Railfan Technology > GPS receivers for still camera

I currently have a QSTARZ 818XT 10hz GPS unit which is connected to my Nikon D610 with a AOKA Bluetooth unit. I am only getting about 60 to 70% GPS onto my photos mega data and sometimes even less. I check to make sure the camera is showing the GPS icon yet it still sometimes will not record on the pictures data. Is this about as good as it gets or are their better units to use. I keep the QSTARZ as close to the camera as I can at all times.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

I have a Nikon D200 with the Nikon GPS add on unit. Works 100% of the time, but, the link cable is poorly designed, and costs as much as the GPS receiver to replace.

John Black
RNinRVR Wrote:
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> I currently have a QSTARZ 818XT 10hz GPS unit
> which is connected to my Nikon D610 with a AOKA
> Bluetooth unit. I am only getting about 60 to 70%
> GPS onto my photos mega data and sometimes even
> less. I check to make sure the camera is showing
> the GPS icon yet it still sometimes will not
> record on the pictures data. Is this about as good
> as it gets or are their better units to use. I
> keep the QSTARZ as close to the camera as I can at
> all times.

I have wondered if the issue is the bluetooth.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

Outdoors, the GPS data should be recorded successfully most of the time...certainly higher than 70%. 

I share the frustration, and I haven't found a pattern to the conditions that lead to incorrect GPS data. Too often the photo has the last good location, as the GPS loses accurate information due to a lack of a good sky view in cities and certainly in buildings. Or no GPS data...for some mysterious reason. 

For a long time I had intermittent data, which was fixed by replacement of a defective GPS receiver. At another time, I had a defective connector on the Nikon D90 camera, which was fixed with an expensive trip to a repair shop. So from my experience, for what it is worth, don't rule out defective GPS receivers and failure of those tiny camera connectors. Change the parts. 

My current, mostly successful, solution is a non-Bluetooth Aokatec GPS receiver for a Nikon D800, and an Aokatec Bluetooth GPS receiver plus Bluetooth adapter for a D90. 

An idea I have not tested is use of a dual system (US plus Glonass satellites) Bluetooth GPS receiver. The Garmin Glo Bluetooth GPS receiver will not work with camera Bluetooth adapters, I believe, so don't try that. (That was a failed experiment.)

An expensive solution could be the foolography product pair...their Bluetooth adapter combined with a Bad Elf GPS receiver. I leave it to others to try this and report. The Bad Elf comes in two configurations: US satellites only, or US plus Glonass. An additional advantage might be the camera controls available via these GPS receiver, but I have no personal experience to confirm the details. Anyone with experience, please speak up. 

Too many times I have taken photographs, then wondered when and where I took the photo (as in "Which glacier was that?"). So, geo-tagging seems worthwhile. Wish my old photos had geo-tagging, or an obsessive photographer. 

I look forward to comments, suggestions, and observations. 


 

One last idea...the QSTARZ 818XT has a 1Hz and a 10 Hz data mode, according to my quick specification check.
The camera Bluetooth adapters may only be happy with the slower data rate (1 Hz). A test could easily verify if this is true for a specific camera Bluetooth adapter.

Very little information on this seems to be available, at least where I have looked. The foolography web site has a listing of Bluetooth GPS receivers that are likely to work with their Bluetooth adapter, and this us a good starting point for general compatibility assessment.

As I wrote earlier, feel free to share experience and observations. I believe that geotagged photos will be more useful than non-geotagged in the future for research, especially as written notes become separated from the electronic files. I usually forget to change time zones, so chances are good that my camera time might be off by an hour. Or two. GPS data include accurate time. 

Have you ever considered that all of this extremely precise "where I was when I took this picture" information can be subpoenaed to support a trespassing charge?

Ray

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> Have you ever considered that all of this
> extremely precise "where I was when I took this
> picture" information can be subpoenaed to support
> a trespassing charge?
>
> Ray
If it was all that precise. Even at the 10 mz setting it is only accurate to about 10 - 15 feet so where it puts you is not enough to justify a trespassing charge. In Ashland, VA where I shoot most of the time the tracks are in the median of a street and the curb, public property, is 2 feet from the edge of the ties. I stand in the designated parking spots which place me 15 or so feet from the passing train. You could see the GPS data placing me right on the tracks, which it has done on some occasions. ​In answer to the previous post, I am using the 10 mh setting and do not have much issue with it other then the fact that it is only about 75% captured. I have tried the 1 mh setting and if makes no difference. I am leaning to bluetooth problems vs the GPS unit.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

I'm using my iphone.  I make sure the camera and iphone are set to the same time.  I take a reference shot with the iphone at each location.  When I get home everything gets loaded into Lightroom and the location data for the iphone test shot gets copied over to the camera shots at that location.  

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
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