Soft Images with Coolpix 4500 (1 Viewer)

malgos · Jan 9, 2004

I recently purchased a Coolpix 4500 to be used specifically for digiscoping and I have been struggling to get really good quality images. One of the major problems was that the image looked sharp in the monitor but after the image was taken and when it appeared in the monitor it was soft and very slightly out of focus. I tried pressing the shutter release button halfway to lock the focus and then refocus the scope before fully depressing the shutter release but still the images were soft and slightly out of focus. I read that the Coolpix 4500 is liable to produce soft images at maximum zoom so I,ve also tried various amounts of zoom but still the images were soft. I,ve also tried various settings and metering modes using settings from Andys forum and settings from both Eagle Eye and Warehouse Express web sites.I was just about resigned to the fact that maybe I was never going to be able to produce images by digiscoping and start saving for a DSLR. By sheer kuck I,ve been lent a Coolpix 995 for a week and although conditions are far from good weather wise I am instantly getting results that are far superior to the 4500. So my question is should I return the 4500 to Nikon for checking and possible repair or is it just a question that I,ve been unlucky with my 4500 and I should start looking for a second hand 995.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Malcolm

stevo · Jan 9, 2004

Dear Malcolm

Youre right about the cp4500 producing soft images out the camera.I would recommend you looking on Andy Bright`s website www.digiscoped.com where you will see his suggested settings including how much unsharp mask should be applied to an image(cp4500 4mp)
Regards Steve.

Ragna · Jan 10, 2004

Malgos have you tried using your 4500 with normal subjects, portraits, flowers,any thing but not through your scope. are the pictures sharp on your computer screen.If so then the camera seams o.k.If not then send it back from where you got it from. The 4500 should produce pictures as good as the 995 i think the same lens is used in both models.

IanF · Jan 11, 2004

Hi Malcom,

I find that the CP4500 tends to give pretty soft results too when digiscoping, especially at the higher zoom end. I never take a shot using 4x zoom as it is too poor. Around 3x with my Kowa 823 seems to be the optimum to remove vignetting. Full sized images can still be a little soft looking on the computer but having resized and sharpened them they come out pretty reasonable.

Another consideration is the resolving power of the scope you're using. However if you're getting good results with a 995 then it does sounds like it may be your CP4500. If it's still under warranty then I'd be inclined to have it checked out along with any dead / stuck pixels / firmware upgrades.

Brendan Doe · Jan 11, 2004

Hi Malgos

I have had similar problems with 4500. However i am convinced quality of scope has a major part to play. I usually digiscope with a Kowa TS 611 with variable results. I recently had an opportunity to borrow the new 80mm Swarovski HD. I did not have an adaptor for this so hand held the camera to the scope. Even at this the difference in results were stunning. The image was so much sharper. So when my wallet allows i am going to upgrade my scope and resign myself for the time being that the results i'm getting are as good as i'm going to get.
The best results i have had with the Kowa where the images were reasonably sharp involved making sure i was removing as much vibration as possible by extending the tripod legs as little as possible and making sure that the tripod head and adaptor were screwed as tight as possible.
I once had the opportunity of speaking to someone else in the field who was using the 4500 with a remote release he bought from Eagle Eye optics. (this person turned out to be Paul Hacket!) He reckoned this drastically increased sharpness of image and i'm certainly not going to argue with him!! So again when my wallet allows i'm going to get this option as well.

all the best Brendan

willemw · Apr 28, 2004

Hi Malgos
Hope you're looking back at this thread, or site.
Was it the camera, or more practice, or did you in the end sell it?
I am curious. Having precisely the same phenomenon woth a cp 4500, and want to be sure that the cam is ok.
Regards
Willem

willemw · Apr 29, 2004

Hi Malgos
Received your message, but somehow could not reply to that.
Pity it didn't work out well.
I will give it another try.
Regards
Willem

Geoff Brown · Apr 30, 2004

Have to admit that I have more or less given up digiscoping as I can never seem to get very sharp results with the Nikon 4500 on a Nikon RAII spotter scope. Also the shutter release on the Nikon is soooo Slooooow! As I have a small selection of Canon EOS lenses have gone back to using those with a Canon EOS digital body. Much better results for me but this set up is much heavier to cart around. I still need to get a longer focal length lens and also get much closer to the subject. :t:

willemw · Apr 30, 2004

Hi Geoff
I simply fail to understand why the CP4500 got so many positive reviews as THE camera for digiscoping.
I'll keep trying.
Regards
Willem

mkoreiwo · Jun 18, 2004

Agreed so far on soft images

I agree wholeheartedly on the soft 4500 images. That was my immediate impression when I started using it. When I took my first digiscoped images I was TRULY depressed. I was using a rather high magnification ( an 18mm scoptronix on a Pentax 80mm scope), but STILL -- I KNOW I'm not that bad a photographer. I've been taking pictures for over 35 years, and I think I have a fairly good assessment when something is amiss...

When my williams Optics 28mm eyepiece arrives, I'll see it there is an improvement.

I DID send Nikon a query, and they claim the 4500 is/was one of their best performers.... They DID mention that the Nikon does no in-camera sharpening, unless you set it to do so, while other manufacturers apply it without you knowing...

I truly suspect there is a quality control issue, and there are quite a few lomons out there. I will have the opportunity to try our medical center's 4500 (for micrographs), and I will be compariing it to mine.... If there is a difference.... BOO to Nikon!

Mike

Skean · Jun 19, 2004

all i can say is... with the 4300 that i use its definetly a hit or miss proposition when it comes to a sharp pic. but you can certainly get some. target distance and lighting are always to 2 determining factors.

lima · Jun 20, 2004

I'm new to digiscoping - having only had three sessions with Kowa TSN-823. In the first, I had a terrible tripod and just focussed on inanimate objects - flowers (15m), a post (100m) etc. but since scope bounced at the slightest touch I hand held my 4500 to eyepiece and got some very sharp images - even without sharpening. Image attached has been resized but no sharpening done. Original is sharp as a tack. Since buying Manfrotto 055Pro tripod and 501 head (rock solid set up) I've been able to use the camera attachment to scope. Got some fairly good images but a little soft - with sharpening only using NikonView they are pretty good. I still haven't worked out ideal zoom so this could be the problem but because images were sharp as a tack, hand held, I don't think the problem is the camera. I might also add the hand held ones were taken just using auto everything because I didn't, at that stage, know how to change settings!
Hope this helps,
lima

mkoreiwo · Jun 20, 2004

... Keeping this up, I recently had the opportunity to compare or Pathology dept. CP4500 with mine. Same camera settings, on a tripod, self timer to eliminate shake.

There was a clear difference between the two. Now I know of one person (possibly from the birdforum) who sent their nikon back for evaluation and it came back in no better performance than when it went out... So I can only conclude that A)there is considerable variability with the CP4500 line, and 2) Nikon must hav lenient standards for what is acceptable to send out to comsumers...

As as group digiscopers are not likely to get Nikon to look at performance variability of a discontinued camera! And also remember: due to this variability, there are many "excellent" CP4500's out there. I guess if you get a "good" one, they are fantastic cameras!

Mike

Doug Greenberg · Jun 20, 2004

As someone who owns (and uses) both the CP4500 and CP995, I am going along with the suggestion that there is something amiss with the original poster's CP4500. Both cameras provide excellent, sharp photos, and the 4500 actually is a bit better inasmuch as it is a 4.0 megapixel model.

For digiscoping, I use a Pentax PF80-ED with a couple of different eyepieces, most typically a William Optics DCL-28 (24mm.) I actually have found that it is easier to get good results with the CP4500 than with the CP995. So far, I am not sure why this is the case or whether it has something to do with the particular combination of optics I am using.

But given that the CP4500 has what I think is a well-deserved excellent reputation, I, too, wonder whether something is wrong with the sample used by Malcolm.

Therefore: he definitely should have the camera checked, or else simply return it, if he can.
Doug Greenberg

Jay Turberville · Jun 21, 2004

mkoreiwo said:
... Keeping this up, I recently had the opportunity to compare or Pathology dept. CP4500 with mine. Same camera settings, on a tripod, self timer to eliminate shake.

There was a clear difference between the two. Now I know of one person (possibly from the birdforum) who sent their nikon back for evaluation and it came back in no better performance than when it went out... So I can only conclude that A)there is considerable variability with the CP4500 line, and 2) Nikon must hav lenient standards for what is acceptable to send out to comsumers...

Its tough to say really. I think a lot of testing that goes on is lacking in proper control. OTOH, anything with complicated optics is going show variation between samples.

I'd be interested in seeing the two images and or knowing what the clear differences were.

mkoreiwo · Jun 22, 2004

Jay,

I'll send them to you undedited when I get home... Do you have a size limit on the files, or would you prefer a cropped section...

I agreee that there will be variances in complex instruments, but I have seen some absolutely stuning(!!) shots taken with CP4500's.... I just can't believe I'm THAT incompetent.... Really, I've been doing photography for over 30 years, I'vr shot rock concerts, NASCAR races, other sporting events.... And now, with digiscoping -- Yuk!

I'm wondering: are there any Digiscopers here in Connecticut!!! I'd be more than happy to join you for some "lessons"!!

I be in touch later Jay.

Thanks for your input. As always you are extremely helpful in this forum beaucoup kudos to you!!

Mike

Jay Turberville said:
Its tough to say really. I think a lot of testing that goes on is lacking in proper control. OTOH, anything with complicated optics is going show variation between samples.

I'd be interested in seeing the two images and or knowing what the clear differences were.

Jay Turberville · Jun 22, 2004

mkoreiwo said:
I'll send them to you undedited when I get home... Do you have a size limit on the files, or would you prefer a cropped section...

I think the limit is 5MP. So just send the whole thing.

mkoreiwo said:
I agreee that there will be variances in complex instruments, but I have seen some absolutely stuning(!!) shots taken with CP4500's.... I just can't believe I'm THAT incompetent.... Really, I've been doing photography for over 30 years, I'vr shot rock concerts, NASCAR races, other sporting events.... And now, with digiscoping -- Yuk!

There are really two issues here that I see.

1) Is your CP4500 sub-par in some way?

2) If not, then how do you get better digiscoping results?

The first, of course, we tackle with camera only images and that should be straightforward. The second can get more complex.

How many full resolution digiscoping images have you seen? I see very few posted. Most digiscoping images are posted in sizes between 640x480 and 800x600. A very mediocre full resolution image can be made to look quite nice at these much lower resolutions. All good web-sized images do not have a nice print resolution images behind them.

Here is a good example. The first image is a full resolution crop. The shot was from about 200 meters. Distances that great tend to soften the image. The still air in the early morning will sometimes let you get away with distances like that, but don't bet on it. I find that anything beyond 50 meters or so is very unlikely to yield good results.

This image won't make it to print, but I liked the pose enough to turn it into a decent web-sized image.

http://www.jayandwanda.com/digiscope/5967_eagleCrop.jpg
http://www.jayandwanda.com/birds/eagles/BaldEagle_5967_TNTOAZ_Rub_40.jpg

Unless shot at relatively low magnifications (1500mm equivalence) and at relatively short distances (50 feet or less), you can expect that you will have to do some image manipulation (sharpening, levels and color correction) in order to get the best image. At least that has been my personal experience.

sarahbee56 · Jun 23, 2004

Jay Turberville said:
How many full resolution digiscoping images have you seen? I see very few posted. Most digiscoping images are posted in sizes between 640x480 and 800x600. A very mediocre full resolution image can be made to look quite nice at these much lower resolutions. All good web-sized images do not have a nice print resolution images behind them.

Here is a good example. The first image is a full resolution crop. The shot was from about 200 meters. Distances that great tend to soften the image. The still air in the early morning will sometimes let you get away with distances like that, but don't bet on it. I find that anything beyond 50 meters or so is very unlikely to yield good results.

This image won't make it to print, but I liked the pose enough to turn it into a decent web-sized image.

Jay, what software did you use on your eagle photo? I have a lot of eagle images from the past couple of months taken under circumstances similar to yours that look a lot like your unprocessed one. I have assumed mine were beyond redemption but seeing the transformation you were able to achieve makes me think there could still be hope for my photos. I have Photoshop 5.0 LE, will that do the trick? I haven't used it much (daunting learning curve) but I will be motivated to do so if I can rescue these photos. Thanks very much for any advice you can share.

Jay Turberville · Jun 23, 2004

sarahbee56 said:
Jay, what software did you use on your eagle photo?
<snip> I have assumed mine were beyond redemption but seeing the transformation you were able to achieve makes me think there could still be hope for my photos. I have Photoshop 5.0 LE, will that do the trick?

I use Photoshop 7.0. The main tools that I use are Unsharp Mask, Curves, and Layer Masks.

The most important tool for this purpose is Unsharp Mask. The basic idea is sharpen and color correct the original image - perhaps even oversharpen it a little bit. I then immediately resize by half. Depending on how that image looks, I will repeat the process except that I will sharpen and resize in progressively smaller steps. The idea is to preserve details as the image size is reduced.

If Photoshop 5.0 LE has Unsharp Mask, then you should be OK.

sarahbee56 · Jun 24, 2004

Jay Turberville said:
I use Photoshop 7.0. The main tools that I use are Unsharp Mask, Curves, and Layer Masks.

The most important tool for this purpose is Unsharp Mask. The basic idea is sharpen and color correct the original image - perhaps even oversharpen it a little bit. I then immediately resize by half. Depending on how that image looks, I will repeat the process except that I will sharpen and resize in progressively smaller steps. The idea is to preserve details as the image size is reduced.

If Photoshop 5.0 LE has Unsharp Mask, then you should be OK.

Photoshop 5.0 LE has some sort of unsharp function; I'll check it out. Thanks very much for the info and tip!

Soft Images with Coolpix 4500 (1 Viewer)

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