F Stop

[Geoff Pain]

I own a Coolpix 995 in the booklet it shows an f.stop of 2.6,I can get 5.1 but don't seem to be able to get down to 2.6 any ideas out there?

Thanks Geoff :t:

[T0ny]

I think it's only 2.6 at the wide end of the zoom range - but I could be wrong.

Tony

[IanF]

Geoff, the higher you zoom to, the less light can enter the camera lens so the f-stop increases. This is particularly noticeable in digiscoping.

As T0ny says, set the camera to it's most wide angle position and you should achieve f2,6 !

[digi-birder]

Geoff,

I asked Nikon about the aperture sizes and they replied with the following, bearing in mind that the maximum aperture size does, as Ian points out, get smaller as you increase the zoom.
Wide: f2.6-f7.5
Tele: f5.1-f10.2

[Paulyoly]

I think this is just the nature of the beast, small lens camera that is. there are digital cameras with larger diameter lens and more zoom that have a constant f-stop of 2.8, like the new 12x zoom panasonic fz1. My fuji s602 has a 6x zoom and can achieve f2.8 at full zoom. Maybe if we ask nikon nicely they will make a digicam specifically designed for digiscoping with a fast lens(f2.0/f2.8) which is still small in diameter, that would be nice.

[Chuck A Wulla]

Just saw this Paulyoly. Sorry but what you are hoping for isn't feasible. f stop is basically the ratio between lens diameter and focal length. The longer the focal length for a given diameter lens, the lower the f stop. Nikon did give us a faster lens at longer focal length in the 5000 series, but the resultant lens diameter makes Digiscoping difficult. I once had a 300mm f2.8 lens. It was huge. Things like that are great for low light, but not so good for lugging around. The only answer that I can see is to make the CCD more sensitive with less noise.