The LUMIX S5 and G9PROII that I use as my main cameras do not have GPS.
Therefore, if I want to write geotags (location information) into the EXIF of the photos I take, I need to do some additional work to get the necessary information from my smartphone.
This is not just the case with LUMIX, but I think it is becoming a common practice for users of all brands, as you don’t see many digital SLRs with GPS these days.
I tried it several times with the PENTAX KP and K-3III, but the official smartphone app is difficult to use (that’s my excuse), and I didn’t have the patience to learn the basic operations.
I haven’t used the official LUMIX app LUMIX Sync with my smartphone yet, but I’m curious to know what it’s like.
It was about time to give it a try, so the recent photo shoot at the Kominato Railway in Chiba was the perfect opportunity to try out geotagging.
There’s nothing difficult about setting up the equipment, as long as you’ve already paired your smartphone (LUMIX Sync) and camera via Bluetooth. Then, on location,
・Camera: Bluetooth ON + Location information recording ON
・Smartphone: LUMIX Sync activated
and it will automatically connect and start recording. You don’t need to keep LUMIX Sync active, and as long as you don’t force it to close, it will continue to run in the background even if your smartphone is asleep, so you don’t need to worry.
And now for the results. 
The geotags written in the photo data I took were read using a Windows app called GeoPhoto and mapped. They were recorded properly!
The display position is quite rough in this, so I’ll zoom in further on the area around Itabu Station, the second place of the four.
The identification of the location has become much more detailed. For example, one of the 12 shots taken along the top of the tracks looks like this
The difference in the location of the 99 shots taken facing the other way around near the level crossing about 15 meters to the south of this one can be identified, so the GPS accuracy of my Android smartphone, which is not exactly a high-end model, is not to be underestimated.
By the way, while looking at the data in a little more detail, I noticed that some of the photo data had missed being geotagged.
Why?
After thinking about it while trying to remember, and then actually trying it out by putting the camera and smartphone next to me and operating them, I found that this system has the following weaknesses.
When you turn the camera off to save battery power while you’re on the move, the connection is cut (this is unavoidable). Then, when you turn it back on again, the connection is automatically restored, but there is a slight time lag. Until the connection is restored, there is a blank period of time when the camera cannot obtain location information, which is about 10 to 15 seconds.
As I’m a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to conserving battery power, I often turn the power off quite frequently, and when I want to take a photo afterwards, I often just turn it back on and take the photo straight away, rather than waiting the 10 seconds. This is apparently the cause of the mass production of photos without location information.
To avoid this, it is recommended that you “turn the power on in advance in places where you might take a photo” and “count to 10 slowly after turning the power on before taking a photo”, but it may not be easy to change ingrained habits and bad habits. Hmmm.
So, the conclusion is that the geotagging function of the LUMIX is fully usable, but you need to be careful about the time lag after turning the camera off, and it is quite troublesome.
