EOS R: GPS

[s66]

The biggest lack in the EOS R I've seen so far is the lack of a GPS receiver built in in the camera. For "on-the-road" use that's become essential for me over the years.
I understand it would draw even more battery, but it's a price I'd gladly pay, but alas, it's not to be.

So the question here: how well does the link with the phone app canon suggests to use actually work (assuming you use the phone as it is intended and not dedicate it to that task) ? Any practical field experience out there ?

It's to hope one of the upcoming "RF" bodies fixes this (for me) crucial omission.

Let's hope it doesn't become a trend to drop in camera GPS support.

 

[photennek]

Did someone get it working to get the GPS data from smartphone to the R? I didn't, but then again I didn't go into depths yet in trying to make it work...

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have GPS in my 5D MK IV. I turned it on once about a year ago. For me, its just another thing to turn off, others may need it. It will show up in the high end model.

 

[Hector1970]

I never had it in on in my 5D MK IV but decided to try it. I've found it quite useful in connection with Lightroom to accurately record where I took the picture.
I find (maybe as I get older of my brain gets filled up with new details) that details get forgotten.
I was in Australia about 3 years ago and was in Wilson's prom and was very impressed with Whale Rock.
When I got home I looked at a photo album from 15 years ago and there was a photo of me standing next to Whale Rock.
I had no recollection of every being there or seeing it before and it was a beautiful place.
I also at Cape Otway which is really hard to forget and I didn't realise I had also been there.
At least I remembered the 12 apostles so I'm not losing all my marbles yet.

It does drain the battery. I may be wrong but I think it keeps draining the battery while the camera is turned on but otherwise inactive.

 

[3kramd5]

but knowing exactly where a picture was taken can be crucial.

May I ask in what circumstance that’s crucial?

 

[greenoakla]

I also like to voice my disappointment that the GPS is still not a standard built-in feature. Years ago, it helped me decided on the 6D1 over the 5D3. Now I continue to keep it always on on my 5D4. The battery drain is minimal, and no hassle syncing with a smartphone. It tells me where on earth each photo was taken, just like the date and time information. After a vacation trip, I have a good record of where the tour bus took us and when. Lightroom shows me a map of all the photo locations for each trip, even on a cruise ship in the middle of an ocean. It may not be crucial, but it is certainly interesting and informative, especially as travel photography goes. I hope the GPS feature will be there built-in when it comes time for the next upgrade.

 

[koenkooi]

I also like to voice my disappointment that the GPS is still not a standard built-in feature. Years ago, it helped me decided on the 6D1 over the 5D3. Now I continue to keep it always on on my 5D4. The battery drain is minimal, and no hassle syncing with a smartphone. It tells me where on earth each photo was taken, just like the date and time information. After a vacation trip, I have a good record of where the tour bus took us and when. Lightroom shows me a map of all the photo locations for each trip, even on a cruise ship in the middle of an ocean. It may not be crucial, but it is certainly interesting and informative, especially as travel photography goes. I hope the GPS feature will be there built-in when it comes time for the next upgrade.

It also keeps the internal time correct, which is a big help when you import pictures from multiple cameras into e.g. lightroom and the action sequences line up perfectly.
When my wife and I go out I use the GP-E2 to sync the clocks of our cameras, being as little as 10 seconds out of sync is annoying.

 

[Larsskv]

I use GPS all the time, and I really missed it when I had the 5Ds.

So far, I think the GPS function in the EOS R works very well.

All you have to do to enable it is to couple your phone to your camera the first time you use it. Activate the location information sharing. Thereafter, all you need to do to when you want GPS encoding, is to open the Canon App on your phone, and the camera gets location info via Bluetooth automatically. Even when the camera is turned off, it will reconnect automatically when the camera is powered on. On my iPhone, the Canon app seems to be working in the background for many hours even if the camera is turned off for hours, which means I don’t need to reopen the App when the camera is hours used later. My experience is limited so far, and don’t quote me on this, but it doesn’t seem to drain the batteries of either the phone or camera in a substantial way.

All in all, I think the GPS works better in the EOS R than with 5DIV/1DXII. It gets the location info faster since you don’t need to wait for the GPS to locate the satellites (your phone has them located all the time). The GPS on my iPhone works better indoors than the one in 5DIV, 1DXII. Last, enabling the GPS is faster on the phone, than in your camera.

 

[stevelee]

The pairing of my iPhone with my G7X II, as with the S120 before it, as I recall, works quite well for GPS stamping. But in situations where I am concerned about battery life all day in both devices, I don't use it. When at a location that I'll want to pinpoint later, I take a picture with my iPhone in the midst of shooting there. Then I can look at the time stamps from pictures from both the camera and the phone and get the location from that, if I need to.

I leave GPS on the 6D2 turned on, but in the mode where it is off when I manually switch the camera off. If I've been much of anywhere away from home with the camera, I'll transfer the GPS log to the card and thence to the computer, where a program will map my travels for that day. Otherwise, I mostly have GPS turned on to keep the clock set accurately.