Why your geotagged photos have wrong or missing locations, and how to fix it.
Canon Camera Connect can use your iPhone’s GPS to add location data to your photos. When it works, it’s a great feature — but many users find that locations are wrong, duplicated, or missing entirely. Here’s what’s happening and how to fix it.
This is the most reported geotagging issue. You take photos at multiple locations, but they all end up tagged with the coordinates of where you took the first photo.
Why it happens: Canon Camera Connect sends GPS coordinates to the camera periodically. If the app loses its connection to the GPS (usually because the screen locked or the app was backgrounded), it stops sending updated coordinates. The camera keeps using the last coordinates it received.
When your iPhone screen locks, iOS restricts background GPS access for apps. Canon Camera Connect may stop sending location updates to the camera.
Fix:
Even with “Always” permission, some users report that GPS updates stop after the first photo. This appears to be a bug in Camera Connect’s background location handling.
Some users report that GPS coordinates embedded in photos on the camera are stripped during the transfer to iPhone. This happens inconsistently and doesn’t have a reliable fix within Camera Connect.
Workaround: Check the transferred photo’s info in the Photos app. If location data is missing, the original on the SD card should still have it — you can transfer via card reader to preserve it.
The most reliable way to maintain GPS updates is to keep Canon Camera Connect open and visible on screen during your entire shoot. Don’t switch to other apps, and don’t let the screen lock.
This is impractical for long sessions, but it’s the only way to guarantee continuous GPS updates with Camera Connect.
Go to Settings → Canon Camera Connect → Location and select Always. This gives the app permission to access GPS in the background, though it doesn’t guarantee Camera Connect will use it reliably.
If you plan to geotag after the fact using a GPS track log (see below), make sure your camera’s date and time are synchronized with your phone. GPS matching depends on accurate timestamps.
Instead of relying on Camera Connect to send GPS data to your camera in real-time, you can record a GPS track on your phone and match it to your photos later in Lightroom or another editor.
Apps like Geotag Photos Pro 2 ($7.99) record a GPX track log in the background while you shoot. After importing your photos to Lightroom, you load the GPX file in the Map module and Lightroom matches photos to locations based on timestamps. This approach is more reliable because the GPS logging is the app’s only job — it does it well.
Shutter+ focuses on remote shooting and photo transfer rather than background GPS logging. If geotagging is your primary need, a dedicated GPS logging app like Geotag Photos Pro paired with Lightroom may be the most reliable approach.
For remote shooting, photo transfer, and camera control, try Shutter+ free for 7 days.