[Rondec]

I use it routinely, but I don't actually use the information very often. I just like that it is tagged into the photo if I ever want it. Not much downside.

[ThorSanchez]

You would have trouble convincing me of the convenience of this (phone GPS tethering). This seems more awkward than the Garmin GPS suction-cupped to the windshield of my 13 year old GMC Yukon. Would you accept such a "kludgy" work-around on your computer?

If the Bluetooth phone pairing was like my car (turn on car, phone automatically pairs without me doing anything) it would be great. It's not. It's a sequence of starting ImageSync on the phone, turn on camera, then ImageSync wants you to connect via WiFi (disconnecting any other WiFi), then sometimes Bluetooth connects, sometimes I have to fiddle with the camera settings. Sometimes I have to make the phone forget the camera, then re-enter settings to connect. If it's cold and I have gloves on, just forget it. If it's not cold, it's mood-dependent as to whether I bother with it. I've heard iPhones are somewhat less problematic than Android devices; good for those people.

---------- Post added 11-29-21 at 09:56 AM ----------

To me, it doesn't matter. People should do what meets thier needs and buy what meets their needs. I'm quite thankful there's a GPS in my camera.

But that being said, no tilt screen and no GPS on the K-3iii is a downer.

Almost everything is going to have some compromises. The K-3 Mark III has several killer features that make it an obvious, large step up from the K-3 II. I've used the advanced autofocus for thousands of pictures in the last six months. Would be very hard to go back to the old camera.

It is annoying that the GPS is gone, but not nearly annoying enough to trade the other features for that.

[derekkite]

I'm using GPS in all my pictures, except for repro at home. It's one of the reasons i don't Like the K3-III.

The same. I use it all the time. And the K3-III was less attractive as a result.

It is auto tagging. I shoot wild things and places and it is as valuable as the photos tagged with iso, lens, fstop and shutter speed.

[Bob 256]

I use the GPS in my K-1 quite frequently. Another plus is that it keeps the clock in the camera spot-on since the GPS information includes an atomic clock based time base (I might be wrong but I think the K-1 at least, draws its clock information from the GPS when that is available). It's very useful to have the GPS info in the EXIF so one can later use it to look up the position on Google World or other map resources, and the elevation information is often very valuable as well.

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Last edited by Bob 256; 11-29-2021 at 12:06 PM.

[vector]

I use the GPS in my K-1 frequently, basically anytime I am out exploring, hiking, camping, site seeing and a couple times a year for astrotracer. I picked up an O-GPS1 from another forum member here for use on my K-3 which is usually paired with the DA*300+TC for wildlife shots which also means I am generally out and about. Geo tagging my photos is very nice to have. I could live without it, but I'd rather not.

[biz-engineer]

Looks like I'm one of the rare users who don't use the GPS on their K1. Interesting.

[VictorDA]

Looks like I'm one of the rare users who don't use the GPS on their K1. Interesting.

And now the real question -- who actually uses the 2 top wheels ??

[vector]

Looks like I'm one of the rare users who don't use the GPS on their K1. Interesting.

Or it's one of those features that triggers a response from those who love it, and the rest ignore it. Hard to really know without a real survey.

[BigMackCam]

Looks like I'm one of the rare users who don't use the GPS on their K1. Interesting.

You've only had responses from less than 30 members so far. That's hardly representative of all K-1 owners in these forums, let alone the much wider Pentax customer base. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from such a tiny sample...

[Serkevan]

Besides, it's perhaps more likely that people would reply when they do not agree with the premise of the thread. I wouldn't think too much of it, either, unless we get a big poll or something.

[biz-engineer]

And now the real question -- who actually uses the 2 top wheels ??

I use it , but I don't like the feel of the top right wheel. Too stiff to spin with one finger , I have to use my left hand while holding the camera right hand to dial some changes. I think having the aperture ring on the lens and front + back dial for ISO/shutter speed or exp. comp. (like Fuji) is the best setup.

[stevebrot]

I've used Pentax K1 since the year of release, but I only used the GPS tagging once for testing that it worked. I can easily remember the exact places I took my photos, even years after having taken them, that's why I didn't feel the need to use GPS tagging. The only time I made use of GPS was for the Astrotracer, but that only on the occasions of shooting night skies. In general, I'd prefer to have the flash hot-shoe anchored to a solid magnesium allow frame, like it is on the K3 Mk III, and buy a separate GPS module for night skies photography. Am I the only one feeling that way?

A common subset of users are those who do real estate photos, travel photos, and other cases where documentation of "where" is part of the task.


Steve

[biz-engineer]

You've only had responses from less than 30 members so far. That's hardly representative of all K-1 owners in these forums, let alone the much wider Pentax customer base. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from such a tiny sample...

I should have activated the poll option, which I just looked at, it's not possible to add a poll once the thread is already started

[SelrahCharleS]

I've used Pentax K1 since the year of release, but I only used the GPS tagging once for testing that it worked. I can easily remember the exact places I took my photos, even years after having taken them, that's why I didn't feel the need to use GPS tagging. The only time I made use of GPS was for the Astrotracer, but that only on the occasions of shooting night skies. In general, I'd prefer to have the flash hot-shoe anchored to a solid magnesium allow frame, like it is on the K3 Mk III, and buy a separate GPS module for night skies photography. Am I the only one feeling that way?

Remembering where I was exactly is not an ability I posses, though I wish I did. I have a couple youthful concussions I can probably thank for that.

I don't particularly like using hot shoe mounted accessories, so if I had purchased an OGPS1 it would likely spend most of its life in a drawer and only come out when I wanted to use Astrotracer. As it is have been leaving the GPS on since getting my K1 and it doesn't seem to impact battery life that much, though I haven't really tested it in a controlled manner.

That being said you could argue I'm not really using the GPS function, despite it frequently being on, since it us quite rare that I go back to look up the location. The exception would be Astrotracer, which now that I've dabbled with it I definitely plan to use more. I like the option being there more than I actually use it (which could be said for many of the features, including autofocus in my case). I didn't try Astrotracer until I had a camera with the GPS built in because I felt it was a lot of money for something I wasn't sure I would use enough to justify it.

I don't really worry about that information being in the EXIF since my raw converter strips most of the EXIF on export by default.

---------- Post added 11-29-2021 at 11:21 AM ----------

And now the real question -- who actually uses the 2 top wheels ??

I spin the dial from "M" to "B" once in a blue moon... Oh you mean the other two? They seem like they would be useful but I'll admit that in practice I almost never touch them. I leave the the dial set to ISO, but my muscle memory from the K5IIs leaves me always hitting the dedicated button and spinning the rear dial instead.

[ThorSanchez]

You've only had responses from less than 30 members so far. That's hardly representative of all K-1 owners in these forums, let alone the much wider Pentax customer base. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from such a tiny sample...

Besides, it's perhaps more likely that people would reply when they do not agree with the premise of the thread. I wouldn't think too much of it, either, unless we get a big poll or something.

Even with poll data we would need to establish some kind of baseline for how often an average Pentaxian uses all of the secondary features like GPS, Astrotracer, pixel shift, horizon correction, in-camera HDR, bracketing, etc, that Pentax touts and markets as valuable and/or unique. I would guess that some very large percentage of photographs are taken in standard M, Av, TAv or similar, with none of the other things enabled. At least with GPS one could leave it on all the time.

You could eliminate any of those features and only a subset of the user base would get up in arms, but for a lot of people they're nice to have and it's quite annoying if they're removed.