Aokatec GPS

Culagh

Senior Member
Thought this might be of interest to some of you. I recently looked at GPS equipment and settled for a Aokatec AK-G2 as it was reasonably priced at $44.91/£26.39 and there are no trailing wire to bother about, as it connects directly to my D3100. It comes from China (what doesn't) and the instructions are a bit difficult to understand but just ignore these as all you need to do is plug it in turn it on and let it find the satellites. Here's a pic showing how small it is. IMG_20140622_152353706.jpg
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
I love their devices. I used a AK- 4NⅡ with my D300. I upgraded to an AK-4NIII for my D800 as the shape is just different enough between the two bodies to not work.

Here is a video overview of how it works for anyone considering this great GPS solution.

 

Culagh

Senior Member
Further to my original posting another benefit of buying the Aokatec GPS is that it has an additional socket to allow you to attach a wired Shutter Release Switch. Ironically the one recommended for my Aokatec GPS was For a canon camera and cost the massive sum of £2.89 , great for selfies:cool:
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
The thing that seems to me to be a big weakness with all the GPS systems I've seen for these cameras, including Nikon's own GP-1/GP-1a; is that you have a connector sticking far enough off the side of the camera that it poses a hazard that it could catch on something, and result in damage to the connector on the camera.

This unit in the OP doesn't solve this problem; in fact, it seems to make it worse. Instead of just a connector and a wire sticking out, you've got the whole GPS unit inflexibly hanging off that connector.

It seems that the real solution would be some sort of compact right-angle connector on the end of the cable that plugs into the camera, so that the connector and wire do not stick out to the side. Why hasn't anyone come out with that?
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
The thing that seems to me to be a big weakness with all the GPS systems I've seen for these cameras, including Nikon's own GP-1/GP-1a; is that you have a connector sticking far enough off the side of the camera that it poses a hazard that it could catch on something, and result in damage to the connector on the camera.

One of the real advantages of the pro-bodies (D300, D700, D3, etc.) is that they have the 10-pin connecter in the front. That makes the small bluetooth device pretty unobtrusive.

AK4NIII-3.JPG
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
In the mean time, I've taken an entirely different approach, now.

When I'm out on an excursion on which I expect to take pictures, I run Ultra GPS Logger on my cell phone, to create a record of everywhere I've been.

When I get home, and transfer the pictures from my camera and the navigation log files from my phone, all to my PC, I have a batch file that I run that uses EXIFTOOL to geotag all the pictures according to where I was at the time they were taken.

While the GPS device that I have to connect directly to my camera only supports GPS, my cell phone supports GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou. This gets me a faster fix and a more accurate position than GPS alone.

Also, my dedicated GPS device for my camera horrendously drains the camera battery, while my cell phone seems to hold up much better using its built-in satellite navigation system.


I know that my phone routinely receives GPS, GLONASS, and one other system. Alas, the developer behind this app seems to be no more, and the documentation now unavailable, but before it went away, I knew that the circles on this display represent GPS satellites, and the squares represent GLONASS satellites. I don't know what the + signs represent, but surely they are either Galileo or BeiDou.

2023-05-22 17.17.46.jpg


The GPS device that hooks directly to the camera would be nice, if it worked much better, didn't drain the battery so badly, and didn't, and didn't have the connector sticking hazardously out. It'd be nice to have the file come right off the camera already properly geotagged, without having to take a separate step later to apply the geotagging.

But in the end, the method that I am using now, just works much better.
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard AndrewJennings, enjoy the ride. We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

You might also want to consider introducing yourself on New Member Introductions.
 
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