Doug,

The answer is no. There is no reason why for most country specific
badges a GPS trace is not good enough. We should allow that for all
flights up to gaining the gold badge. We need to lower the cost and
encourage badge flying. It builds skills and discipline that make
better cross-country pilots. We have let the paranoid take over again.
If someone wants to cheat on a badge that is their problem. No one
but ourselves care about what we did to earn the badge.

I have old cameras you can have if you want them and I have an EW-D
logger you can barrow if you would like to try some badge flights. All
you need is a Garmin GPS to feed a signal to it.

I just got news today that my diamond badge was approved. Only took 14
years to get that pesky altitude gain knocked off. And yes, it was
worth the trouble to get it.

Tim