[Glen]

I'm not in the market for a new camera body as I rather like my K3-II but I was curious if the other manufacturers could satisfy me with their offerings. One of my favourite features is the GPS. My style of photography is generally old historic buildings such as abandoned one room schools or abandoned churches. For this genre the GPS is a very important and useful tool. Before, with my K5 and K20D I used to used a hand-held GPS and then hoped to match the location of the image based on the time I clicked the shutter. It worked but sometimes different time zones and daylight savings time issues would totally throw it out. So the GPS on the K3-II is a treat every time I use it. I actually thought that every mid-range to high end camera had this feature. I checked some of Canon's DSLR bodies but didn't look at anything over $2.5K as I wouldn't be going that high anyway. I also didn't look at any bodies under around $1K so that I was looking at something in the K3-II range. None that I've browsed so far have a GPS. Do the other manufactures not realize how great this feature is? I looked at Nikon as well and didn't see any with this feature in that price category. Pentax will have me as a customer for a very long time if they are the only manufacturer with a mid-range body with GPS. I don't ever want to go back to having to carry around a separate attachment or Garman hand held GPS (which often takes a long time to fix the position) now that I've used the very fast and efficient Pentax built in GPS. I wonder if others on the forum find this feature as compelling as I do?

[DrawsACircle]

Have you ever tried Geosetter? If you open your pictures in Geosetter, it shows you the location, shooting direction and FOV based on the focal length registered in the EXIF. I have a O-GPS1 for my K-70, I used it mainly for astrophotography.
You can find it here (freeware): Description - GeoSetter

[jbinpg]

Yes, built-in GPS is a must-have for me. I spend a lot of time photographing bees and butterflies and entering them into citizen science project databases. Having the coordinates baked into the image makes the whole process of entering sightings that much faster. I have an O-GPS1 also but it is just something else to forget in the bag. And the Pentax GPS is as accurate as any other.

[microlight]

I use it a lot, especially when travelling. Thanks for the tip about Geosetter, I’m currently using Geophoto to show photos on a world map, but the ability to show direction and FOV is really cool.

[Snafu711]

GPS is a dream come true ... no more guessing where one has taken a certain picture. One big reason I love my K3-II.

It seems odd the every cell phone will put GPS information in the pictures taken, but with expensive cameras that still is a rare feature.

[nifty_shot]

I agree - thanks for the GeoSetter tip. It ought to make identifying what was on the horizon, for example, easy. My natural sense of direction is... lost somewhere, I think.

[Le Fanfoué]

Hi, I just tried this software, it is really interesting.
but sometimes, there are really big differences of position, or the shot direction is completely opposite.
.

[MaineNative]

In the past I used the Sony GPS-CS3KA which would log your position for up to about 16 hours. I would clip in on a belt loop or lay it on my dashboard. You could then insert an SD card in the back and the unit would match up the time stamp on you pictures and insert the GPS location in files it could match.

It took some work to synchronize the camera with the GPS, but it worked fairly well. I used it to geotag my Canon point-and-shoot pictures. I also put the logs on a map to show hikes, tours or road trips.

I noticed both Canon and Nikon have hotshoe GPS units similar to the Pentax O-GPS1. I also used the O-GPS on my K-5.

I like being able to map my travels years later using the GPS data.

[Aaron28]

the built in gps was why I chose the K-3ii over the K-3 when it came time.....one of the major factors choosing pentax in the beginning with the K-50 was for the o-gps and astrotracer function.....I do not geotag often enough but love the and abuse the astrotracer function

[OzzRod]

I find GPS essential for geotagging images taken when travelling both in remote areas and unfamiliar built environments. Until I gt my K1 I relied on Pentax's O-GPS1 fitted to my K5's flash shoe, but although reliable, it sometimes took a while to get a good satellite fix and battery life wasn't crash hot. With my K1 I always have GPS switched on and haven't noticed any discernible battery drain.

[kiwidave]

This is my first post on the forum!

It does seem a shame that GPS isn't included in more DSLR cameras.

I've purchased my first DSLR, a K-70 (still waiting for it to arrive. The NZ distributor is out of stock, unfortunately), and I'd like to be able to tag the images with GPS data.

Luckily, I'm a systems administrator during the day , so I've coded my way around the problem.

I've written a python program that can import GPS data captured from an app on my android phone, and match up the date and time in the EXIF data to a point in the GPS stream and add the GPS data to the EXIF.

The idea is that, when I'm out and about with my camera, I just start the android app recording the GPS data, 1 data point per second, and leave it going. Even at 1 data point per second, you could leave if running most of the day and it's not that much data.

I've tested it with some sample K-70 images and it works well enough. As I haven't got my camera yet (the wait is killing me!) it hasn't been tested in anger yet.

[totsmuyco]

I missed using the GPS on my k-3II when I went to France. It would've lessen my guessing game where I took the shot. I'm just lucky that my sister knows where I took my shots. I will definitely use it the next time around.

[microlight]

You could always locate using Google Maps and transfer the coordinates into the EXIF data.

[Mikesul]

Yes, and that is what people did before there was on board GPS with Pentax but it was clumsy, time consuming and might be very in accurate if you did not do it right away. Many of us use our cameras far from urban areas and may want to check the location weeks, months or years later. The data is there with the K-3ii and K-1/ii. This is one of those areas where if you do not use a function you may not understand why it is so important to those who do.

[microlight]

Agreed, but it’s what I (and I suspect others) have to do for important pictures that were taken before I had the K-3II and its GPS. For instance, I was on grizzly bear watch near Vancouver Island with a K-5 just a few months before getting the K-3II, and I was able to retro-fit the GPS coordinates. Not something I’d want to do a lot of, though!