Geotagging Offset

[PhotoCruiser]

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I have now figured out how to make Geotagging work on my Q2, but yesterday i stumbled over another funny problem.

All the test photos i shot the days before, geotagging was in a circle of approx 10-15 yards
The photos i took yesterday are geotagged, but in the wrong place, 300 yard off on one serie of photos and 500 yards of the second series of photos.
I copied the coordinates in Google MAps and Google Earth and the coordinates are offset and always on the same place as shown in Lightroom.

I used also Google Maps to find some shops during my 8 mile bicycle ride thru Zurich i could not find any offset in Google Maps.

Thee are two explanations they come up:

1° my cellphone had a hickup with Leica Photos 2.1.0
2° Leica Fotos had a hickup because i left it on for almost 24 hours for test purposes, but the camera was switched off

Someone else had a similar issue?

[PhotoCruiser]

So i made yesterday some more tests as below shown, Q2 on Galaxy S20 Android phone

1st Photos @ 17:37 with 0 offest (when i started and connected leica Fotos)
2nd Photos @ 17:40 with approx 300 yard offset
3rd  Photos @ 17:48 with 400 yard offest
5th Photos at 18:03 with 200 yard offset
6th Photos at 19:06 with 2500 yards offset ( position was stuck at my parents house but photo was shot in a distant restaurant)

Position data from Lightroom Classic 9.2.1 of Windows
Map position verified with Google Earth, Google maps and Bing Maps to exclude that Lightroom is marking wrong position
Google Timeline is spot-on too
During ths trip i got several messages that Leica Fotos synched with the Camera, i guess it's the date/time but maybe it's the position???
Google Maps, Wayz works spot-on so the phone position is not the culprit
 

Chris

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[Jaskar]

I don’t know how geotagging works with the combination of Q2 and the Leica Photos app, but usually a wrong time stamp of a picture leads to a wrong geotag.

Does the Leica Photo app update the system time of the Q2? If not then make sure that the time on your Q is set correctly, preferably to the second. 

BTW, Lightroom uses the Googlemaps API, so there’s no use of double checking coordinates between them. 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Yes, before Fotos can get to geotagging, it passes the stage of sharing time and date stamps with any of the cameras it supports.  Of course, the camera must be set to acceptthis information from a smartphone.  The newer ones (Q2, SL2) have this as a default. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[scott kirkpatrick]

@PhotoCruiser your experiences show that Fotos + Leica firmware is vulnerable to supplying stale position data.  I have seen the same.  I don't know whether this is because the camera isn't able to get information from the phone after the shot and just uses old information (but keeps the GPS icon up), or the app in a sufficiently sleepy phone, deep in a pocket, doesn't bother to keep a current location in its buffer.  Is this only an Android problem?  Let's try to do experiments with more stimulated smart phones to see which to blame, camera or smartphone.

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb scott kirkpatrick:

Let's try to do experiments with more stimulated smart phones to see which to blame, camera or smartphone.

Yes, i will try another Android Phone,
but from the behavior from yesterday i guess that Leica Fotos is the culprit and get cached data instead of requesting the current location.
As this is a new function and i have also a new cellphone it is soemhow difficult to understand where the problem is.
Using another phone will show if the problem is phone and/or settings related or if the problem is i Leica Fotos.
The only thing what makes me think that it's te cellphone/seting is that until now i am the only person i know of having that problem.

Chris

[scott kirkpatrick]

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2 hours ago, PhotoCruiser said:

Yes, i will try another Android Phone,
but from the behavior from yesterday i guess that Leica Fotos is the culprit and get cached data instead of requesting the current location.
As this is a new function and i have also a new cellphone it is soemhow difficult to understand where the problem is.
Using another phone will show if the problem is phone and/or settings related or if the problem is i Leica Fotos.
The only thing what makes me think that it's te cellphone/seting is that until now i am the only person i know of having that problem.

Chris

Yes, keep trying.  Some have found that it didn't work and given up, which doesn't move us ahead.  My results vary a lot.  Sometimes when I get it working on one phone and then another the first one is now stuck...  But I do see sometimes successful, sometimes failed Geotagging.  So I'm trying to keep sufficiently detailed notes to suggest what the differences might be.

[lykaman]

I'm not going to spend anymore time the App, I'll use it for transferring when needed..  Canon have an App, it works easily and reliably on my 90D..    L

[scott kirkpatrick]

Today's quick experiment.  Shot a picture inside the house after waking up phone and camera. Placing Fotos on top.  Waited for GPS icon.  Went outside and took some more pics, after checking that Fotos was still on top.  Saw a new location.  Then put the phone in my pocket and did a chore, then picked up camera again and took 5-10 pictures while moving steadily around the neighborhood -- all geo-located where I first went outside, at least to the accuracy that Fotos displays.  I checked my phone's Google Map when I was about 50 meters from home, and it was correct, about 2 m north of my actual position, which is as good as the map is..  Sigh!

 

Fotos 2.1 android 9, Moto G7, SL2

Edited May 20, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb scott kirkpatrick:

I checked my phone's Google Map when I was about 50 meters from home, and it was correct, about 2 m north of my actual position, which is as good as the map is..  Sigh!

That are good news,
so i have to check my phone and settings to figure out why it makes this huge offset.

Did you et the camera sleep between the photos or did you switched her off?

Chris

[scott kirkpatrick]

I only took ten minutes for 10 pictures, and the camera was live the whole time.  The phone was asleep for the last spell of five minutes, where all the locations corresponded to the first picture I took after a short break.  Curiously, for that picture the location wasn't saved, but for the rest it was, unchanging.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I tried geologging again, this time using Fotos 2.1 on the iPad/iOS.  I carried my big iPad around outside the house and shot ten pictures in about 5 minutes, with the iPad live and Fotos active the whole time.  All the pictures had GPS information, and it changed from shot to shot, but it was not as accurate as the phone or ipad normally is when you run a map.  two shots were across the street 30 meters off to the side, others were closer.  But at least 10 m errors were common.

My Lumix S1R can do much better than this, and it is more or less the same bag of parts. Both the apple and Google maps are also more accurate.  This is still only beta behavior.

Edited May 22, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[scott kirkpatrick]

I repeated the geotagging test with an Android phone yesterday, and got the characteristic Android fail.  The GPS icon stayed lit.  I kept the camera mostly on, the phone mostly lit up, with Fotos on top.  I revisited the camera selection dialog where you click Always, and still all the frames were given the location at which I first registered the camera on Fotos, some days before.  

Both my iPad and my Android have accurate location information available, but Fotos is not getting it.  On Android not at all, and on iOS for some reason the information gets updated but is far from where the same device shows its location to a map app.  Well it's a beta, so let's do better in 2.2.

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

I've send my comments by email to app-support@leica-camera.com so that I could explain at greater length than the phone interface permits.  I hope any others with examples will do so as well.

[andrewj]

I have a similar issue.  This is using an iPhone and with the Leica Q2.  It seems that the GPS coordinates being recorded by the Fotos app do not seem as accurate as the coordinates in the pictures taken on the iPhone, as if there's an offset.  Which seems strange since the iPhone is the one that is providing the coordinates.  

[scott kirkpatrick]

1 hour ago, andrewj said:

I have a similar issue.  This is using an iPhone and with the Leica Q2.  It seems that the GPS coordinates being recorded by the Fotos app do not seem as accurate as the coordinates in the pictures taken on the iPhone, as if there's an offset.  Which seems strange since the iPhone is the one that is providing the coordinates.  

I found the offset quite erratic.  Gather some data and see what you find.  It's not as if the program uses old values, which were once valid.  I found locations that I had never visited.  And let Leica know.  I think they get very mixed input.    

Since there is a new product announcement this week, there could be a release of a FOTOS update as well..