What works the best is a bluetooth adapter that connects to the 10-pin port on your cameras and allows them to connect to a portable GPS receiver like the ones made by Holux. One Holux can be shared by both cameras at the same time and this approach also leaves the hot shoe free for use with a speedlight.
No delay when you turn on the camera as the Holux maintains the GPS information. With GPS powered off the camera there is a 3-5 second delay as it needs to reacquire its location each time it is powered on.
Over the years I have tried various gadgets including Solmeta, and while they worked I did find them annoying being attached to the camera. These days I find Snapbridge does all I need. If I'm going to be out for several hours or in remote locations I will throw in a Garmin GLO 2 GPS receiver into my pocket. This also connects to my phone via bluetooth but does the hard yards for GPS.
1. Standalone GPS loggers to sync the tracks afterwards (tried both a dedicated GPS logger and a GPS watch)
Pros: no connectivity to the camera required; battery life is the best of all the options
Cons: annoying to constantly copy and sync the GPS tracks; must be sure that your camera time is syncronized
2. Two different compact GPS loggers which attach to (and are powered by) the camera like the DawnTech link above
Pros: GPS data is embedded in the photos with no extra steps or hardware
Cons: the attached hardware can be annoying and compromises weather sealing; I frequently would find inaccurate locations for the first couple shots after sleep
3. A Foolography Bluetooth unit which connected to a separate GPS logger
Pros: GPS data embedded directly into the photos; the external logger keeps an accurate fix so I don't get the inaccurate locations in the first couple shots; the Foolography unit is extremely tiny; excellent battery life
Cons: you need to remember to carry and power on the external GPS logger, and charge its battery; compromises the weather sealing
4. The Nikon Snapbridge app
Pros: No additional hardware since I usually have my phone; doesn't seem to hurt my phone battery too much
Cons: The app often gets killed in the background so you have to remember to start it; the accuracy of the GPS tags varies a lot - it often seems to GPS tag based on the phone's rough cellular triangulation, which is very frustrating
The only thing I haven't tried is the big hotshoe-mounted units (like sjms posted) that hard wire into the camera. I don't want the extra hardware/size.
For now, I've settled on using the Snapbridge app and trying to remember to launch the app all the time, and I wear a Garmin hiking watch which tracks my hikes if the location from Snapbridge gets flaky.
My second favorite was using the Foolography + external GPS receiver.
My current and previous (Canon) cameras have GPS tracking and photo tagging built in, but before that I used the "GPS Logger" app on my Android phone, uploaded the gpx file to my computer (via Dropbox) and then used Jeffrey Friedl's "Geoencoding Support" plugin for Lightroom (http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/gps) to tag my images. I highly recommend that plugin. I still use "GPS Logger" whenever I go for a walk or hike because I like to be able to see where and how far I went.
At least for my needs the solmeta has done the job. And like you all I have run the gumat of products too. I guess I have a higher tolerance adsit sits up topside and does the job that I needed it for. Easily works on multiple camera bodies. Yes, I do prefer hard wired setups.
binary visions wrote:
I have run the gamut of GPS solutions:
4. The Nikon Snapbridge app
Pros: No additional hardware since I usually have my phone; doesn't seem to hurt my phone battery too much
Cons: The app often gets killed in the background so you have to remember to start it; the accuracy of the GPS tags varies a lot - it often seems to GPS tag based on the phone's rough cellular triangulation, which is very frustrating.
I am currently on a ship heading to Iceland. Before I left, I evaluated GPS options and settled on Snapbridge. I did some experiments where I took a picture from the rear deck of my home as well as the front deck. When the Snapbridge accuracy was set to Medium, the pictures showed the same GPS coordinates. But when I set the accuracy to High, the GPS coordinates updated accordingly. There’s a separate thread about this.
As I understand it, iPhones use Assisted GPS which means they incorporate cell tower signals. I’ve just done a test where I opened Snapbridge, gave it a few seconds to connect to my Z8 (look for the Bluetooth ‘B’ in the viewfinder), and then took a picture from the veranda of our room. My iPhone had locked on the GPS signal and the picture was geotagged. As we are sailing through the North Sea, there are no cell towers around 🤣🤣🤣
there's also no signal blockage and actually infinitely better satellite view.
so you just aren't getting assisted GPS. by the way pretty much all modern cell phones use A-GPS. the more open the area the more accurate your position is using standard gps. more access to the sats.
now as you get closer to land the is another land based additions to increase precision call Differential GPS (DGPS).
as far as cranking the accuracy up and BT connection up goes that energy consumption on the phone and camera. spare power strongly suggested on long walks.
dasams wrote:
As I understand it, iPhones use Assisted GPS which means they incorporate cell tower signals. I’ve just done a test where I opened Snapbridge, gave it a few seconds to connect to my Z8 (look for the Bluetooth ‘B’ in the viewfinder), and then took a picture from the veranda of our room. My iPhone had locked on the GPS signal and the picture was geotagged. As we are sailing through the North Sea, there are no cell towers around 🤣🤣🤣
I've done a bunch of experimenting with the Snapbridge settings.
To the best of my knowledge, the location data accuracy only changes the frequency with which Snapbridge requests an updated GPS location. This is sensible since the phone's GPS provider doesn't exactly have a ton of granularity in terms of actual specific accuracy; when an app requests the GPS location, the phone OS hands back a location and whether that location is good or not depends on how well the phone's assisted GPS has resolved enough satellite location data or if it only has the cell tower triangulation data. The app has no control over this.
The issue I've had is that the performance I've gotten from Snapbridge is unpredictable. If, when I first opened the app, it gave me an imperfect location, I'd be okay with that. But I've had multiple times where I've, for example, taken photos over a 20-30 minute period and had them all tagged to a single location which is near, but not at, any of the picture locations. For example, I have a batch of photos taken over 30 minutes or so near the Grand Canyon that are all tagged to a nearby hotel parking lot. None of the pictures were taken in the parking lot. All of them were taken within several miles of the lot. My location accuracy is set to high, so why did this not update? No idea.
I have other hikes where it seems to be fine the whole time.
This is a fairly common occurrence - that the location data is sometimes not very precise and not predictable in how or why the precision drifts.
GPS or as it is known today as GNSS is a constellation of sats that provide signals that GPS/GNSS receivers can decode to calculate their exact location. that signal is constant. there is no GPS provider other than the US Govt (there are other systems of different freqs and usable locations). minimum 4 GPS sats to get a precision location. the chip in your device does the all the math (kalman filtering). the more strong signals your receiver can capture the more precise your position can become. there are variables that can throw off that precision.
US: Navstar US Govt USAF (Z9 supported)
Russia: Glonass (Z9 supported and various gps supported)
QZSS: Japan (Z9 supported)**
China: Beidou (solmeta supported)
EU: Galileo
the availability/usability of these systems will vary by location and the receivers.
the availability of said systems constellations varies considerably.
Thanks for all the very good suggestions! You guys rock! Seems like there are no easy solutions for getting gps on Nikon cameras. But there are many complicated ones. I wonder why cheap phones are built with GPS built in but 3k cameras not so much?
For now, I've been taking a phone pic at locations I want geo-tagged and transferring those to my picture folders. This seems easy enough but not as effective as I would like.
I will certainly look at each and every one of your suggestions. And thanks again!
Today was my first day in Iceland and we drove 65 miles on the Ring Road on our way to a glacier.
I connected Snapbridge to my Z8 to geo tag my photos. It worked great. We were out about 5 hrs and I did nothing more than to check my iPhone to see that it was Bluetooth connected to my camera. The GPS coordinates updated continuously.
Oops. My Upload and Sell membership has expired so I can't post the screen grab of the LrC Map showing my pics. But I am happy with Snapbridge for geo tagging my pics. YMMV.
Keiththom wrote:
Thanks for all the very good suggestions! You guys rock! Seems like there are no easy solutions for getting gps on Nikon cameras. But there are many complicated ones.
Snapbridge is easy and uncomplicated. It generally works, and I recommend it.
I only mention that I hike and geotag extensively, and have found in more than on occasion - across more than one phone and more than one camera - the GPS coordinates are not as precise as they should be. Not always, but enough that I notice it.
Depending on your level of acceptance for that, Snapbridge can therefore range from perfect to completely intolerable.
from a different perspective: i much prefer a a hardware dedicated unit that is simply self-powered plug and play and hard wired. in the case of the one i have it also will power off of the camera after its own internal batter is consumed. that almost removes any chances of disconnect. this in turn leaves my phone available for just that, a comm device. additionally it can be field charged with an external source. the type of work i do does at times require reasonable positioning data.
binary visions wrote:
Snapbridge is easy and uncomplicated. It generally works, and I recommend it.
I only mention that I hike and geotag extensively, and have found in more than on occasion - across more than one phone and more than one camera - the GPS coordinates are not as precise as they should be. Not always, but enough that I notice it.
Depending on your level of acceptance for that, Snapbridge can therefore range from perfect to completely intolerable.
Will snapbridge work on older cameras such as the D810? And does it work in areas with no phone reception?
just remember neither device gives info like sat signal strength or how many are being tracked. location and sky view and time make for the accuracy and even ability to get a usable position.
as to overall GPS precision it can be down to centimeter accuracy, just not on any of the stuff we are playing with here.
Yes. You need, like any GPS, to have a relatively clear view of the sky.
If you want to geotag with 'older cameras', then it's a dedicated device, or matching a GPX track to the photos with, for example, Lightroom (using the Friedl “Geoencoding Support” Plugin for Lightroom, ideally).
