GPS and USB issues

[maczheng]

1,I am confused by the GPS setting. why I could adjust time? if I choose 30s or 300s what is the different among them? for battery low cost ?
And I can't find the GPS data in pictures, something wrong with setting? i don't understand, whether it have been worked. pls, show me how can I handle the GPS setting.
2, another question is :should I always plug in the USB hub?what if I use the unleashed without USB or with USB? I can't find any instructions, pls help me to use it with full function. thank you very much.
N1 nikon 810

[wdaehn]

ad 1) How often is the GPS position sent to the unleashed? I would set it to a low time value, e.g. every second. Not sure what the impact is as well, so why would somebody set that to 300s ever? The D810 has a menu screen where you can see the current GPS locations and in one of the info screen, a GPS text is shown if GPS data is received.

ad 2) This is camera dependent. Old cameras need USB for pretty much everything, new cameras only for getting the liveview image, which is used for image preview and the intelligent ramping logic where the image gets analyzed. D810 is pretty new, hence would expect most works without USB.

[Oliver]

1) The GPS interval sets how often the Smartphone calculates the position and sends it to the Unleashed. a longer interval should reduce battery consumption of the smartphone. On Nikon cameras, the Unleashed actually sends the Position and an updated timestamp to the Camera every second, no matter how often it gets a new position from the smartphone. On Canon cameras, we actually change the Interval setting of the camera too (and if you change it in the cameras Menu, it will change in the app as well), and only send the camera the Position in that set interval.

If you don't have GPS data in your photos, try setting the GPS Priority (third picker in the GPS setting) to "GPS" rather than Trigger if the USB Cable is not plugged in. This will delay the trigger a tiny bit if you're triggering from the app, but it'll make sure all photos have GPS data embedded.
When the USB cable is plugged in (as it is in your screenshot) GPS is sent to the camera in parallel to getting the settings via usb, so there is no "priority" when both things can happen at the same time. (without the usb cable, we need to use the same pins on the 10-pin port for sending GPS data or for reading/writing settings to the camera, so we need to stop doing one thing to start doing the other.

2) Just as wdaehn said - on the D810 you need the USB cable mainly for Image review. We don't use live-view though (not yet anyway), but get the thumbnails from the actual photos you take.
There are a few other things the USB cable is needed for - the complete list is this:
- Thumbnail review
- Metering Area Setting
- Focus Mode Setting additional values: when the lens is set to AF (not MF), you can change between AF-S, AF-C and AF-A only when the USB cable is plugged in
- LRTimelapse Autoramp Algorithms
- Automatic changing of the custom setting "Assign Shutter button" to "Record Movies" when you start recording a video from the app. (without USB you have to change that setting manually in the camera menu for recording movies, and back for taking photos)
- sending GPS data to the cameras at the same time as reading and writing settings while the app is actively used.


To see if your camera has GPS, there's a small Satellite icon on the top display. You'll only see it while the meter is on though. on the D800 and older cameras it was an icon with the letters GPS in it, on the D810 a satellite icon, and on the D850 there is no icon at all on the top display anymore. It is however still there on the INFO screen on the main display.

To see if your photos have GPS data, use the up and down buttons of the multiselector next to the display on the back of the camera to change through different metadata views. The last of these is the Location data, but it's only there if you do have GPS data in your photos. Another View is called Overview Data where the image is in the top left corner, and below are three lines with a summary of the most important metadata - the GPS/Satellite icon would appear in the second line on the right side.
If you don't have any of these metadata views, you can turn them on in the camera menu: Playback-> Playback Display Options->Shooting data.

[maczheng]

Is it right？with USB plug in, There is the 3rd column to change setting which is trigger or GPS . If no USB I can’t set the 3rd column parameters . And I still can not find GPS or satellite icon on camera’s screen . Do you have any sample video to teach me .

[Andy]

Hey Mac,

That behavior is correct. When USB is plugged in, settings and GPS can work at the same time, so there's no priority at all.

Without USB however, you have to pick a priority.

We have a couple of GPS posts in the forum already. Maybe you can take a look there. Maybe this helps:

• When the app is open (in the foreground, being actively used), GPS data is only transmitted to the camera when triggering from the app. This is because when the app is being used the Unleashed prioritizes keeping all settings up-to-date, rather than sending GPS data to the camera.

• In Nikon cameras, GPS and settings are adjusted through the same port (the round or square one). However, if you plug in the USB cable, the Unleashed can keep settings up-to-date via USB, while GPS data is being sent all the time through the other port. This is why GPS with USB is more reliable.

• When the app is in the background (not open, but still running), the Unleashed does not have to update settings and therefore can send GPS data all the time. Nevertheless, it stops sending GPS data after a while to save power. GPS transmission starts again as soon as the meter goes on again.

Hope this helps.

[maczheng]

Everything is ok with this unleashed, but each photo import to iPhoto of Mac, these photos couldn't be sorted by GPS in the map just as photos taken by iPhone. i am wondering what's the meaning of GPS tags, does it not working at all.?

[Oliver]

Hi,

There's one possible issue we've recently discovered!

Some Nikon cameras produced for the Asian Market have GPS disabled, since GPS is forbidden by law in some countries. Which countries exactly this applies to, I'm not sure. We actually had one customer that bought a Nikon D750 here in Germany through an online dealer, and got a very good price. It turned out it was a grey market camera originally manufactured for the Asian market, and after a lot of back and forth we found out that GPS was disabled because of this. He was able to send it in to Nikon and have them activate the feature for a fee.
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/d ... on.512787/

To check, go into the setup menu - there should be an entry "Location Data" between HDMI and Wifi. If that's not there, then your camera does not support GPS.

To check if your camera is getting GPS data, you can look for a small satellite icon on your main display when you press the info button, or use live-view.

When the satellite icon is there, and you take a photo, it should have GPS data stored.

If you press the up/down arrows, during playback, you can cycle through different metadata overlays, the last one of which is GPS data.

If the photos have GPS data embedded, then they will also display on a map in iPhoto.

[maczheng]

yes，it's true. I can't find the satellite icon on the camera screen. what a pity.
thanks very much for your patience.

[Oliver]

Hi, Sorry to hear that. Can you check if you have the "Location Data" or "GPS" item in your Setup menu (between HDMI and Wireless mobile adapter/Wifi)? This would be the sure check if your camera supports GPS at all, or if it's a version without this feature.

IMG_2047.JPG (33.11 KiB) Viewed 20717 times

(how it looks on our D7100)

[UKColinB]

Thank you for answering this - it wasnt my question but it helped me get my D850 set up and working.