Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
It works... barely (D300/D90 user), May 5, 2009
Picked this up for my wife for our current trip to Hong Kong and Vietnam (we're in Vietnam at the moment) and I just couldn't wait to get back to write this review.
The good:
- It adds GPS data to your photos.
- 3 indicators of GPS quality (red, flashing green - accurate, solid green - most accurate).
The bad:
- The sync time is so bad as to make this unusable. It takes minutes to sync, even outside. Get a full "solid green" sync, power off the unit, power it back on and it can take several minutes to sync.
- It only works outdoors. And by outdoors I mean a completely unobstructed view of the skies. Don't hold your hand over it, not in a car, train, bus or standing just inside a window or under a tree - outside straight up to the stars.
- Popup flash does not work when the GPS unit is attached to the hot shoe (not enough clearance for it to rise).
Our experience:
The very first thing you'll do is disable AF-S auto enable/disable meaning that GPS unit will always draw power even when the camera is on and you're not shooting. Why? Because if it's auto on/off with AF-S, it will turn on and off constantly, never syncing up.
The very second thing you'll do is stop turning your camera on and off when you're not shooting. My wife had to train herself to negate one of her favourite things about D-SLRs - instant on/off, because every time she powered off the body, it would take forever to re-sync when she wanted another quick snapshot a few minutes later. And this was outside! Be prepared to bring extra batteries (my wife and I have 4 among our two bodies).
I'm eBay'ing this as soon as we get home. HUGE disappointment.
Somehow every cell phone in existence can get GPS inside of a house and car, yet this dedicated $200 device which costs the same or more than some cellphones with GPS (like the iPhone) can't do its one thing well. Color us disappointed :-(
Please, don't reward Nikon by buying this. It's terrible.
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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Better than no GPS, but not by much!, March 14, 2009
I have been waiting for this product to come available since I bought my Nikon D90 the first week it was released. I expected this GPS to be similar to other GPS devices I have, ie, my phone, car, and even a USB GPS unit that plugs into my computer (I used it before I got a car that had one built in). I am sadly disappointed in its performance.
I hooked up the unit and turned it on. It never received a signal within the house, blinking red the whole time (which was expected). However, when I took it to my deck, which has an open unobstructed view of the sky, it took it over 80 seconds to get a solid green light (meaning connected to 3+ satellites). 2 seconds later, it starts blinking green (meaning connected to 2 satellites, less accurate). Then it turned solid green again. I placed my hand over the top of it - not touching it - and within 5 seconds, it was blinking red (no satellites). I'm of the opinion that this GPS is not of the same caliber as a typical GPS - and what is frustrating is that I did PAY a LOT more than a typical GPS!!
Shouldn't I expect it to get a signal and keep it longer? Even my car GPS would get a signal within 20 seconds! My fear is that if I'm walking a park and get underneath a tree, it'll lose it's signal altogether and those pictures will not be properly tagged. I guess it's good for those "open field" pictures.
Very disappointed - better than nothing, but not by much.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First impression - works as advertised, May 20, 2009
I bought this unit to allow me to geotag photos from an upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks and to the Dominican Republic later. I attached it to the shoe mount of my D-90 first, and then to the shoulder-strap mount (included). From a cold start right out of the box, it locked on to at least 3 satellites (solid green indicator) within 30 seconds. Afterward, it required no more than 2-3 seconds to get a locked.
It records latitude & longitude (d-m-s), elevation (m), and UTC date/time. I examined the test photos using the Geotag feature of Nikon's View NX photo browser, which connects to Google Map / Satellite. The tag was within 10 feet (if not exactly on) of the spot where I snapped the photos.
Update: After several days of use, I'm very pleased with this device. However, be aware that the unit is powered by the camera's battery. There are two power modes - ALWAYS ON (as long as the camera is on) & AUTO METER OFF, where the GPS shuts off with the automatic shutdown of the camera's exposure meters (to preserve battery life). The downside to the AUTO METER OFF mode is that you have the give the GPS time to re-acquire a satellite lock before it will tag your photos (in most cases, a few seconds). Because of this, I like to set it for always on - I want it to be ready to tag whenever I'm ready to shoot. The downside of this is if you forget to turn your camera off when you're not shooting, the GPS will drain your battery. In other words, be sure to have a fully charged second battery.
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