Nikon Mirrorless Z series users

Let's help each other to become better photographers and videographers. Tips and tricks for better photos, videos, timelapse etc. are welcome.
Post Reply
Brett
Posts: 5
Joined: January 11th, 2021, 4:16 pm

January 11th, 2021, 5:00 pm

I am a Z 6II user looking to other Nikon mirrorless users for their approach to using the Unleashed. I am interested in getting high quality location data all the time, as well as remote image taking on occasion. I currently use U1 for aperture based, single spot AF, landscape photography; and U2 for shutter priority action photography. Wanting to preserve battery in these modes, both displays are set to shutdown quickly when not in use. This is of course a problem for Unleashed.

What settings do you use with Unleashed on your Nikon Z camera to optimize it’s abilities?
Andy
Posts: 225
Joined: October 4th, 2018, 4:18 pm

January 11th, 2021, 5:26 pm

Turning the displays off shouldn't be a problem for the Unleashed. What problems are you experiencing?
Andy
Firmware developer at Foolography
Brett
Posts: 5
Joined: January 11th, 2021, 4:16 pm

January 13th, 2021, 3:02 am

Andy,

One of the issues I am experiencing is that when the display sleeps the app reacts as if it no longer has control - the various settings except for GPS all show “slashed circle” in the lower right corner. The camera will not fire in this mode but it can be reawakened by tapping a setting like “Av” in the app.

Thanks,
Brett
Andy
Posts: 225
Joined: October 4th, 2018, 4:18 pm

January 13th, 2021, 12:06 pm

That's not a bug, that's a feature. The Unleashed will let the camera go to sleep to save power if there is nothing going on at the moment. As you mentioned, you can tell the Unleashed that you want to use it again just by tapping on a setting again.

We will soon introduce a feature that will allow you to adjust how long should the Unleashed continue to talk to the camera before letting it go to sleep. As mentioned, the longer this takes, the more the battery will be drained.
Andy
Firmware developer at Foolography
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

January 13th, 2021, 3:01 pm

Also: if you're interested in geotagging your photos, that happens independently of all the settings. even with the app in the background it will continue to provide GPS data to the Unleashed and the Unleashed to your camera.

If you want really high quality position data, and you find the phone's location lacking, you can always buy a dedicated GPS receiver taht can be paired directly with the Unleashed. See our Blogpost about this:

https://www.foolography.com/2019/11/28/ ... unleashed/
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
User avatar
ErnstW
Posts: 1
Joined: April 22nd, 2021, 11:44 am

April 22nd, 2021, 12:34 pm

Onother Nikon Z user here. ;)

Regarding GPS tracking: I have read the linked blog post and found only a very low number of trackers from over all three brands working with Unleashed. I would have to buy a new one for this reason although I have some Solmetas (Geotagger Pro 2 und GMAX) in my pocket which would support Bluetooth.

Okay, to answer the questions before you ask:

1. I am working with an iPhone 8 plus too but it delivers sometimes datas far away from the truth. Up to 400m distance between the location and written GPS datas.
2. I would like to avoid those monsters like GMAX & Co. on top of cameras. It's always a risk for camera and tracker.
3. I would like to use more than one camera with one tracker. Best would be one tracker and three cameras (each with an Unleashed pluged in) at the same time working, so that my wife and I could work with different cameras at same location at the same time.
Best regards
Ernst
Andy
Posts: 225
Joined: October 4th, 2018, 4:18 pm

April 22nd, 2021, 5:39 pm

Hi Ernst,

I'm not sure if I got your question correctly, but it seems you are asking for a method to have a single GPS device provide data for 3 cameras at the same time?

The only way to achieve this at the moment is by having a phone being the single data source for all 3 Unleasheds. That means that you need to pair all Unleasheds to the same phone. If you are concerned about the GPS quality of your phone, you can get a GPS tracker that can connect to your phone. In that way, the GPS tracker should override the GPS data that the phone is providing to the Unleasheds.

Unfortunately, having a single GPS tracker provide data for multiple Unleasheds directly is not possible as far as I know. This is not a limitation of the Unleashed, but rather of the GPS trackers that usually just accept a single Bluetooth connection, i.e. once you connect the tracker to one device, you can't connect it to another unless you disconnect from the current device first.
Andy
Firmware developer at Foolography
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

April 23rd, 2021, 10:52 am

As Andy mentioned, the GPS devices we currently support all just accept one connection at a time. I can try to reach out to the Manufacturers to see if you might be interested in adding support to accept multiple connections. It should not be a huge problem for them to implement, unless they have some hardware restrictions.

That said, you can connect multiple Unleasheds with one phone and have that provide you with GPS data. In addition, you can pair a single iOS compatible GPS device with your phone, which would provide higher precision GPS data to your phone, and therefore indirectly provide it to the Unleasheds. This could be a Bad Elf GPS Pro/Pro+, or GNS 2000 or 3000, or a Dual GPS. There might be others, but these three Brands came to mind.

I hope that helps!
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
Post Reply