FOTOS geotagging actually working seamlessly?

[beewee]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I’ve been vocal and critical in the past about the usability of the FOTOS geotagging feature. I did however noticed that with the latest SL2-S v5.1 firmware update in combination with the latest FOTOs app update on iOS (v3.3.7), the geotagging seems to actually be working very well in the background when I set Geotagging to Always and Precise Location is enabled for the app. I haven’t tried testing other options so I can’t speak for other configuration.

What I’ve been noticing recently is that, even when FOTOS app is not running, my SL2-S is still able to connect to my phone in the background and get location information. It also seems to be quite stable, as long as the camera stays on. I haven’t tested to see what happens when he camera goes on standby and how long it takes to get location updates after waking up. However, I can say that while doing some testing where my camera was on for 2+hrs and I was taking photos every few seconds, all my photos had geotagged locations which is a nice change.

I’m wondering if anyone have noticed such improvements, especially on other cameras such as the Q2 or M11.

Edited May 10, 2023 by beewee

[elmars]

I have. It is a silent improvement. 

[beewee]

I’ve been doing more testing with the SL2-S geotagging w/ the iPhone 14 Pro. Took it on a hike today and I’m very happy to report that geotagging is finally working as one would hope, seamlessly in the background. Even when you have the camera go to sleep. It reconnects automatically when you wake up the camera and it’ll get the correct location when you take a photo periodically.

Thank you Leica for listening to my complaints and suggestions!

[M11 for me]

A disappointment on my side: I had the M11 with me yesterday and the iPhone in my pocket (the Leica Photos App was open which should even not be needed). When I loaded my pictures into LR then I realised that all my photographs had one single GEO-tag: The tag from my home 🥵.

No idea why that was. I even payed attention that the M11 showed the black tagging icon and also the bluetooth icon.

[beewee]

6 hours ago, M11 for me said:

A disappointment on my side: I had the M11 with me yesterday and the iPhone in my pocket (the Leica Photos App was open which should even not be needed). When I loaded my pictures into LR then I realised that all my photographs had one single GEO-tag: The tag from my home 🥵.

No idea why that was. I even payed attention that the M11 showed the black tagging icon and also the bluetooth icon.

Are you on the latest version of iOS (16.5), FOTOS app (3.3.7), and M11 firmware (1.6.1)? Also which iPhone are you using? Have you tried deleting the connection profile on both the camera and the FOTOs app, and then setting it up again? Also, are you setting geotagging to be ‘Always’ available?

It’s not clear to me if the improvement was coming from the FOTOS app, iOS update, camera firmware, or a combination of these. I’ve noticed the improvement in geotagging only a couple weeks ago. Probably around the time of the v5.1 firmware for the SL2-S. Perhaps the M11 will have the same improvements in the next firmware update if it’s not yet addressed in v1.6.1.

One thing to note as well is that the bluetooth radio on the SL2/SL2-S is different then on the M11 so if it’s something that needs to be fixed in the radio firmware, it may take Leica some time to address it on the M11. Hopefully they will have this working properly from the get go on the Q3.

I’ve only come across one instance so far where the location used for a photo was not correct (my home instead of the correct location) when I had the camera turned off overnight and I took a photo soon after turning on the camera. But all subsequent photos were tagged with the correct location.

From what I can tell, it seems Leica has made a number of improvements:

• Connectivity between camera and phone has been greatly improved, even if FOTOs is running in the background and I don’t need to bring the FOTOs app to the foreground
• Quick reconnection after camera going to sleep has been fixed
• I no longer see the ‘satellite’ icon on the SL2-S display, I only see the location pin icon
• FOTOs app only uses the iOS core location framework when it has connectivity to the camera, if there’s no camera connected, it will not use location services to save power
• When FOTOS is running in the background without connectivity to the camera, it has almost no impact on the phone’s battery life
• When FOTOS is running in the background with camera connectivity and is providing location info to the camera for geotagging, battery consumption is around 7% per hour on the iPhone 14 Pro but this is only when the camera and phone have an active connection. If the camera goes to sleep, connection is closed and phone battery consumption drops to a point where it pretty much has no impact on the phone’s battery life

[M11 for me]

Thank you. Great explanation. 

vor 12 Minuten schrieb beewee:

Have you tried deleting the connection profile on both the camera and the FOTOs app, and then setting it up again?

Yes i have done that incl. the deletion of the M11 under Bluetooth on my iPhone 13 Mini plus the deletion of the iPhone on the camera side. 

Will test again asap.

All latest Software installed.

Edited May 22, 2023 by M11 for me

[beewee]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

12 minutes ago, M11 for me said:

Thank you. Great explanation. 

Yes i have done that incl. the deletion of the M11 under Bluetooth on my iPhone 13 Mini plus the deletion of the iPhone on the camera side. 

Will test again asap.

All latest Software installed.

One last thing to try if above fails is to do a factory reset of the camera. I ran into a similar issue in the past on the SL2-S where there were some reported improvements made where other people on the forum here with the exact same setup were seeing the improvements but I was not able to replicate the improvement until I fully reset the camera. It was very strange because even a firmware update didn’t help in my case but once I reset the camera, things were working well.

[beewee]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:06 AM, M11 for me said:

Thank you. Great explanation. 

Yes i have done that incl. the deletion of the M11 under Bluetooth on my iPhone 13 Mini plus the deletion of the iPhone on the camera side. 

Will test again asap.

All latest Software installed.

Leica FOTOS 4.0 for iOS release notes mention improved geotagging accuracy for M11 and Q3.

[Wellsyboy]

On 5/25/2023 at 8:03 PM, beewee said:

Leica FOTOS 4.0 for iOS release notes mention improved geotagging accuracy for M11 and Q3.

I don't seem to be able to set up geotagging for my Q3