Nikon GP-1 review
Feb 27, 2009 gps navigation, reviews, tracking
Do you remember the Nikon GP-1 we mentioned late last year? You should if you’re into DSLR cameras and geotagging. Well if you still haven’t purchased a Nikon GP-1, here is a review for you from johnbiehler.
What Nikon GP-1 does is that it geotags your photos while you’re taking them, so you don’t have to worry about post processing, an extra step to take care of when you get back home.
It comes with a cable specifically for the D90 which has a GPS port and a more standard cable for use on the other cameras which plugs into the left side of the unit. At the rear of the GP-1 is a mini-USB port that allows you to connect it to a laptop to use as a navigation GPS if you have the appropriate software. I haven’t tried this yet as I already have an in car GPS unit so I don’t really have a need to do this but it’s a nice bonus. On the right side, there is a pass through port for the wired MC-DC2 remote release cable should you wish to use it and the GP-1 at the same time.
Nikon GP-1 currently goes for $210 on Amazon.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I recently purchased this item. It works ok, but is overpriced when compared to generic GPS systems that used the exact same chipset.
Now that is not why I am giving this product such a bad review. I am giving it a bad review because the design of this GPS when used with a Nikon D-90 was poorly done. It is not obvious from the stock images, but the cable for this GPS on the D-90 sticks out of the side of the camera at a 90 degree angle to the body. The plug head is about 3 inches long and it plugs into a very small port on the side of the camera. None of this would be a serious issue if you kept your camera on a tripod when you were shooting.
Unfortunately, most people that want to geotag photos want to do so because they are moving around. This means that the plug you need to use for the GPS on a D-90 is a large protruding item from the side of your camera that is likely to be bumped. In my case, being very careful to protect that plug from being bumped, it was still moved enough to damage my pretty new camera. This is clearly a case where the people designing the GPS cable didnt consider how the camera would be used for the accessory being sold.
Don’t buy this product unless Nikon changes the design. It is pretty expensive to start with and poses a real significant risk of damaging your camera with normal use.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Agree, without even testing it. I DID test alternatives though. In my last trip, I had set my Garmin to stamp a position every 30 seconds. I had it running for 10 hours, 20 days. Got thousands of stamps. Loaded that into Maperture and got the geotaggig I wanted, PLUS I got a beautiful trace of my travel, globally from Rome to Palermo, and also in detail through the streets of every village I visited.