Canon GPS Receiver GP-E2

2022-07-11T20:00:00

I bought my unit in 2013, so I've been using it for almost 10 years. It worked very well until it didn't. One day recently (at Machu Picchu no less! it just stopped inputting the data into my R5. It looked like it was working (GPS signal indicators including the viewfinder "GPS" light all were working) but there was no data input into the EXIF file! Upon returning home and checking it out with a 5DMKIII, I found the same issue, so it was the unit. Sent it in to Canon. A few days later I got it back, and was disappointed by the short note from Canon, "...it is a non-repairable item...we are returning it." That was it. Nothing. No explanation. Upon further investigation, it seems this product is warranted for a year, and after that, if it breaks, you just have to buy a new one! That's it. I've used it for almost 10 years, so I can attest to the reliability and to some extent, durability, under moderate use conditions. I understand that circuit boards - which make up probably 95% of this thing - just "up and die." That?s the nature of it. So, I will buy another one. This review is based on my decade of moderate use. I was going to ding it a star based on Canon's lousy support, but that's a different issue, not product-related. Battery life on this thing is terrific. I turn it on before I arrive at my location and leave it on all day until I return ?home?. The battery under those conditions will last probably 2, maybe 3 days. It's much easier just to leave this on than to continually turn it on, off, then on and wait for it to connect, then shoot. Leaving it on all the time means it?s ready to go when you pull out your gear and press the shutter. Of course, using a rechargeable battery is the way to go with this unit. That way you are not adding batteries to the landfill. While this unit can be used off the hot shoe, 95% of the time it?s best to just mount it on the hot-shoe. No extra dongles/wires are required. There may be some occasions where you are using an on-camera flash, or a wireless trigger AND you want to use a GPS, but that would really be for special outdoor situations most photographers won't encounter very often. There is a backup option, btw, which you can use to connect your smartphone to some of the newer Canon cameras (like the R-series) via a poorly-rated Canon App (CanonConnect) from the App Store. It works, but you would be relying on a cell phone company and your cell phone?s GPS triangular system rather than the satellite GPS of this GP-E2 unit. I have found that the iPhone is not as accurate (putting me in my neighbor?s house 2 houses down instead of my back yard!) but, if this unit fails in the field, such as mine did, keep this in mind as it?s helpful in a pinch (So download the app now, as a back up, and learn how to use it.) When you are traveling internationally, you don?t need anything except this unit to record very accurate GPS info. Having the GPS data for every image, if you haven?t been doing this, is one of those ?I can?t believe I haven?t done this before? scenarios. It gives your images, especially those taken outdoors, an important added dimension to know EXACTLY where you took it, not just ?Yosemite National Park??

icannotusemyownnametwice

Originally posted at

2021-10-31T13:53:38

Easy to use and gives me exactly the info I need when reviewing many photos across several countries. I don't need to ask the question, where was this? Of course I would prefer if Geotagging was built into the R5, but this works well.

TOM L.

2021-06-20T09:08:53

My initial impression is that it works fine and does what I need it to do. It uses your hot shoe, but that shouldn?t be an issue for most folks (how often do you use both a flash and a GPS receiver?) The main criticism is against the Canon R5, which does not have that capability in a $4K camera, but this works fine on that camera, so look at it as a GPS surcharge.

David M.

2021-06-16T05:24:46

Good receiver. Seems to have no trouble getting a signal and recording consistent positions. The cables that come with it do not work on my PC which has only a USB-C port. Had to get USB-C to micro-USB. They are necessary for doing firmware updates, although after checking I found my unit had shipped with the most recent one and, for now, I didn't have to do an update. It's a shame that the new R5 and R6 do not come with GPS in them.

SIMON B.

2021-05-15T04:08:59

It works as advertised and it loads onto the Map in Lightroom. It displays longitude and Latitude so is easily placed on other mapping sites.

David F.

2020-11-16T19:00:00

I've had this for 7 years now and it works reliably. The single AA battery lasts for a long time - days - as I usually leave it on while shooting and event packing away while moving from one site to another for logging the entire trip. This works with many Canon camera models and now the new R5 also uses it, so unlike batteries that seem to be different for each model, this can be used across a wide spectrum of models. I use it with a rechargeable battery. No complaints.

Gary M.

Originally posted at

2020-02-05T04:45:08

I was disappointed with the complexity of having my iPhone talk to my EOS R for GPS. This device, though a bit dear locks on the flash shoe and sends GPS information with each press of the shutter button. The device also allows for storage of the route you have traveled, nice touch.

JOHN A.

2019-12-13T19:00:00

I bought my first GP-2E 2 years ago. I worked well for 18 months. Two months ago I bought a replacement. It quit working 1 week later. I returned it and bought another. It worked well for 2 weeks. Then in the middle of Australia with no tall buildings, etc., to obscure the sky, it quit syncing to a GPS signal. A few days later, in the middle of the Hong Kong high rise buildings, it worked better than expected. There is something flawed in the product. When the first GP-2E failed, I called Canon service. The rep did not even know Canon offered the product. The solution offered was to buy a replacement. Now I am faced with out of date Canon software that will not work with the latest version of Mac OS. I expect Canon will not upgrade their software. Since the GP-E2 has been out of stock for stock on their website for months, I expect the product is being discontinued.

Neighbourlarry

Originally posted at

2019-10-07T06:12:08

I can't believe this functionality is still not built in as a standard feature on all tiers of DSLR cameras. The chips are small and inexpensive. That said, this unit is hit and miss. Signal and GPS lock-in: Slow to get coordinates when first turned on (compared to my phone and stand-alone GPS). When it does lock on to a signal it seems accurate, however my stand-alone GPS maintains signal more reliably and regains signal quicker when transitioning if I lose signal. I find it is best to turn it on, in a good reception area, 10 min before you need it and leave it on until you are done for the day. Bulky: The unit is bulky and must be removed if I want to put my camera in my holster bag. My recommendation for most people would be to spend the money on a stand-alone GPS unit. the only feature you will miss is the automatic photo tagging at time of capture. Garmin (not sure about other manufacturers) software will automatically merge the GPS log into the photos metadata. Lightroom and other image cataloging software will also merge the gps log so you really aren't loosing anything except a little extra time. If you can afford it, get both, because I guarantee the GP-E2 will lose signal and you will be thankful you had the more reliable GPS.

Corey R.

2019-07-05T08:35:21

In the past I have been using my phone to coordinate locations of my landscape photography. That process is somewhat problematic because you have to remember to take a cell phone picture and then cross reference that information with your SLR image files when you get home. Having the GPS on camera is really nice. I did need to update my camera, EOS 5Ds r, firmware to recognize the GPS unit but that process went smoothly. The unit works well and is fast so I had no problems in the field. All in all, it is a time saver and I would buy it again.

RONALD S.

2019-06-27T18:42:06

Works as advertised. Quick to lock in the location and seamlessly adds the data to the metadata.

DOUGLAS P.

2019-05-01T14:10:26

Works exactly as advertised. Many options in a tracker. A little expensive but true Japanese quality.

Lloyd f.

2019-01-10T19:00:00

Many times I travel to locations not served by cell towers -- thus my phone is no longer capable of GPS geotagging. Satellite service is still available so this device works flawlessly. The EOS R works very well with GP-E2 with a minor exception - the direction is not recorded in the EXIF (no big deal, all I want is location! The "Map Utility" may be hard to download since the website does not yet support the very latest versions of Mac OS -- just over-ride the OS version to the previous (supported) version! The GPS log function works as advertised, just be aware that the output is in Google Maps format Lightroom uses the more common GPX format but there are web based converters. With these logs, you might be able to geotag your phone pictures as well in non-Canon software. If you want GPS location info, this is far better than trying to cut from phone images and paste into Canon images.

SonomaBear

Originally posted at

2018-09-21T07:59:08

Works really good. Just what I wanted.

MIKE B.

2017-08-17T08:59:21

I needed to add GPS coordinates to my metadata for an assignment. It worked well with my 5D Mark III. Kudos to Adorama for delivering it two days before the estimated arrival time!

NATALIE F.

2017-01-08T19:00:00

This unit comes with a decent software package but one very import thing is missing. It does not use or have the option to use UTM, which most mapping is using now. Lat and long haven't been in favor for some time now, at least 10 years so it would be nice if Canon offered this in the FW, etc.

John8

Originally posted at

2016-11-16T11:01:05

With the Canon GP-2E GPS receiver, I no longer have to remember to log the location of my shots while traveling. The very accurate Lat/Lon is embedded with the photograph details. I use it both on my Canon EOS 5D Mark III and my EOS 5Ds.

Dennis K.

2016-07-05T19:19:05

This is the one to get. It quickly connects and stays connected even under some foliage. Has its own battery so doesn't run down the camera battery.

Theron W.

2016-06-16T08:26:03

The software is not very good and it would only run for 4 hours on a new battery. Sometime is would not show and GPS signal for hours even though it was out doors.

MARK B.

2016-03-26T20:00:00

Support for Map Utility i non-existant. 11 charcters too short!

SEH

Originally posted at

2016-01-27T14:10:50

This device is used with a Canon 5DS R and works just fine, recording all GPS data that are needed: longitude, latitude, altitude and direction. It also provides tracks if needed. Shooting mostly landscape, I do not mind the hot shoe being used by the GP-E2 as i rarely need a flash during my work. The accuracy is pretty good, not worse than what was provided by other GPS devices I owned. The greatest advantage as far as I'm concerned is that all those data are added directly to the Metadata. No more additional software to download the data to the computer in order to add them to the pictures in Lightroom. I was using a good little device called the GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr, but that company stopped developing GPS units and they sold the software to another company, and they apparently stopped updating it. That software is now only partly compatible with Mac OS 10.11 and the device has become useless. With this Canon GPS we should be able to use it for a long time as it is from the same company that's providing our cameras. The one thing I may hold against it is the price, but the value may be better if it remains compatible with my equipment for years to come. If you can afford it and if you are looking at something that should remain compatible with your Canon camera, I would definitely recommend it.

Pascal D.

2015-12-15T19:03:36

Compared to iPhone 5S the GP-E2 is very disappointing; it is slow to acquire satellites, often failing to find location at all. For best results use only fresh alkaline battteries, never NiMnH and keep to top of the device facing up (easier said than done). If the camera hangs in a lens-down position, the camera-mounted GPS apparently cannot see the satellites. Used this device in Hawaii, western U.S. and South America with the same disappointing results.

MICHAEL C.

2015-12-11T08:58:34

I do allot of international travel and used to write notes in a little pad. I first used other gps units but they required special software and a import specific process. The GP-E2 writes directly to the image Metadata and I use Lightroom to get location and details from Google Earth. I you move from place to place shooting travel photography, this is a must have.

GREGORY S.

2015-09-08T21:00:00

IF this one is as good as the first purchased I'll be very happy. The first one I took to India which I had never been to. I traveled most of the time in someone elses transportation. About the only thing I really knew was that I was going in one of the directions according to my compass. But when I got home and entered my photos from my Canon EOS 70D camera, I could see exactly where I was traveling. How many pictures I took, what my cordinates were, elevation, time and date. As I zoomed in on the map more information was revealed. I was very pleased just how close to the exact spot I took the pictures were. I atribute that to taking the GPS out into a very open lot to do the locking in of those cordinates.

DON F.

2014-02-11T19:00:00

I bought the GP-E2 used. It didn't have the two cords to connect to the camera . The major failure was the lack of the Map Utility disc. That made the device useless. So back it went. Would't have bought it if the web description had stated that the Map Utility wasn't present.

NORMAN S.

2013-11-02T20:00:00

Just purchased the 70D with the GPS-E2. Works great without the need to use the cable to the USB port. The only disappointment is that you need to remove the GPS for the pop-up flash to pop-up.

Hipshot

Originally posted at

2013-09-15T21:00:00

I use the GP-E2 with my new Canon 70D Camera. It can be shoe-mounted, placed in a AB-E1 Bracket attached to the camera (and connected with an interface cord which is provided with the GP-E2), or worn in a pouch on your belt (and connected with a longer interface cable also provided with the GP-E2). I don't use all the features. I am mostly interested in tagging my photos with GPS location data. In my limited experience with the unit, I find it to be quite accurate. It is small, which I like very much. If I had a complaint, it would be that the pouch (for wearing the unit on a Belt) is a real tight fit.

Ed

2013-05-17T20:00:00

The receiver looks like a small space starship once mounted on my Canon 5D Mark III. Works nicely and easily. Sometimes connecting to the GPS takes 2-3 minutes, but cannot indicate in which conditions it is much slower than the norm. Having pictures tagged with all coordinates is a very nice feature to have, primarily went in urban areas or in the wilderness. Actually, it is useful everywhere. Always travel with spare batteries just in case. Forgot to turn it off only the first time: lesson learnt.

smaruzzi

Originally posted at

2013-04-05T21:00:00

I highly useful product for travel photography, and features great integration with the 5D mark III - no external cables required. Very fast signal acquisition, and very accurate and reliable location tracking. A little on the pricey side, but significantly better than the similar offerings from Nikon and the multitude of no-name GPS products out there.

Images W.

2013-03-11T21:00:00

I have used this product in Europe and in the USA and it tags the raw files perfectly. It is relatively light weight and small and picks up signals very well, even in remote locations. Nice integration with Lightroom and great battery life. I like that is uses a AA battery, which I can pick up anywhere. I just wish the camera had this unit built into it, rather than being an expensive add-on!

TERRY A.