I finally got around to setting the new app up on my iPhone XS and Samsung S8 last night. On the iPhone, I ended up having to uninstall the app and reinstall it to get the GPS linking to work again as the setting leftover from the old app apparently had left a mess behind, leaving me unable to enable the share location feature. After I got it setup, I ran some tests over the course of the evening, including having the phones in other rooms and the camera picked up the GPS location every time. Further testing is needed, but it looks to me as though Sony may have at least improved things with this new app.
I'm not sure where the problem lies but just used my A9 linked to a Note 8 and it worked transparently. I do think that relying on a phone app has potential reliability issues, but my Garmin watch connects flawlessly and it gets more use than the A9. It must also reconnect when in range, so the A9/phone GPS can potentially be reliable.
Shot with GPS yesterday with the A7R3 ver 3.0 and Imaging Edge v7. As I initially posted when I first downloaded Imaging Edge first day it released, Bluetooth connection between A7r3 and the iPhone Xs seems to be snappier.
Note: Connection disconnects when the A7r3 goes to sleep but reconnects again as soon as you wake up the camera e.g., tap on the shutter button while in close proximity to the iPhone. If you move the camera or iPhone out of Bluetooth range you will lose the connection.
Anyone have luck with GPS A7RIII and Sony Imaging app on Android?
I used to get GPS coordinates with same body and older phone, just updated my Android phone and no longer have Playmemories app...downloaded the Sony Imaging app, and was able to pair the camera to phone, but still not getting GPS.
Anyone have luck with Imaging app and A7RIII, getting GPS to work?
It continues to be very sketchy with me; can get it to work, but it then stops working. I turned off battery optimization for the Imaging app on Android system.
Right now, Imaging app says: Location Information Linkage: connected with camera, yet the GPS icon in camera shows the no symbol.
I realize OP of this thread says GPS no longer supported, very disappointing...
Easy solution, use an app to record your tracks in GPX format.
Start your day by making sure your camera and phone are the same time, and same time zone. Record the track on your phone, then stop when done and export the GPX file to your computer. Use a program such as GeoSetter on Windows to tag the files with location data.
Chainring wrote:
Easy solution, use an app to record your tracks in GPX format.
Start your day by making sure your camera and phone are the same time, and same time zone. Record the track on your phone, then stop when done and export the GPX file to your computer. Use a program such as GeoSetter on Windows to tag the files with location data.
Yes, that certainly works, but relies on keeping the camera time synced reasonably well to the phone and remembering to start recording your path on the phone each time you want to use the feature.
Sony markets the GPS tagging as a selling point and it was quite frankly one of the key items that prompted me to replace my A6300 with an A6500. It's more than a bit frustrating to find that it continues to be unreliable.
Yeah, but until Sony puts a hardware GPS solution into the camera, every solution will be a kludge.
My solution that works reliably is to use my GPS watch, which I always wear when out shooting/hiking, etc... Record the activity on it, export GPX from Garmin Connect or Suunto Movescount, then use GeoSetter to tag. Easy, and uses something I'm already recording tracks with regardless of photography.
edit: I realize it kinda sucks that Sony markets the ability to geotag via the phone app and it's not all that fantastic.
The one thing I missed when I traded my Pentax DLSR kit in for Sony was the loss of Geo-Tagging; the camera had a building GPS, which contrary to belief wasn't too hard on the battery. The solution was to buy a GPS logger, I chose a Columbus P-1, basically because it could record tracks in CSV, GPX and NMEA format. I use the GPX. The Company also supply an application called 'Time Album' (and it's FREE), for Windows, Mac OS and Linux to tag images, provided the GPX tack time and images time stamp match. As I live in the Wales, I always set the time in the camera to GMT; ignoring Daylight saving changes. I always leave the GPS logger in the GMT Time Zone. I don't both adjusting either when I holiday in different Time Zones and it avoid confusion with Daylight saving in other Countries, and sometimes different states in the same country.
I've used the GPS Logger, both Home and Abroad. It seems to work quite successfully; on a recent trip to Italy I took ~350 images, about 5 failed to tag; 4 of which were taken in a wine storage cave, so it's not surprising.
I've provided links to the GPS logger and it's support pages below. I apologise that they are in German; I can read some of it, but find a web-page translator invaluable.
^ I suspect most of us are aware of the workarounds. However, many of us expect advertised features to work. I'm not about to get involved in anything like a class action lawsuit over this, but I am annoyed with Sony.
Just for a point of comparison in using a smartphone amp to provide a GPS feed to another device, I recently purchased a Microsoft Surface Pro 6, which doesn't have WWAN/LTE/GPS built in. I found an Android app named Bluetooth GPS output that will send GPS data to any paired Bluetooth device; there doesn't appear to be an equivalent app for iOS, unfortunately. I paired my Samsung Galaxy S8 with the Surface (via Bluetooth) and setup GPS Complete on the surface to accept the GPS feed and send it over to the location service. After paying for the the Android app to remove the 10 minutes at a time restriction, it just works. Every time I turn on the Surface and it's within Bluetooth range of the phone, I've got a working GPS feed on the Surface. This is essentially what I was expecting from Sony and shows that it's possible. Ironically, this solution seems to be more reliable than the built-in GPS on my Lenovo X1 Yoga...
