GPS Receiver GPS-N-1 for Nikon D300, D700, D3, D2X, D2Xs, D2Hs, D200 and Fuji S5 Pro, is Pro, DSLR Digital SLR Cameras

I've owned a Nikon 200 for about three years and, when I purchased the camera, wanted a GPS unit to enable me to geolocate my photos. My first inclination was to purchase Nikon's unit but budget, distractions of life, and a few early reviews caused me to postpone that decision. When the notion recurred to me to purchase a GPS unit, one of the units that came up on the radar screen was the Promote Systems GPS-N-1. After reading through many reviews for different receivers, I decided to purchase this unit. It arrived within a week of my having placed the order (via Amazon).I live in Vienna, Virginia (about 20 miles outside of Washington, DC) and all of my tests to date have been positive. From a cold start, the unit generally acquires satellite lock within 30 seconds and will get more accurate as more time passes. The LAT/LON coordinates that it places into a photo's metadata fields are quite accurate. As it receives its power from the camera's battery, it will shortern the charge. However, my qualitative tests to date have not indicated that the load to the camera's battery is excessive. (The battery I am using in the camera is a Nikon EN-EL3e rechargeable Li-Ion.)Physically, the unit's case is made of durable plastic, and the mounting screw that secures it to the camera's hot-shoe, which does preclude use of the D200's pop-up flash is firm. A short cable connects this unit to the D200's 10-pin connector, and this is unobtrusive and does not interfere with shooting. The unit comes with a felt-type bag with drawstrings and easily fits into my camera bag, a LowePro Slingshot 200 AW.Operation has thus far been dependable and nearly transparent. If the unit continues to perform as it has, I will be very happy. The cost may, at first glance, appear to be a tad expensive. However, a serious photographer will likely consider the cost a worthwhile expenditure when considering what the unit provides. Overall, I would recommend this product (and have already done so) to my friends and associates.

I enjoy doing some photography when I travel someplace interesting, and I'd wanted one of these for a few years to use on my old faithful Nikon D300 to do a better job keeping track of where each photo was taken for reference later. This GPS receiver worked great for that, allowing me to mostly use my camera as I always had, but later be able to view the EXIF data on my Mac and easily bring up the location of any photo using Maps. There are a couple frustrating downsides to this device to keep in mind, which are fairly obvious from the design, however.1. It uses the hot shoe on the camera as a mount point which means you don't have it for an external flash or, more relevant to my landscape photography, a place to mount my 2-axis bubble level. A simple molded-in slot replicating the hot shoe on the top of the GPS receiver would solve the problem in at least for things like the bubble level.2. In addition to occupying the hot shoe, the receiver plugs into the remote terminal which means you also can't use a shutter release at the same time. If the cameras support it, adding a pass-through allowing a shutter release to be plugged in as well would help.

This is a rudimentary piece of "sony guts" kind of junk. A little overhead obstacle (tree/coud/roof of a car)And the item loses lock on the satellite . If you are locked, take a pic, walk for 30min and try to take another pic, you have to wait for the gps lock again because Promote was in standby mode and lost the gps. which in turn ruins your photo shooting experience especially if you are trying to make a trail of photo. You have to have the shutter button always half pressed for the device to keep its coordinates. I used to have a Solmeta before i broke it and it performed wayyyyy better. I could take pictures indoors and have a gps lock with solmeta. This one Promote... Not a chance.

I find it works intermittently. And I can't imagine why.

I was about to get Nikon's GP-1 GPS unit, but then saw this listed on Amazon in addition to reading the bad reviews on GP-1, and decided to go with it. I am glad I chose Promote.The initial location fix when I first connected everything was about a minute. Since then, it takes about 3-4 seconds when I turn on the camera.The initial fix was done on my patio, with the sky above me. Then it continued to work indoors. My portable car navigation system doesn't find any satellites when I bring it indoors, but this little unit does. Must be the new chipset in it. Yay!As the review title suggests, one little surprise was the clip that was in the box. In many reviews people were complaining about taking up the hotshoe space etc., and needing to come up with a DYI way of clipping the unit to the strap when flash was in use. Well, I just threaded the strap through the supplied clip, and the unit attaches to it like it goes onto the hotshoe, safe and secure. So, either people missed the small flat clip at the bottom of the product box, hidden UNDER the small manual, or this is something new that Promote started including. No matter what, it shouldn't be a concern anymore.This is now all working on my fresh new D3s. I have set my D3s to power the GPS at all times, instead of just during AF. But, the unit has its own on/off button, so I turn it off when I don't want it to draw power (like when I am at home shooting friends & family; I know what the inside of our house looks like without having the GPS data). Given the juice that is in the EN-EL4a, I am not worried.Highly recommended...