[reeftool]

I switched over to a Mac about a year ago after using Windows for years. I was using Lightroom on my Windows computers so carrying it over to my Mac was a no brainer. I really don't use the Photos app much on my Mac although I do use it on my iPad and phone. I never found what I consider to be a suitable replacement for Lightroom in the Windows world so I'm not really looking for alternatives at this time for my Mac. I never used Aperture as it was long gone by the time I switched.

A lot of people speak highly of the Macphun products as well as On One. I have used some On One plugins with Lightroom. The one thing that keeps me with LR is the ability to process hundreds of Raw photos relatively quickly. I shoot motorcycle racing and events and need to get photos to the racers quickly and nothing I have seen from anybody will allow me to do the job like LR can. Since most of my shots are similar with PP needs, I can edit a couple and make presets and then do the majority of my shots with only a couple of mouse clicks.

If you don't shoot huge amounts of Raw photos and need it's batch process capabilities or catalog features, then other software may be a better (and cheaper) option although LR's non destructive editing is also a very good feature, even if it does increase file size and use a lot of resources.

[abruzzi]

Ah, abruzzi, thanks for the update on needs. I'm also rather fanatic about location. Indeed, I switched TO Aperture a bazillion years ago when it first got geolocation abilities, and didn't switch back to Lr until much later.

So lemme expound at (too much) length on what's worked for me, and maybe it will help.

Thanks for the detailed response, it's very helpful.

I started geotagging my photos somewhere around 2005 using a Sony screenless GPS that just saved track logs that I would clip to a pack or my tank bag on my motorcycle. Then I used software (I forget which) to tag the photos from that. Unfortunately I'm a very disorganized person, and I was taking photos because I was traveling, not traveling to take photos, so sometimes the photos would be left on my camera for months and if I wasn't careful, I would lose the track.

I had looked for cameras with built in GPSs, but at the time it was only very expensive stuff for certain narrow markets like surveying. In 2008 Nikon came out with the P6000, their high end point and shoot, and as far as I know, it was the first consumer grade camera with a built in GPS (of course, in 2008 the iPhone 3G also came out and it had GPS to geotag photos.). So I snapped it up as soon as I could get it, and that was my camera from 2008 until about three years ago--the end of 2014. Nikon always had kind of bad GPS implementation. It could easily take several minutes to get a lock, and it the camera was moving around it couldn't get a lock, so about 70% of my photos got tagged. Their current implementation doesn't seem any better. The only difference is they allow you to download AGPS data for a two week block, load it on the SD card, and the camera can get a lock quicker.

In 2014 I bought a Nikon S9700 because I was taking a trip to Rome, and I was hoping 7 years would get me better technology. I hate that camera. I'll keep my P6000 around as a pocket backup, but the S9700 could break and I wouldn't care. Now I'm planning a trip to India next year, and I decided I needed to get a good camera, and having had film SLRs in the past, I decided it was time to invest in my first DSLR. As far as options, there aren't many that don't rely on a dongle (which I wanted to avoid.). Sony did it once with the A99, Nikon did it once with the D5300. Canon put it on the most recent 5D and 7D (and it looks the the new 6D will get it as well.), and of course Pentax K-3II, and K-1.

I started by figuring I would get the D5300. Its very affordable, I've always been a Nikon guy (still have my Nikkormat FTN and a bunch of great old pre-AI Nikkor lenses.). I couldn't afford the A99 or any of the Canons or the K-1. The K-3II was a stretch for me. There were a lot of features on it I liked, and I had shot friends K1000s in the past, so I had a lot of respect for Pentax. So I started leaning toward the Pentax, then I found a video review on YouTube where the reviewer claimed less than 30 second location acquisition. That sealed the deal, so I ate nothing but ramen for a month to save up the money and order the camera, all the while hoping the reviewer wasn't exaggerating. When I got the camera, I sat out on the porch when I first turned on the GPS, and timed it's first acquisition in this hemisphere--28 seconds. Now that it knows where it was last, acquisition is always less than 5 seconds. Nikons GPSs feel like my 2000 Garmin eMap, this Pentax feels like my modern Garmin Montana when it comes to first acquisition.

[Oakland Rob]

I'm with you on the Pentax, especially the acquisition. The O-GPS1 dongle is very fast as well. That makes a BIG difference. And of course the implementation of Astrotracer is icing on the cake. In fact, the K-3II is decent enough that the tracks you can save to your card are pretty good, enough for navigation.

Check out the HoudahGeo demo; if you have georeferenced images, it's fun to make tracks of trips with photos friends can see on Google. You put together the images and/or track in HoudahGeo, export as KML (not KMZ) to a folder on Dropbox, then add that folder to a layer in Google Maps and there it is. People can do down the route and see the photos.