So I have lots and lots of protected forest near my house and there is trails through it but the best pics by far are found off the trails... unfortunatly in some of the areas it is very east to get turned around and spend a few hours finding the trail again

So my question is

Does anyone use handheld GPS is it helpful? what kind? anything you have to say about it is useful

and the compass helps at times but normally i can tell direction without it i more need markers of where the trails are because you cant see them until you are standing on them

You could always try Hansels trick I suppose... ;-)

use dual point referance locations and a compass.

I have a Garmin hand held GPS but not very happy with it as it eats batteries and seams to take an age to lock onto a satellite signal. Reading the manual may help but who ever does that :-) im changing my mobi to a MS Mobile 2005 based phone so I may try Tom Tom gps running on that instead.

Buddies of mine that do a lot of hunting will leave a trail of red flashing pedestrian lights (that are made to clip on the back of the waistband). They leave them in tree branches at head height within sight of the previously placed one.... they can easily follow them back out of the woods, even at night, and gather them up as the return.