Until recently, I did not own a digital camera. Although I have been working with digital images for some time, most of them originated as film scans I took from APS color negatives. My delayed entry was primarily driven from my concern that I would capture one of those once in a lifetime shots only to be severely limited by the low resolution images from a digital camera in my price range. Ultimately, it was Geocaching that gave me the final nudge into the world of digital cameras.

I am not entirely certain where or when I saw an article about a Kodak DC290 camera connected to a GPSr. I think I had Googled GPS and came across an article that showed an image with a watermark describing the date, time and coordinates at the time the image was captured. How cool would that be for Geocaching! The DC290 is one of about a dozen digital cameras to use the Digita operating system (DigitaOS). DigitaOS enabled cameras can take advantage of a scripting language built into the operating system to communicate with computers and other hardware. As it turns out, the DC290 was not the first camera that Kodak married with a GPSr. In late 1999, they announced the release of the FIS 265 which was a Kodak DC265 1.6 mega pixel camera bundled with a Garmin III+ receiver. That camera was ultimately replaced by the DC290, a 2.1 mega pixel CCD with some on camera software mumble jumble that extrapolates it to 3. What ever it is, I have been pleased with the pictures I have taken with the camera. It seems to be especially good outdoors and in indirect light which suits caching just fine.

The Basics

Three pieces of hardware are required: DigitaOS camera, GPS receiver and a cable.

DigitaOS Camera

The following table lists cameras that are DigitaOS enabled and the version of DigitaOS that they run:

Kodak DC 220 Zoom	DigitaScript V 1.0
Kodak DC 260 Zoom	DigitaScript V 1.0
Kodak DC 265 Zoom	DigitaScript V 1.1
Kodak DC 290 Zoom	DigitaScript V 1.5
Minolta Dimage EX Zoom 1500	DigitaScript V 1.1
Minolta Dimage EX Wide 1500	DigitaScript V 1.1
Minolta Dimage EX Zoom 150 Ver 2	DigitaScript V 1.1
Minolta Dimage EX Wide 150 Ver 2	DigitaScript V 1.1
Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart C500	DigitaScript V 1.5
Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 618	DigitaScript V 1.5
Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 912	DigitaScript V 1.5
Pentax EI-200	DigitaScript V 1.5
Pentax EI-2000	DigitaScript V 1.5

My experience has been exclusively with the Kodak DC290 though a fellow cacher in Maryland got his Kodak DC260 to work. You can follow our thread in the GPS Units and Software forum. Several participants provided important pieces as we all worked through the glitches and got it working. The Kodak line of DigitaOS cameras have been discontinued which means that you can get a gently used one on eBay for way less than they cost new. It also means that support through traditional channels is nonexistent but that turned out to be part of the fun!

GPS Receiver

I successfully used both my yellow eTrex as well as the Vista. The system output on the receiver is set to text at 9600 baud and all the camera receives is a simple text file so I imagine any receiver capable of outputting text would work. The challenge may be the cable between the camera and receiver.

Cable

Of course you need to connect the two main pieces of hardware together with a cable. The USB camera cable that shipped from the factory was to connect the camera to your computer. Kodak offered at one time to send out a serial cable to those who requested it but that offer has long since expired. I did find a cable that was supposed to be correct from an on-line supplier. When it arrived, it had a pin 7 where the camera had no hole for pin 7. Cacher wiredcur gave me the courage to pull pin 7. I already had a serial cable for the eTrex so all I needed was to connect the two. A null modem was necessary so that each device's TX pin was connected to the other's RX pin. A gender changer was also required. So now I have over 8 feet of cord and serial connectors between the camera and the GPS: You'll notice in the picture above that there is no connector for the camera. After dealing with all this cable for a couple of weeks, I ordered a connector from pfranc.com and decided to make my own cable. The picture above does not show the foot of cable and the camera connector I lopped off for my pfranc: Ready to build your own for a Kodak DC? Here are the pin assignments:

Kodak Pin	eTrex Pin
Pin 4 Ground(-)	Pin 1 Ground(-)
Pin 5 Data In	Pin 2 Data Out
Pin 3 Data Out	Pin 3 Data In
(not used)	Pin 4 Power(+)

The pfranc connector is pretty simple to assemble if you know a couple of assembly hints. An excellent description of assembly can be found here.

The Digita Script

After the hardware is connected: You'll have something like the picture above. Note that this was taken before I built the custom cable. I also built a little "rig" to hold both the camera and the GPSr out of some scrap aluminum I had left over from building kite aerial photography rigs. The camera is attached to the rig by the traditional ¼-inch screw mount on the bottom of the camera and the GPSr is attached using the Ram Mount I borrowed from my motorcycle. The whole rig can be attached to a tripod as shown in the picture.

The DigitaOS runs text scripts that are saved to the System directory on the Compact Flash card. These scripts allow you to automate most of the camera's functions as well as interact with a computer or other compatable devices. A copy of the DigitaScript v1.5 SDK is still available for anyone who may wish to tinker with the Garmin script. In general, the script requests a text string from the GPS and writes it to the image: The picture, taken at Do Your Best II, bears the watermark "@030716150820N4152850W08806622G" which can be separated into components "@ 030716 150820 N4152850 W08806622 G" or "@ date UTC time latitude longitude G". A bit crude but kinda geeky cool, don't you think? And for those who are curious, here's the details of the Garmin text output. The color of the watermark backround and text, the position of the watermark, the camera's time and date, and a logo can be added: Pretty amazing for a consumer level camera that is 5 years old and discontinued. Perhaps it was a little ahead of its time. I am no programmer but have begun to tinker with the scripting. I'd like to refine the watermark text so that it is easier to read and eliminate the preceeding "@" and trailing position status. I'd eliminate the date and time as I can do that in a seperate watermark in a more layperson's format. In fact, I'd like to have the option when starting the script to update the camera's time and date from the GPS - you can see in the picture above that the time is off by over a minute between the camera and the GPS. But for now, I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. I'd welcome any thoughts, comments or scripts to play with.

George Malina

Dad and the Dynamic Duo

kitekam@aol.com

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