You know what they say, good things are worth waiting for. Being one of the first to connect a Garmin 1+ migrating to the 5+, then one of the first with the Di-GPS, embedding Lat/Long in my metadata has been a priority in my photography.
When Nikon finally came out with their own unit, I was quite excited to get the integration. The first thing that impressed me about the GP-1 is its size, it’s much smaller than I thought it would be. As you can see here, it’s much smaller than the prism of the D3. At first I thought the cord was a bit too long for my taste. Once I attached it to the camera and put one loop in it, the stiffness of the cord took care of the length problem. Nikon includes with the GP-1 the GP1-CL1 which is a cool clip that securely goes onto your camera strap so you can attach the GP-1 there rather than the hot shoe. That’s pretty cool.
The next thing you’ll notice is there is no On/Off switch on the GP-1. It turns on and off via the camera’s actuation. With your GPS Auto meter off Enabled in the settings for the camera, you conserve battery power but you must make sure the GPS icon appears in the camera’s LCD prior to shooting to record the GPS info.
The GP-1 has a red light (means no satellite signal) and green light (blinking means 3 sates, solid green means 4 or more sates found). If you have a red light on the back, no GPS data will be recorded; a green light, good to go. I have to admit, I’m impressed by the GP-1’s speed of acquisition as well as ability. I’m sitting at my desk in the corner of our office and while the other GPS units I have cannot find a signal, the GP-1 has blinking green light in 5secs, a solid green light within 15secs.
Now here’s the ticker to me. I was hoping 1 of the 3 connectors seen in the original product shots from Nikon, one would turn out to be a connector for the MC-36 remote. Nope, that’s not the case. You need to buy the MC-DC2 remote to use the GP-1 and remote at the same time. Even with this little goofy, the GP-1 is by far the best GPS unit I’ve have for my cameras in 30yrs so I’m quite pleased to finally have it.
Moose Peterson
http://www.moosenewsblog.com/
(Via D-Town TV | The Weekly Show for Nikon DSLR Users.)
