Simplicity itself.
Update 2/22/23: A superior geotagging technique using Lightroom, a plug-in from Jeffrey Friedl and your cell phone is addressed here.
I detailed the components for adding geotagging to a late Nikon or Fuji DSLR in Part I. The idea was to avoid wires, and not to use any GPS power hungry device which would derive power from the camera’s battery. And the whole megillah had to be small, unobtrusive and attention free. The solution was a remote GPS data logger which has its own battery and communicates with a small wireless bluetooth receiver attached to the camera’s ten pin socket.
I had done a lot of research in determining the right hardware and had dismissed both the poorly designed and costly Nikon GPS receiver and Rube Goldberg solutions using remote GPS loggers in combination with software. These demand additional labor to match the GPS data with the picture files from the camera, using the camera’s inaccurate time clock as the lookup field. From my perspective, it either works with minimal post-processing labor or I’m not interested, as I much prefer to spend time taking pictures than playing at code monkey. Add the fact that many Nikon DSLR bodies have GPS connectivity built-in makes my solution a no brainer.
Accordingly, the solution proposed here is elegant, requires a minimum of user intervention and is inexpensive.
The total investment of $106 proves to have been money well spent; you can find the hardware sources in Part I. With the camera receiver finally arriving after a 17 day wait for the mail from Hong Kong, I plugged it into the ten pin socket on the Nikon D700, enabled GPS in the camera’s Setup menu, switched on the data logger and a few seconds later the ‘GPS’ icon illuminated on the LCD screen and the camera was ready to receive and save GPS data. 30 seconds is the manufacturer’s claim for initial acquisition of GPS coordinates; I have generally found that to be correct, although sometimes it takes a mere 10 seconds from powering up the logger for the camera to recognize GPS coordinates. Go figure. I told the camera to use the GPS time clock, not the poor one in the camera itself, renowned for drift. The D700 can adjust for Daylight Savings time, true, but if your camera cannot, you have been warned. The chances are high that you will forget and any solution which depends on memory in our data-fevered world is not robust.
If you cannot wait the 2-3 weeks the camera receiver takes to ship from the Far East, you can get hosed down at B&H for some $190 more for the aptly named Foolography Unleashed unit and have it in a few days. Or you can pay Amazon $120, which is $60 more than I paid. A fool and his money are easily parted ….
The AK-4N bluetooth receiver, circled in red, plugged into the D700.
The green arrow denotes the 2.5mm pass through port for a wireless remote.
The wireless i-Blue MobileMate 886 Mini GPS data logger is on the right.
Mercifully, unlike Nikon’s wired unit, the receiver on the camera is completely devoid of any controls or flashing lights.
How well does it work?
To quote from ‘My Cousin Vinny‘, where the tool in question was an automotive torque wrench:
Vinny: “Dead-on balls accurate?”
Lisa: “It’s an industry term.”
The addition of enhanced mapping in Lightroom 4 makes the retrieval and presentation of GPS locations trivial. Here’s my first effort
GPS at home – loft, bedroom, office.
As you can see, even movements of the GPS unit of a few feet are distinguishable on the LR4 display. I have blurred out part of the GPS coordinates as doubtless there’s at least one psycho with an Uzi reading this intent on wreaking revenge for all those Anselites in denial of my bad experiences with the man, and I would rather not make his job any easier. As for the white car in the driveway, it’s a loaner. My Ferrari Enzo was in the shop when this was taken. Nothing serious – regular oil change, $5,000.
Power draw? The logger runs 10 hours on a charge and comes with both USB and car adapter charging cables. The camera receiver’s data sheet states that its power consumption is 10mA – a local Bluetooth connection only. The D700’s standard battery stores 1500mAH, so if you kept the receiver on for 10 hours straight you would use almost 8% of the battery’s capacity. In practice, the receiver only comes on when the camera’s LCD is lit by a first pressure on the shutter button, meaning that GPS is available to the camera within 1 to 1.5 seconds of touching the release button. The D700 also has an option to keep the receiver powered all the time, but I have not found it necessary to use this. When the camera is turned off, the receiver does not draw any current from the camera’s battery, contrary to what the data sheet states. The logger, which takes 30 seconds to first acquire a signal, is on all the time, thus avoiding any delay in use. It refreshes data from the GPS sateliite(s) every few seconds.
So the camera receiver is a set-and-forget device. Small and unobtrusive, you will forget it is there and, unlike with the Nikon unit which mounts on the accessory shoe, you do not lose the use of the built-in flash and need no connecting cables. With a 30 foot range, the data logger can be kept in a pocket or in the camera bag.
The small 2.5mm pass through coaxial socket on the side of the receiver accepts a short coaxial cable to connect with the wireless remote whose stock cable can no longer access the ten pin socket. The silly Nikon socket plugs can be removed as they only get in the way and are frightfully badly designed. I pulled mine off – a process which took far longer, what with all the futzing with the strap and D-rings, than getting GPS to work. The receiver does not interfere with the camera’s handling in any way and is a very tight fit, so the absence of a locking ring is not an issue. It’s not about to be knocked off. It does block the coaxial flash socket, so use a hot shoe adapter if you use wired flash or, better still, a radio trigger for studio strobes.
Short 2.5mm male-to-male coaxial cables are hard to find for those needing the wireless remote to work. I bought mine from Summit Source for some $4.95 shipped, and it’s 18″ long. Neither Radio Schlock or Amazon stock what is needed.
The receiver’s data sheet states that it works with the following camera bodies: Nikon D200, D300, D300s, D700, D2X, D2Xs, D3, D3X and Fuji S5Pro. The new D4 and forthcoming D800 and D800E appear to use the same ten pin socket and none has built-in GPS, so I would guess this device would work equally well on those bodies, but I have not tried that.
Here is the data sheet for the receiver:
AK-4N data sheet.
There is still one dependency on memory – you have to remember to turn the data logger on at the start of the shooting session! The camera’s GPS flag on the LCD is small, so I have added a white paint reminder to the accessory shoe protector:
Aide memoire and camera’s GPS flag.
I hope I remember what that means ….
I’ll publish real world results tomorrow.
GPS receiver – October 2012: A reader has advised that the receiver I refer to above has been discontinued and recommends this one.
Update October 2012: Having just added a Nikon D2X to my hardware collection I purchased another Aoka camera receiver to permanently install on that body – the 10 pin fitting is identical to that used on the D700 and the existing Aoka works perfectly with the D2X.
Try as I might, I can only get one camera to record GPS data using the one GPS data logger. If I turn on both the D2X and the D700 simultaneously, the D2X grabs the signal first, displays the ‘GPS’ flag and prevents the D700 from getting it. If I turn the D700 on first, then the D2X, the D2X cannot see the data logger. By the way, the much older D2X ‘sees’ the data logger far faster once turned on than the D700 – a second or two – I can only think the larger D2X body has room for a superior antenna. So much for progress.
So it seems the logger ‘locks on’ to one camera receiver and is incapable of driving two at the same time.
Oh well.
I suppose if you are using both cameras together, you can always look up the GPS data on a picture taken from the other at about the same time. Not ideal. Or get a second GPS data logger.