Preparations for the worlds biggest photography trade fair are keeping us busy – just a little under 3 weeks left and a lot left to do!
Photokina starts on September 18th, and is open for 6 days – until the 23rd of September. Of course, we’ll be there in Cologne – our Booth is in Hall 5.1, Booth F006:
We’d love to see you there, show you our products, and answer any questions you might have.
We might just have something up our sleeve, that you wouldn’t want to miss. ;-)
Canon today announced the EOS 650D/Rebel T4i. You can read about all the other great features in the usual spots, as usual, we’ll concentrate on the geotagging features.
Just like I thought It seems they’re sticking to the same GPS Support via the hot-shoe, which they introduced with the 5D Mark III. That’s great news for us, as it will greatly increase the chance for us to create an Unleashed for Canon.
Here’s the corresponding paragraph from their press release:
“The EOS Rebel T4i is also compatible with Canon’s previously introduced GP-E2 GPS Receiver that can be mounted to the camera’s accessory shoe. The GPS unit was created to serve outdoor photographers; it records shooting locations including latitude, longitude and altitude, as well as camera direction. A Logging function can tell how far a photographer has traveled as well.”
As promised, I checked the possibility of modifying the Unleashed D200+ to make it fit the D800:
It is possible to get it to work, but you have to remove A LOT of the casing, and actually you would even need to remove some of the PCB (see how it sticks out of the cut case), which will quickly cause great problems if you overdo this.
(yes, that extra cut out is for the new “3D” white dot)
While some brave souls will attempt to do this and will probably manage, This is not a solution I will recommend to our customers.
Forum thread showing the modification
We’re working hard on a successor to the Unleashed D200+, and are redesigning it to make sure it fits the D800 properly. We will make existing customers some sort of an upgrade offer, be it trade in, or just a loyalty rebate of some sort, we still need to work out the details on that. So don’t hesitate to get the Unleashed D200+ for your current camera, while you’re saving up for that D800 – you’ll be able to upgrade the Unleashed as soon as we have the new version ready.
Sorry… I wish I had better news than this.
Today Nikon announced the Nikon D3200. With its 24 Megapixel sensor and high resolution LCD, it’s really quite a step up from the entry-level D3100. That’s probably why Nikon is claiming that it’s not a replacement for the D3100, but rather an addition to the lineup.
From our point of view, the greatest news is that Nikon is sticking with the socket for GPS devices they introduced with the D90, which they’re now including in all their consumer DSLRs. We’re happy to be able to tell you that our Unleashed Dx000 will be compatible with the D3200!
Apart from this, I’m also looking forward to how well the WU-1 wifi-adapter will work – and how it will differ from the excellent wft-e5 for the D4. The latter works remarkably well, and allows camera control including liveview from any browser. I’m glad the WU-1 is so small – that way it won’t interfere with the Unleashed Dx000, and both can be used at the same time.
More and more software is coming out with support for geotagged photos. Finally Adobe has caught on, and has released Lightroom 4, along with pretty decent geotagging features.
“Map” is now one of the main views available in Lightroom, in which you will see a big map, with markers in all the spots on the map in which you took photos. If you zoom out, markers too close together are merged. Instead of an empty marker representing a single photo, a number is displayed on that marker, indicating the number of photos taken in that area. You can also choose to load GPS tracklog files, and have Lightroom 4 display these on the map. These tracks can even be used to indirectly geotag photos that are not yet geotagged, by matching the timestamps.
Optionally, you can blend in extra panels. The left panel contains three subviews:
The right panel is your usual Metadata panel, in which you can see EXIF, IPTC and other Metadata, including the EXIF Fields with the GPS coordinates, along with button that will center the map to those coordinates. You can even choose to only display Location Metadata.
Along the bottom you have your film-strip panel. The photos in here all have badges in the bottom right corner, indicating whether or not they are geotagged. if you click on one of the markers in the map view, all the photos in that location are centered and highlighted in the film-strip view, so you can quickly see which photos were taken there. Instead of clicking on a single marker in the map, you can also apply one of three Location filters (along the top of the map view):
I have not taken the time to dive any deeper into Lightroom 4 (I use Apples Aperture – which has supported geotagging for quite a while longer), who knows what other gems I might have missed – so feel free to add your own finds in the comments!
It’s official – the long awaited Canon EOS 5D Mark III was released a few hours ago. Read the press release, or check out previews and hands-on details at the usual sites – I won’t re-iterate those here.
I must however mention the big news, that Canon seems to finally be embracing geotagging, and announced the GP-E2 GPS receiver along with the 5D Mark III.
Image by Canon
It has 3 modes of operation:
Canon’s GP-E2 will offer the following key features:
Here’s the relevant paragraph from the 5D Mark III press release about this new accessory:
“The EOS 5D Mark III also has an optional Canon GPS Receiver GP-E2, which can be connected to the camera via the accessory shoe or a USB cable. With a GPS logging function built-in, the GP-E2 will log latitude, longitude, elevation, and the Universal Time Code – and allow viewing of camera movement on a PC after shooting. With its built-in compass, the GP-E2 receiver will also record camera direction when shooting, even when shooting vertically. The Canon GPS Receiver GP-E2 is compatible with the EOS-1D X and EOS 7Di as well as the EOS 5D Mark III.ii”
i) When the EOS 7D is used with the GP-E2, the following restrictions will apply: a) geotagging function will not work for movies while recording; b) geotagging features will not work for movies when using the Map Utility; c) electronic compass information and automatic time setting is not available; d) transmission via the hot shoe is not possible.
ii) In certain countries and regions, the use of GPS may be restricted. Therefore, be sure to use GPS in accordance with the laws and regulations of your country or region. Be particularly careful when traveling outside your home country. As a signal is received from GPS satellites, take sufficient measures when using in locations where the use of electronics is regulated.
The EOS 5D Mark III requires a firmware upgrade to be compatible with the GPS Receiver GP-E2, which will be available soon.
One more image:
Image by Canon
A few days ago, Nikon announced the D800 and the D800E, and again they did not build in a GPS Receiver. While I’m sure this will happen in the future, Nikon do still have some work ahead of them to get this to work well enough for a pro camera! And contrary to what they say – it’s not (just) about the limited space inside the camera body. Read some of my thoughts here. Nikon did keep their 10-pin port for attaching external GPS devices.
Unfortunately, Nikon changed the physical design of the area around that 10-pin port in such a way, that our Unleashed D200+ no longer fits, at least not without modification.
The problem is that Nikon made the D800 smaller, the lens mount wider, and most contours of the camera more slanted. This results in less space near the 10-pin port to begin with, and that space decreasing even more as you try to push the Unleashed further into the socket – so much, that it is not possible to firmly plug the Unleashed into the socket. Electrically, it would still work, but physically it does not fit.
Illustration of the problem area – proportions are not exact.
We now need to wait until we get a D800, in order to evaluate whether it might be possible to make the Unleashed fit by modifying its casing (i.e. cutting or sanding off the one edge of the back of the Unleashed) to fit the slanted edge of the lens mount, and how we will need to redesign the next version of the product to account for the changes.
I just read an interesting interview by imaging-resource with Nikon’s General Manager of Design: Toshiaki Akagi, amongst others. After talking about several aspects of the D4 and other general topics, they got to the topic of why there is no built-in GPS in the D4:
Dave Etchells, Publisher, Imaging Resource: We had a number of readers, also, asking about GPS, and why you can attach a GPS receiver, but people are saying why wasn’t GPS built into the camera?
Toshiaki Akagi: We always have a GP-1 GPS accessory, then we want to use a GP-1, and if we include a GPS function in the camera, the camera would be bigger. And GPS still has a little problem, so for example indoors, we cannot get GPS data, then we are considering now to adapt the GPS to the next model, in the future. While you are indoors, the performance is not stable, so that’s why we gave up to install the function in the body as of now.
There is more, so read the rest at imaging-resource.com (found via nikonrumors.com).
We were at PMA@CES, exhibiting our products. On a slow morning I wandered over to the CES, heading straight to the Nikon booth. After admiring the D4 for a while, I seized the opportunity, to gather proof for everyone, that our Unleashed D200+ is compatible with the D4. I took my favorite GPS, which managed to keep a fix even inside the Convention Center hall and plugged an Unleashed into the D4. It fits beautifully.
After 3 seconds, the Unleashed had connected to the GPS, and the GPS icon on the LCD lit up:
Took a photo, and what do you know: it’s geotagged with our location in Las Vegas!
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So there you go: Proof that our Unleashed D200+ is fully compatible with the new Nikon D4!
PS. I went to see Canon’s GP-E1, which they announced 3 months ago! They did not have one with them! Can you believe it? I certainly couldn’t! On top of that, no-one at the booth had any knowledge about it, other than having heard it exists.
Vegas – here we come!
We are excited to be part of this year’s PMA@CES trade show in Las Vegas from January 10-13th. As part of the German Pavilion, we will exhibit our latest products. If you are planning on going, have a look at the floor plan from the official CES website which is much better than the one from PMA. You can find us in the Venetian, Hall D, Booth 72218. We hope to see some of you there! there
As a PMA@CES special we will prolong our current Xmas offer until the end of January. For every order of one of our Unleasheds (D200+, Dx000, D90) you get a Visiontac VGPS-500 receiver FOR FREE or you can donate to a charitable organisation! Get more information here or check it out in our online shop.
*Special note: This post was published mid-air, on our flight to Vegas. How cool is that? Thanks Ford, for sponsoring 30 free minutes of gogo internet for everyone!