Am I the only one "put out" about no GPS in R5 or R6?

[KENTGA]

I have 5D4 and one other Canon body that has built-in GPS which I love because of some of these wandering out of the way trips I make. I was thinking about maybe getting one of the R bodies but I don't know how hard it is to synchronize where you make photos to your cell phone and then paste the location to your photo files.

Would appreciate any comments.

Kent

 

[kelpdiver]

not me, primarily from the battery conservation standpoint, but also observing the terrible impact of ME TOO Instagrammers flooding slightly unknown subject. But certainly some times it would be helpful, like mountaineering treks where there are limited markers.

Are we past an era where customs in some nations viewed it as as security concern?

 

[gavin]

+1 I rarely use GPS as it kills battery. Also i can locate with my phone if needed. I just take a photo with my phone and it has all the info.

 

[Joe Reynolds]

Do an initial setup with Camera connect on phone and all you need do thereafter is turn on the camera and open Camera Connect. GPS will be added to all images . Camera screen will flash ”GPS” if not connected. Works great. Less trouble than activating in 6D.

 

[gavin]

Hmm... Good idea. I never thought of this. Thanks

 

[Mika Y.]

I have 5D4 and one other Canon body that has built-in GPS which I love because of some of these wandering out of the way trips I make. I was thinking about maybe getting one of the R bodies but I don't know how hard it is to synchronize where you make photos to your cell phone and then paste the location to your photo files.

Would appreciate any comments.

Kent

While the omission is a bit of a step back, I've been using a separate small Bluetooth GPS dongle even with a 5D mk IV while traveling. In my experience the dongle is more accurate (I tend to get vertical location below sea level occasionally with 5D mk IV builtin GPS) and the separate tiny dongle can keep logging for a couple of days before needing a recharge, with no battery drain for the camera. Geotagging the photos with the resulting GPX files works pretty nicely with a Perl script I've been using for a long time, starting from the time I used 40D.

Of course, the built-in GPS has the advantage of always being there, if your phone or a separate GPS logger runs out of battery, so in that sense the omission on R5 is a downgrade.

 

[H2ODoctor]

I agree. I always use it with my 5D4. Easy to use, wish the R5 had it.

 

[mikeyL]

I see both sides of this. On the one hand, being a scenic shooter, I would love to be able to easily GPS tag the locations I have captured some of my favorite images from. On the other hand, I do feel like it could be a significant battery capacity impactor. For that matter, even using the built in BT or Wifi to link to a phone to GPS tag might also hit the battery more than I would like. That having been said though, I will probably still try it with the phone when my R5 finally arrives.

ML

 

[Raucous Raven]

I use the Canon Camera Connect app and it mostly works fine - as long as you remember to start the app. The flashing "GPS" in the viewfinder is a good reminder there.

I have had one case using Camera Connect with my R where only the first half of the photos in a shoot were correctly tagged. I'm not sure what happened there. At the time I didn't have the info level set to show the "GPS" flag in the viewfinder and so I don't know if it would have alerted me. That was a shoot where I really needed to have correct GPS information and I was keeping a separate GPS track log "just in case." I was able to use that and HoudahGeo to correct the GPS information. If you really want to be sure...

 

[sfnorton]

I love it on my 5DIV. Never had a problem with it being a "battery killer" because it's not. So cool to open those coordinates up in the Lightroom Map, or on Google Earth and see the exact location a photo was taken years later. I use it with my R too, using the Canon Connect app. I've found it to be much less reliable. Even with the app always open on my phone, it does not always automatically connect and tag the photos, and I often forget to check if I'm connected. I also was bummed to see it omitted from the R5. But I ordered one anyway!

 

[Steven Blackwood]

It can be handy but I have had Camera Connect show the correct location for the first shot but each subsequent shot had the same location for photos hundred of feet away. The external GP-E2 works better although I have known it to sometimes be fifty feet off.

 

[KENTGA]

Thanks for all of the replies. "Off 50 feet" isn't an issue for me. I don't travel as much as I once did but it surely comes in handy when I make these 2000 mile trips like I just did for Outer Banks and Eastern North Carolina and some of the other trips I've made in the western US.

You've given me some great ideas if I decide to get the R5.

Also, I've got extra batteries and don't go on hiking treks so battery drain isn't an issue for me. I have 5D4 set for GPS on when camera is on and not continuous GPS on.

Kent

 

[Edow]

I use GPS on the 5D Mark four in a similar way, I’ve never had issues with battery life. So count me as mildly annoyed. But I realize in a mirror less camera the battery drain would be unacceptable.

 

[David Franklin]

Probably not, but I don't care. It does have a voice recorder, so you could attach a verbal description of the location from your cell phone GPS information or import it to the exif file from the same source with software over WiFi or Bluetooth or whatever it is that works that way. Or do what I do - remember where I was when I open the pictures later. Works for me.

 

[mattz10]

1. KENTGA wrote:

I have 5D4 and one other Canon body that has built-in GPS which I love because of some of these wandering out of the way trips I make. I was thinking about maybe getting one of the R bodies but I don't know how hard it is to synchronize where you make photos to your cell phone and then paste the location to your photo files.

Would appreciate any comments.

Kent

Same here: no bult-in GPS = not buying the camera

I will never go through the Bluetooth smartphone pairing nightmare every time I need to use my camera.

I prefer using my smartphone for shooting directly instead.

 

[Stig Nygaard]

Do an initial setup with Camera connect on phone and all you need do thereafter is turn on the camera and open Camera Connect. GPS will be added to all images . Camera screen will flash ”GPS” if not connected. Works great. Less trouble than activating in 6D.

I always carry a couple of extra camera batteries in camera bag, so I'm not worried about battery use on camera. It's much more problematic if draining phone battery.

In my experience the Camera Connect "solution" work like sh*t. I gave it up on both G5XII and EOS 90D (The later which I tried for a short period, but are back to 7DII for several reasons including this).

Not only does Camera Connect requires Bluetooth enabled on both devices, draining battery from both devices. The solution is also surprisingly unstable, unreliable and inaccurate.

When shooting with the G5XII today, I'm back to an external GPS-tracker and syncing geo-coordinates in post-production. It is cumbersome and feels like going 6-8 years back in time to before I purchased my 7DII and a Powershot S100, but it is the best solution there is with those new cameras :-(

 

[Sittatunga]

Probably not, but I don't care. It does have a voice recorder, so you could attach a verbal description of the location from your cell phone GPS information or import it to the exif file from the same source with software over WiFi or Bluetooth or whatever it is that works that way. Or do what I do - remember where I was when I open the pictures later. Works for me.

 

[Zeee]

I'm glad they removed it.

 

[Stakeouttoo]

I have 5D4 and one other Canon body that has built-in GPS which I love because of some of these wandering out of the way trips I make. I was thinking about maybe getting one of the R bodies but I don't know how hard it is to synchronize where you make photos to your cell phone and then paste the location to your photo files.

Would appreciate any comments.

Kent

I mentioned that as soon as the specs came out in another thread.. without GPS.. one of the missing options that is a deal breaker for me with a camera costing near $4K US.. we travel( or were traveling ) a lot.. madness.. not into syncing with GPS software when a R5 or R6 should have it built in at the prices they are asking.. Canon obviously is marketing the video side of these cameras.. I have NO use for video..

I'll stay with my 6DMkII DSLR with GPS and WiFi built-in-- was hoping for a 7DMKIII to upgrade to -- but that is now only a dream--never happen

 

[kelpdiver]

If I put a picture from my camera onto my Android phone micro SD card, the Photos app will sooner or later append the location of my phone at the time, whether that camera's compatible with a GPS unit or not.

If you took a pic with the phone at each location and just dropped it into the same collection, you could use it to set the location for the rest. Just need the clocks on the two to match, and that phone does need to have a location (do they need a cell network or just open air?)