Rugged digital camera

Sounds like a cell phone! 😂 Joking aside, cell phones do many of those things and almost everyone is already carrying one.

Otherwise, GoPro cameras hit a lot of those criteria.

Before smart phones were everywhere, my crews carried an Olympus digital camera which was rugged and was capable of time stamps. But in this day and age, as Protracted suggested, why not use your smart phone. It does it all and you (or you crews) probable carries one anyway.

There is an app for that lol. We recently had a joint project that required an app Solocator. It has a compass and shows the lat long has description fields to type in information like project corner number etc. it has the compass directions on the image. Gps position time stamp etc. i am not a app savvy person but have it and used it recently to give perc test guy an idea of where I wanted well septic house on a property. He walked right up to it and had the kml and picture of the beech tree where i want well. So he moved around on the farm to get a few percs done.

There is an app called "Theodolite" that does much the same. There are probably others.

I will ck that out. Well i will have my daughter load it for me. Lol. I only have the basic apps. But i can see that some are helpful for sure. I was walking the boundary on a farm and i had the plat and the realtor had some app that had the gis boundaries. It was great for what it was. But i was pacing and found most of the corners or evidence of. Technology has a lot to offer pros n cons.

I don’t. I use the Onyx Hunt app. Sure beats trying to pace in tundra and gets me within 15 feet of the corner most of the time. If there is no evidence of occupation you might as well take the path of least resistance. You can save your maps on the phone if you don’t have cell service.

Best $30 I spend every year.

I looked at reviews for a while after going through 3 digital cameras and bought an Olympus TG-4. I think the're up to TG-6 now but it's a rugged, durable, actual functioning waterproof one click camera that takes great photos. The TG-4 has GPS tagging, altimeter/compass, wifi, smartphone remote control and a bunch of presets that work as expected. No bluetooth but the newer versions probably have that.

I use an Olympus Tough TG-5. Good battery life, has wifi and GPS, and takes great pictures and movies. I prefer using this type of device over the phone on my camera for taking pictures for work. Also has compass and altimeter, but I don't really use that. 7 ft shockproof, 50 ft waterproof. In the past I have used a number of digital cameras, one thing I like about this over past cameras is that the lens is all self contained, i.e. it doesn't have a motor that pushes the lens in and out of the camera body. That was what often failed on my previous cameras

I have been using the Theodolite app for many many years. Valuable tool once you configure it to your project needs.

> a motor that pushes the lens in and out of the camera body. That was what often failed on my previous cameras

Some years ago I bought a small digital camera and the lens protective shutter would often stick when the lens was extended by the motor. I took it back a few days after buying it and traded it for another of the same model. Before long it developed the same problem, and I used it for years having to flick the lens to get the shutter open every time I turned it on. Glad you found something reliable.

I use the tsc7, so I can attach the pictures to relevant shots to make the drafters lives easier. If I need better quality, I use my phone and email it to myself, to add to the download file. I have an old DSLR my dad gave me years ago when he upgraded, but it's not great quality compared to my phone and also not rugged. The phone in an OtterBox is more rugged than anything else I use at work, except maybe my hammer, so I try to keep the 2 separated.