Geotagging isn’t just for nerdy landscape photographers – it’s an extremely useful function on your X Series camera.
If you’re one of those people who likes to idly scroll through the menu systems on their camera, there’s a good chance you may have come across the geotagging option on your X Series model. It’s one of those features that you may swear by, or equally might struggle to see the benefits of, but we’d suggest it’s worth knowing its respective merits.
What Geotagging Is Useful For
The principle of geotagging is quite simple. When active, the geographical coordinates of a location where you capture photographs are added to the metadata of your images. This has a number of benefits, including being able to locate where you took a shot when you post the images to social media, as well as being able to find your way back to a spot that you’ve shot before. Similarly, when it comes to sorting or finding photographs in your image cataloging software, you can search by location tags.
Your X Series camera on its own doesn’t have the ability to add geotags, as it doesn’t have GPS built in. But your smartphone does, so you’ll need to get the two devices to talk to each other. Here’s how you do it using the free FUJIFILM Camera Remote app:
Linking a Bluetooth-Compatible X Series Camera
If you have one of the more recent X Series cameras that features always-on Bluetooth connectivity and you’ve paired your camera and smartphone already, the chances are geotagging is already active. One way to check is to open the app, then go back to your smartphone’s home screen and see if there’s a message stating the app is using your location. If that isn’t the case, do the following:
STEP 1 If you’ve previously paired the camera and smartphone, reset the connection by going to the SET UP menu, then choose CONNECTION SETTING > Bluetooth SETTINGS > DELETE PAIRING REG. and confirm that you wish to delete the pairing. If you’ve not paired the camera already, go straight to step two.
STEP 2 Start up the FUJIFILM Camera Remote app, add a new camera, and select your model from the drop-down menus. Once selected, click Proceed, and then select the camera in the list that appears. Location information will now be passed from phone to camera.
Linking a Non-Bluetooth X Series Camera
If your X Series camera has Wi-Fi but not Bluetooth, you have to do a little more:
STEP 1 Go to your camera’s SET UP menu and choose CONNECTION SETTING > GEOTAGGING SET-UP. Once in this menu, make sure both GEOTAGGING and LOCATION INFO are on.
STEP 2 You now need to wirelessly connect to your smartphone. To do this, press the camera’s WIRELESS COMMUNICATION button so it’s transmitting a Wi-Fi signal, then select the camera in your device’s Wi-Fi settings.
STEP 3 Start up the FUJIFILM Camera Remote app, connect to the camera, then tap on the Receive Location information tab. The device will quickly send the information to the camera.
STEP 4 You can now start shooting safe in the knowledge that the geotagging information is being stored in the metadata of each file.
Here’s the important bit. When you move to a new location, you need to remember to repeat this process, as the connection between camera and device isn’t permanent, unlike with Bluetooth. If you don’t resend the location device, the images will be geotagged to the original location.
So there you have it: geotagging in a nutshell. It may not be suitable for every type of photography, but we can see benefits for everyone from on-location portrait shooters to street photographers. Try it, you might like it!
Your Next Steps
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- CHALLENGE Connect your camera to your smartphone, turn on geotagging, and go out for a walk with your camera – the idea is to create a photo walk of your own, and share it online with the hashtags #MyFujifilmLegacy and #photowalk. You can also submit your work here for a chance to be featured on our social media channels.
- Header image © Jonathan Irish