Geotagging with a Nikon and SnapBridge

Scott

January 4, 2018

Carrying around a second GPS unit is now a thing of the past thanks to Nikon’s SnapBridge. The Bluetooth based system uses little energy and offers the ability to geotag any photographs captured by a SnapBridge enabled camera with no effort. Simply turn on the camera, open the app on your iOS or Android phone and let the magic happen.

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Tags: Nikon

Categories: Photography Education

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Comments

19 responses to “Geotagging with a Nikon and SnapBridge”

Henry

November 25, 2018

How can i geo tag my photography with Nikon D 5600 since it doesn’t come with in built geo tagging capability?

1. Scott
  
  November 26, 2018
  
  If your camera has access to SnapBridge, then you just use SnapBridge to geotag.
  
Thommy M. Malmström

February 28, 2019

My experience is that the D850 always looses contact with Snapbridge and it’s almost impossible to reconnect. Says “Waiting for Bluetooth connection. The camera is off”, which it isn’t.
My phone is an up to date Xperia XZ1.

Only way to reconnect is to remove the camera from Snapbridge and reconnect it. The it works for a few shots. As soon as I leave them for a few minutes the disconnect and won’t connect again.

1. Scott
  
  February 28, 2019
  
  I have WiFi connection problems a lot but never Bluetooth.
  
Steve

April 5, 2019

two questions:
1) is there an alternative to snapbridge
2) is geotagging continuous? ie. if I take a pic and walk a 100 yards will each pic have its own (different) location? I’ve read that it downloads a locate for use over the nest hour.

1. Scott
  
  April 8, 2019
  
  1. You can use a system like MIOPS but not live view. For that, you could use CamRanger.
  2. Yes, it is. There are multiple levels of precision.
  
Erik B

June 30, 2019

I have just bought a Z6 and connected it to my iPhone 6S using Snapbridge (accuracy set to Low). I do get geotagging/GPS-coordinates while I’m walking around in a large garden. However, the GPS coordinates jump all around me from picture to picture (some pretty accurate and the next one may be several 100 meters wrong). I also use my phone to plot itineraries when I don’t see this behaviour.
Any idea what might cause this?

1. Scott
  
  June 30, 2019
  
  My guess is because you have the accuracy set to low. In that setting, you need to move very far to see a location change. Low uses cell towers only for location, not actually GPS.
  
  1. Erik B
    
    July 16, 2019
    
    Hi Scott,
    Thanks for your response. I had lost your website URL so couldn’t check your answer. :-(
    
    Today I did a test. I walked for about 1 kilometer and recorded GPS locations in 3 ways: 1a) first half with iPhone/SnapBridge combination set to low; 1b) 2nd half with SnapBridge set to High and all the way I recorded my itinerary with an app on 2) my iPhone (MyTracks) and 3) a separate GPS data logger. Along the way I shot some 10-15 photo’s.
    
    I then created 3 sets of photos: one with GPS data stored by SnapBridge and exported/imported the GPS data from my iPhone and the data logger (used View NX-i to match the time/location data).
    For SnapBridge it did not matter whether the accuracy was set to High or Low … it was just hit and miss whether the location was accurate or not (although I didn’t see the huge deviations I had seen before on a longer trip).
    For both the iPhone app and the GPS data logger I could not see deviations of more than 1-2 meters (say about max 6 feet).
    
    I have been looking around to see whether others have similar experience but I have not come across this so far.
    
Gorazd

September 12, 2019

Hi! I just bought Coolpix A1000. Geotagging with SnapBridge is not working. On SnapBridge app I received location and is showed correctly. But images doesn’t have geotag.
Any hints what is wrong or is just bug?

1. Scott
  
  September 12, 2019
  
  I suggest contacting Nikon for assistance.
  
Martina

December 27, 2019

Hi Scott, all,
Does the Snapbridge App have to be actively opened in order to record location data? The app was running and I had the phone on me, but no location data is recorded in the pictures. The app told me a few times over the course of today that it was running in the background allowing location data to be collected, but there’s no geotag on the actual pictures :(. I have a few from the past few days with the location data, none whatsoever from today though.
Thanks!
Martina.

1. Scott
  
  December 30, 2019
  
  You will have to have the app open with background updating enabled. Otherwise, if the app is not in the foreground it won’t run. You likely need it to allow notifications too. Of course, it also needs access to wifi, cell and bluetooth features.
  
  1. David B
    
    March 22, 2020
    
    Also.. if the phone is an iPhone,you HAVE to make sure that the app is set to ALWAYS be allowed to use location setting. The other option is “WHEN USING THE APP” and if the app goes to the background then you aren’t “using the app” so then it won’t be allowed location data.
    
    1. Scott
      
      March 23, 2020
      
      I leave mine with allow when using the app and run in background turned on and it always tracks.
      
      1. Lawrence S. Rosenberg
        
        October 26, 2020
        
        Do you also have the “send while off” option enabled on your camera? I have found that GPS tagging only works when the app is active and the camera is on, and within range. (I’m using a Z6.) But to conserve battery, I set “send while off” to off. I also have the camera set to go into standby mode after 20 seconds, so the bottom line is that I can only get consistent GPS tagging under these specific conditions: app running, camera connected, camera on. Then it usually works.
      2. Scott
        
        October 27, 2020
        
        Yes, I have it set to keep sending even if the app is in the background (but still open). If you close the app completely then it won’t send the data.
Philip

August 25, 2021

Hello,
I have Nikon’s GP-1 gps dongle that I used with my DSLRs, but now that I’m using a Z5 I’d like to conserve its battery by using Snapbridge and bluetooth. However, for some reason my Z5 is just not talking to my iPhone 8 via Snapbridge. Maybe its something thats not possible on the Z5?

1. Scott
  
  August 25, 2021
  
  According to the Nikon specs, the Z5 should work with Snapbridge. Try contacting Nikon to see if they can help you get it set up.

Geotagging with a Nikon and SnapBridge

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