Camera Connect App User Guide

[npsit]

Where is the User Guide for the Camera Connect App? Also, why doesn't his app transfer images with the location information?

That being said, I have successfully installed and used the app with my G7X. My informal User Guide for using this app is as follows. Any suggested "improvements" to this guide would be appreciated.

Getting Started and 1st Time Connecting

1. Install the "Canon Camera Connect" app on your smartphone.
2. On your camera in the "Change Camera Settings" Menu, select "Wi-Fi Settings"

• Select "Reset Settings" to set the Wi-Fi settings to the default. (I suggest this just to make sure all settings are cleared).
• Turn Password to "On" (if desired).
• Select "Change Device Nickname" and enter a name for your camera, i.e., “My Camera”.
• Exit Camera Settings menu.

1. Close the Camera Connect app if it is still open on your smartphone.
2. Press the "Mobile Device Connect" button on camera.
3. Register a designation for one-touch connection by selecting smartphone symbol.
4. On your smartphone, go to Wi-Fi settings and select the Canon Wi-Fi SSID hotspot from list.
5. Using the password displayed on the camera, enter the password on your phone's Wi-Fi setting (if password is turned on in item 2 above).
6. Be patient waiting for camera/phone to make a Wi-Fi connection.
7. Once connected, launch Camera Connect app on your smartphone. Note:Things seem to work best if you launch the app after you have connected to the camera Wi-Fi.
8. Select your device on the camera,i.e., "iPhone" in my case.
9. If everything is connected properly, the smartphone app should show your camera's name at the bottom of the app screen (Success!). Note: if you press the ON/OFF button on your camera, the connection will be lost. Now you should now only work within the phone app.After you have completed the Getting Started steps above, in the future you only need to do the following steps to use Camera Connect.

Connecting to Camera

1. Close Canon Camera Connect app if it is still open on your smartphone.
2. Press "Mobile Device Connect" button on camera.
3. Using your smartphone, go to Wi-Fi settings and select the Canon Wi-Fi SSID hotspot.
4. Once connected, launch Camera Connect app on your smartphone. Note: It seems that things work best when you launch the app after you have connected to camera Wi-Fi.
5. The camera/phone should automatically connect.Camera Connect has three button options, “Images on camera”, “Remote Shooting”, and “Location information”.Images on camera
6. Use this selection to transfer images from the camera to your phone.

Using the Camera Connect App

1. Connect the camera to your phone and launch Camera Connect app.
2. Select “Images on camera” button on the app.
3. Camera images will be displayed on the phone. Note: If you have added location information to photos, a small satellite symbol will be displayed in the top left corner of each photo that has gps data attached.
4. Select a photo you wish to transfer and then hit phone symbol on the bottom of the screen to transfer image. Note: I haven't yet figured out how to transfer several images a once.
5. When transferring photos via this option in Camera Connect, location information is not transferred (see comments below in "Location information" section.Remote Shooting
6. Use this selection to remotely operate the camera with your phone.

Remote Shooting 

1. Connect the camera to your phone and launch Camera Connect app.
2. Select “Remote Shooting” button on the app.
3. The camera lens will automatically come out and a live image will be displayed on the phone.
4. You can zoom in/out and trigger the shutter via your Camera Connect app.
5. When operating via Remote Shooting, the camera only works in “P” mode.
6. Movie recording is not possible in Remote Shooting.Location information
7. Use this selection to add the location information to images on the camera. The process involves first telling your phone to start logging locations, by date and time, and then later adding this location information to images with matching dates and time. For this feature to work, the camera needs to have the same date and time as your phone (Use camera Settings to change the date and time on your camera). There are two choices within the Location Information:

• Begin (End) Logging: Select this button to start or stop you camera from logging location information. You need to start the logging prior to taking photos that you wish to tag with location information. Note that you do not need to have the camera connected for this step and the logging will continue even when the Camera Connect app is closed. Also note that phone logging will increase the battery usage on your phone. After you have taken your photos with your camera, select End Logging to stop phone logging.
• Send Location Information: Connect the camera to your phone (Make sure you have already closed the app on your phone before starting the connect steps) and select this button to add location information to images taken on the camera while your phone was set to location logging. After you have done this, you can go to “Images on the Camera” button to review the images – Those with location information will have a small satellite symbol displayed on the top left of the screen. Note that all photos transferred with the “Images on the Camera” transfer function will not transfer the logging information. You need to transfer the images directly off the SD Card via an SD card camera reader cable to your phone or to your computer in order to transfer the images with location information. (Hopefully Canon will change this limitation some day)

[RobertTheFat]

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@Big_Steve wrote:

I'm not impressed with Canon's User Guide for my sx530 or what they post on the Internet.  I bought this camera specifically because it had WIFI.  Can't connect to my phone.  Can't connect to my computer.  Can't connect to the wireless remote.  

I'm very tired of instructions that say "you may have different buttons" or "if you can't find it here, your camera must have it in a different place."  

What I'm working on right now is putting the camera's password into my phone to connect WiFI.  Nice, except there aren't any instructions in my User Guide, and this one online simply says to input the password.  Cool, but where do I find it?  

Nice camera, but I won't buy another Canon product.  I'll take my chances with anyone else.  The odds are certainly better that I will find better, and more accurate, instructions that way.

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I feel your pain. My professional background includes a fair amount of WiFi experience, but even I had trouble making sense of the WiFi setup on my new 5D4. I finally got it to work, but it took at least a half hour of trial and error.

But I think you're overreacting. WiFi is inherently complex, and IMO shoehorning it into a camera was actually quite a technical feat. Yes, the instructions could be better, but the process can be made to work. Get yourself some help by calling Canon Support. (Many who have shopped around consider Canon's support group to be the best in the business.) Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably wonder what all the fuss was about.

[Jsbrava]

Is it still the case that Camera Connect doesn’t transfer gps info by WiFi? Only SD card? That would make gps almost useless. 

[Jsbrava]

The gps log gets wiped out each time logging starts!! GPS logging with the app is useless for me. I will investigate 3rd party gps tagging apps. This from customer support:

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Dear Mr. Smith,

Thank you for contacting Canon product support in regards to geotagging photos with the PowerShot SX540 HS.  I am happy to assist you.

Before shooting, please make sure the date and time and your home time zone are set correctly.  Additionally, in [Time Zone], specify any shooting destinations that are in other time zones.  If the date and time on the GPS location log and the photo(s) taken on the camera do not match, no GPS information will be available.  GPS information display is not available for images that lack this information.  [--] is shown instead of numerical values for items not available on your smartphone or items not recorded correctly.

NOTE:  If the smartphones GPS fails, you will have a gap.  The smartphone is tracking the GPS signal, and our app is recording this data from your smartphone.

I understand that you are starting and stopping the Location Logging function in the Camera Connect app several times during one outing to save on battery.  However, as you have thought, the Location Logging function only stores one log.  When you start a new location log, the previous one is automatically overwritten.  Do not stop Location Logging until you are finished taking pictures.

Before taking any pictures with the PowerShot SX540 HS you will launch our app on your smartphone and start the Location Logging.  Then, when they are later connected, the GPS information can be transferred to your captured pictures. 

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Chris
Technical Support Representative

[Big_Steve]

I appreciate your reply, and to be honest, I wrote my message while frustrated.  But I haven't been able to connect up any way except removing the SD card from the camera and inserting it into the computer.  It's not hard, and it doesn't take long.  But it certainly isn't what I paid for.  

I'll stand by my opinion of Canon.  Maybe they do have a great support team.  But if so, they certainly didn't do much for the manual or the Canon information available online.  Directions are gibberish.  I assume they rushed the camera to market with a bare bones manual and then didn't update it.  For whatever reason it happened, the primary support (the manual) and the secondary support (online Canon pages) are pretty worthless.

I don't consider posting questions to a forum to be a workable solution.  There is no telling when I would get an answer, and the questions I have should certainly be covered by a manual.  Most would be covered by a quick start pamphlet.

the camera itself appears to be robust, and I get more out of by jailbreaking it.  The biggest surprise for me was the lack of a remote shutter release, but that can be made with a few cheap parts.

[maryel2]

Hello, I have a Canon530 HS, and I downloaded the Camera Connet app on iphone 6s with IOS 12. I have tried several times to connect via wifi, bluetooth and hotspot. The only thing that connects the two is hotspot which my iphone registers so I know the camera is online with my phone. However the app says I'm not connected. Please advise.

ML