There are many ways to lose your camera. It could slip from your grip, fall to the ground, and break into an irreparable mess. You could be out shooting a scene on the beach when the waves just start rolling in, making you lose $2,400 in as little as 24 seconds. Or someone could have stolen your camera, with plans of selling it for cheap to some secondhand store or on some online stores or auction sites. Either that, or they’re going to be using it themselves to take some awesome shots with your awesome shooter.

Well, whatever the thief chooses to do, don’t fret because there’s still hope for you to recover it with CameraTrace.

GadgetTrak has launched its beta version as GadgetTrak Serial Search after several years called CameraTrace, which helps photographers to protect and trace their stolen cameras.

Photographer’s has to register their camera’s serial number which includes a one-time payment of $10 to have life time validity. Whenever you report that your camera is stolen or lost then the CameraTrace will help you to trace your camera using the camera’s serial number. In addition to tracking your stolen camera, it also provides copyright protection service. CameraTrace also track your image if somebody is misusing your photo and uploading it without your permission.

CameraTrace can detect and send an instant email notification to the registered user whenever an image is taken from a stolen camera and uploaded online, as almost every digital camera imprints their serial number on the photos. Recently CameraTrace helped professional photographer John Heller to recover his $9,000 camera successfully.

It uses a particular search technology to scan photo from various photo sharing websites for the images which are taken from the registered serial number. It has already searched and examined more than 5 billion images from many popular photo sharing sites. CameraTrace is growing its database and now it includes 11 million cameras of 300 different high-end camera models of several manufacturers like Nikon, Cannon, Kodak, Sony and Olympus as this technology is helping many professional and amateur photographers to trace their valuable lost cameras.

[TechCrunch via Peta Pixel]