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GPS on 7D Mark II

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pawn

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Hi,

I have 7D Mark II and love it. I do know that GPS is available in the camera but have not enabled it.

Has anyone find out, through the actual use, the # of shots with GPS enabled (for a fully charged battery)? Since GPS is available, I am thinking of taking advantage of it to geo-tag images.

Thanks.

Duy
 
It does of course use more battery,,,,,all the time its on. Simply turn it on for a few pics,,,then turn it off, until you change your position again. I suspect not many people use it that often. at least i don,t.
 
I always use the GPS. I've done 1,200 shots in a day on a single Canon battery with the GPS enabled. I have mine set to update every minute.

The downside I see is that even with the camera off, it wants to update the GPS info so you'll drain your battery with your camera just sitting around. You'll see the "gps" symbol flash in the LCD. I'm now in the habit of popping the battery out when I put it away and put it back in when I'm heading out for the day.
 
So do you use GPS just because you can,,or do you have a particular need for it? I heard it was somewhat hard on battery,,,and i like to leave mine on most of the time so was not really interested in giving up the extra juice.
 
Ed Wilts said:
I always use the GPS. I've done 1,200 shots in a day on a single Canon battery with the GPS enabled. I have mine set to update every minute.

The downside I see is that even with the camera off, it wants to update the GPS info so you'll drain your battery with your camera just sitting around. You'll see the "gps" symbol flash in the LCD. I'm now in the habit of popping the battery out when I put it away and put it back in when I'm heading out for the day.
Click to expand...
Thanks Ed. 1,200 shots is a lot with GPS enabled. Let me try and, hopefully, I will get similar # of shots per single battery.
 
Keekerseeker said:
It does of course use more battery,,,,,all the time its on. Simply turn it on for a few pics,,,then turn it off, until you change your position again. I suspect not many people use it that often. at least i don,t.
Click to expand...
Thanks Keekerseeker.

Of course, enabling GS will use more battery. Let me try it and see how it goes.
 
I must be missing something here. When I have GPS enabled and the camera is in the on position, I expect it to acquire a signal. When the camera is on and it has gone into standby, I expect it to acquire/maintain a signal. So far so good.

However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me. It either forces you to remember to go several screens into the menu settings and turn GPS on/off, or you have to remember to pop out the battery. Either way, I fail to see the function of the off switch.

I am hoping I am either missing something or that Canon will fix this design flaw in a future firmware release.
 
Remington99 said:
I must be missing something here. When I have GPS enabled and the camera is in the on position, I expect it to acquire a signal. When the camera is on and it has gone into standby, I expect it to acquire/maintain a signal. So far so good.

However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me. It either forces you to remember to go several screens into the menu settings and turn GPS on/off, or you have to remember to pop out the battery. Either way, I fail to see the function of the off switch.

I am hoping I am either missing something or that Canon will fix this design flaw in a future firmware release.
Click to expand...
Page #197 of the manual state:

"When [GPS] is set to [Enable], the camera will continue to receive GPS signals at regular internals even after the power is turned off. ..."

Not sure why it is done that way.
 
Remington99 said:
However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

This detail has almost brought me to complain to Canon. It is a fairly stupid implementation of the feature.
 
pawn said:
Remington99 said:
I must be missing something here. When I have GPS enabled and the camera is in the on position, I expect it to acquire a signal. When the camera is on and it has gone into standby, I expect it to acquire/maintain a signal. So far so good.

However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me. It either forces you to remember to go several screens into the menu settings and turn GPS on/off, or you have to remember to pop out the battery. Either way, I fail to see the function of the off switch.

I am hoping I am either missing something or that Canon will fix this design flaw in a future firmware release.
Click to expand...
Page #197 of the manual state:

"When [GPS] is set to [Enable], the camera will continue to receive GPS signals at regular internals even after the power is turned off. ..."

Not sure why it is done that way.
Click to expand...
 
Remington99 said:
Remington99 wrote:
I must be missing something here. When I have GPS enabled and the camera is in the on position, I expect it to acquire a signal. When the camera is on and it has gone into standby, I expect it to acquire/maintain a signal. So far so good.

However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me. It either forces you to remember to go several screens into the menu settings and turn GPS on/off, or you have to remember to pop out the battery. Either way, I fail to see the function of the off switch.

I am hoping I am either missing something or that Canon will fix this design flaw in a future firmware release.
Click to expand...
Like a mobile phone with GPS, it takes time for it to acquire and lock on enough satellites in order to deliver an accurate fix. GPS needs to continue running to maintain accuracy, regardless if the camera is switched off or not. It's quite common for some photographers to switch on the camera and immediately shoot a photo. Ideally we want accurate coordinates all the time GPS is turned on.

In my experience, after a week with the camera switched off and GPS enabled, the battery only drained about 25%. The GPS shouldn't draw any more current if shooting photos or with the camera shut off. Perhaps slightly more current to read the coordinates each time an image is made but it should be insignificant. Since I always top up the battery before I use the camera, any drain caused by the GPS running while not being used doesn't affect me. If I know it's going to be a while before I shoot again, I pull the battery.
 
Remington99 said:
I must be missing something here. When I have GPS enabled and the camera is in the on position, I expect it to acquire a signal. When the camera is on and it has gone into standby, I expect it to acquire/maintain a signal. So far so good.

However when I switch the camera off and put it in its case, why does it continue to try and acquire a GPS signal, and in the process give me a dead battery next time I take it out of the case?

This makes no sense to me. It either forces you to remember to go several screens into the menu settings and turn GPS on/off, or you have to remember to pop out the battery. Either way, I fail to see the function of the off switch.

I am hoping I am either missing something or that Canon will fix this design flaw in a future firmware release.
Click to expand...
You're not missing anything...it is that way by design due to the need for the GPS to acquire signal. Since the body is weather sealed and very tough the GPS is not getting the best signal...so you leave it on to keep from losing the GPS signal.

I have a habit of removing the battery from my camera and placing it in the charger. So I have a fully topped off battery the next time I go out, which is a fair amount. When used in this way, you won't be negatively impact by leaving the gps on.

On a slightly related matter, one can geotag one's position using a smartphone and use that info with Lightroom to geotag photos after getting back to the computer. This avoids the issue with the camera but puts the burden on the phone and its battery.
 
pawn said:
Has anyone find out, through the actual use, the # of shots with GPS enabled (for a fully charged battery)? Since GPS is available, I am thinking of taking advantage of it to geo-tag images.
Click to expand...
It's not so much the number of shots, but the time it's on.

But GPS works best when on "all the time", because it takes time to get a precise location when turning it on.

I turn it on when I take the camera out shooting. And turns it off again at the end of the day/tour.

I have added the GPS setting to my custom menu for easy/fast access.

If I forget to turn it off overnight, the battery level is much lower next morning.

How fast it drains battery also depends on how you configure your GPS. Mine updates every 5sec, digital compass is off, GPS logger is enabled.

--
/Stig (Copenhagen, Denmark)
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Last edited:
My 6D has a GPS. Too often, it takes so long to acquire a signal that I just can't wait for it - especially in a city where there is a limited "view" of the satellites. The only practical way to use it it to turn it on before you need it and try to stay in one spot, with a clear sky view, long enough for it to get an initial lock. Fine if you shoot landscapes, not good otherwise. Plus, it eats the battery - very rapidly/significantly on my 6D, maybe better on the new 7D.

My solution has been to use my phone. Because it uses the combination of cell phone tower location (for rough positioning) and the GPS, it gets the GPS signal very quickly. I can then take a quick reference shot, to get the GPS coordinates, when I take photos with my cameras - it is trivial to add that location information from my phone to the photos using Lightroom.

Now, if you want to have GPS information accurate to the foot for every shot, my solution won't work. But I'm happy with more general information (such as the city, or maybe region of the city), which makes my solution more practical than the build in GPS.
 
Jeff Peterman said:
Now, if you want to have GPS information accurate to the foot for every shot, my solution won't work.
Click to expand...
No normal civilian GPS receiver is going to give you accuracy that high. In fact, hardly any mil-spec GPS receivers will do that good, either.
 
I have 6D with GPS and use it when I go on trips--- if I'm driving to different places. It's so handy when you get back home and log in to see exactly where you've been. Even better in a year or two later it will really refresh your memory. In fact, I sent a fellow Canon shooter some files I had made in western Colorado because he was interested in visiting there and the GPS locations were so helpful for him to plan his trip.

If I'm in a more or less confined area, I don't use GPS because I log my images by locations I visit or if I'm familiar with an area I don't do it then.

Try it, you'll like it.

Kent
 
pawn said:
Hi,

I have 7D Mark II and love it. I do know that GPS is available in the camera but have not enabled it.

Has anyone find out, through the actual use, the # of shots with GPS enabled (for a fully charged battery)? Since GPS is available, I am thinking of taking advantage of it to geo-tag images.

Thanks.

Duy
Click to expand...
 
I use GPS on my MK11 and do not find battery drainage to be a problem. However I do have a battery grip attached. Last year at a two day airshow I took a little over 2000 photos with GPS enabled, So I don't see GPS as a problem battery wise
 
Jeff Peterman said:
My 6D has a GPS. Too often, it takes so long to acquire a signal that I just can't wait for it - especially in a city where there is a limited "view" of the satellites. The only practical way to use it it to turn it on before you need it and try to stay in one spot, with a clear sky view, long enough for it to get an initial lock. Fine if you shoot landscapes, not good otherwise. Plus, it eats the battery - very rapidly/significantly on my 6D, maybe better on the new 7D.

My solution has been to use my phone. Because it uses the combination of cell phone tower location (for rough positioning) and the GPS, it gets the GPS signal very quickly. I can then take a quick reference shot, to get the GPS coordinates, when I take photos with my cameras - it is trivial to add that location information from my phone to the photos using Lightroom.

Now, if you want to have GPS information accurate to the foot for every shot, my solution won't work. But I'm happy with more general information (such as the city, or maybe region of the city), which makes my solution more practical than the build in GPS.
Click to expand...
 
Will Geosetter work on 6D or only on 7D2? Please give a link.

Thanks,

Kent
 
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