to the 2.0 firmware. Otherwise it's all good on my iPhone.

Hmm, in my case (living in the Netherlands) longitudes are mixed (E becomes W). Weird...

Message was edited by: paulmadejong

My images were just teleported from the western hemisphere to the eastern hemisphere. i.e.: Northwestern United States to Northern China.

From experimentation, this seems to be an iPhoto bug. The same image pulled with Iamge Capture is fine. http://jerakeen.org/tumblelog/2008/07/42177389/

Same problem here in Germany. EXIF-data say West instead of East.
Replacing West by East puts my photos in the correct position.

I used exiftool to look at the file of a photo I just took on my iPhone and imported using image capture and iPhoto and the geotag data was the same for both. Wrong.

*Image Capture:*
warbook:~ bjd$ exiftool /Users/bjd/Pictures/IMG_0019.JPG | grep GPS
GPS Latitude Ref : North
GPS Longitude Ref : West
GPS Latitude : 33 deg 45' 25.20" N
GPS Longitude : 151 deg 7' 15.00" W
GPS Position : 33 deg 45' 25.20" N, 151 deg 7' 15.00" W

iPhoto:
warbook:~ bjd$ exiftool /Users/bjd/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/Modified/2008/City\ Excursion/IMG_0019.JPG | grep GPS
GPS Latitude : 33 deg 45' 25.20"
GPS Longitude : 151 deg 7' 15.00"
GPS Position : 33 deg 45' 25.20", 151 deg 7' 15.00"

ASAIK N is positive and W is positive so as long as iPhoto is relying on signed LAT/LONG rather than specifically have the N/W then it is exactly the same and nothing has changed. Whether iPhoto imported it or Image Capture imported it.

Looks like all the testing only occurred in the USA :P

One other thing that I have noticed is that the Twitterific iPhone APP updates your location details properly - so the issue seems to with how the camera takes the location data and write it to the exif meta data. The Twitterific APP uses signed LAT/LONG and gets it right everytime.

I am also having this problem. I am using the Microsoft Scanner and Camera wizard to import the photos from my iPhone. The EXIF data is incorrect when viewed using both Adobe Photoshop 7 and a basic EXIF viewer. I assume this means that the problem is with the iPhone, not iPhoto.

Cheers

Duane

Can anybody confirm that this problem also happens on the 347A build of the 2.0 software?

Currently I have the 5A345 build. Apparently you can use the iTunes restore feature to get the 5A347 build. I am going to try that now and see if it makes any difference.

There is nothing wrong with the iPhone geotagging. (see Jerakeen's post earlier in this thread) The wrong-hemisphere problem only occurs when you import the photo through iPhoto on your mac, AND THEN edit the photo somehow (crop it, for example, etc.). iPhoto then strips part of the EXIF data so that the East and West, North and South identifiers are removed (leaving it unclear if the photo was taken at 118 deg West, or 118 deg East, for example).

To avoid this, import to your mac using image capture instead of iPhoto. You can then import the photo into iPhoto if you like, but as soon as you edit the photo, the lat/lon references (not the values, just the indicators that tell whether the number is E or W of the prime meridian, or N or S of the equator) are stripped. This bug has been with iPhoto for a long time. (see this thread on flickr from over a year ago: http://www.flickr.com/groups/geotagging/discuss/72157600040087961/) Maybe now that it's getting renewed attention from iphone users, apple will finally fix it. Geotagging photos has been a niche interest up to now, but since the iphone does it automatically, there might be enough squeaky wheels to get Apple to finally fix iphoto.

You should have read my reply to the use of image capture. The problem occurred when I used Image Capture. I am in the southern hemisphere ie S - so that N is wrong. iPhoto may have other issues with geotagging that is manifest when the image is editted, I am not doubting it.

BUT using image capture +*does not*+ fix this problem, so, the exif data is wrong as it is encoded in the image or both iPhoto and image capture are breaking the tag data as it comes across. It is not merely an iPhoto issue.

Using image capture did NOT fix the problem.

And the problem also occurs on Windows machines, e.g. with Picasa, or with Adobe Photoshop Album (which Apple suggests to use).