[Paul Hackett]

After many enquires by digiscopers to me personally,regarding the future of the Nikon Coolpix 4500, I decided to contact Nikon UK yesterday, and spoke to a customer service advisor who said he would pass on my details to the Customer Support Manager, i was asked to put my enquiry in writing

To my surprise, James Lindsey (Customer Support Manager Nikon UK) rang me 10 mins ago and explained the following -

( some of this information may have been common knowledge but not confirmed )

1. Nikon confirm that the production of the Nikon Coolpix 4500 has ceased

2. Nikon UK confirm that they have plenty of stock for the forseeable future, and are calling in stocks from Europe to top up the UK stocks

3. This sector of the market is important to Nikon and they are not going to forget about it

4. He could and would not comment either way on whether there is a new camera in the pipeline to upgrade the 4500

5. Nikon will continue to support the current users of the 4500 in relation to repairs and spare parts

I asked him whether Nikon would see any future in a consumer group formed from end users with a view to looking at the next production model ? He could not comment on this

I was impressed with the prompt reply from Nikon, and although it does not give us the answers we really want to know, (remember as end users, we are the last in the chain to recieve information), it does answer some questions

Rgds

Paul

[christineredgate]

Thankyou ,Paul,interesting.I think it is perhaps the Digiscoping fraternity who are really interested in these cameras,and perhaps Nikon have realised this.Having said that,these 4500 can be obtained at quite low prices if one searches the camera mags for the price quoted by the various dealers.It is pehaps advisable to buy a second camera as a spare for Digisoping,whil'st they are still around and can be purchased at a reasonable price.

[Geoff Brown]

I can remember somebody (not on this forum?) stating that the 4500 is an insignificant small number in the Nikon inventory of equipment and digiscopers are a minute fraction of the Nikon users worldwide so I would not raise too many hopes of them specially creating an updated 4500 unless it would be economically viable for the company. Perhaps they may collaborate with a telescope manufacturer (themselves?) to produce something along the lines of the new Kowa scope which fully integrates a camera in the scope body - somewhat rather expensively. We can only wait and see what happens and not try and second guess.

[Adey Baker]

Presumably, the internal focus/zoom lens mechanism, which seems to be the main reason that it's suitable for digiscoping, needs the swivel body design to accomodate it.

Unless they can fit it to an 'attractive' design of body, no new model would sell in masses to the general public to justify introducing a new model.

However, Nikon do make and promote an adaptor of their own to fit this camera to their own scopes so it leaves them with a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it?

[Jay Turberville]

Originally Posted by Adey Baker

Presumably, the internal focus/zoom lens mechanism, which seems to be the main reason that it's suitable for digiscoping, needs the swivel body design to accomodate it.

While this is the often stated reason for the high level of compatible of the Nikon CP99X/4500 series, the advantages of the internal lens design is seriously overstated. The real issues are:
1) Where is the camera's entrance pupil is located?
2) How does ithe entrance pupil move as the camera is zoomed?
3) How easy is it to mount the camera to a threaded eyepiece or a threaded eyepiece adapter?
4) What is the camera's range of Fields of View (zoom range)?

It is the combination of these attributes (in conjunction with eyepiece characteristics) that determine the range of unvignetted camera focal lengths that are available. If the CP99x/4500 series failed in areas 1,3 or 4, its legacy as the preferred digiscoping camera would surely be a lot different than it is.

The CP99X/4500 series does well in all of these areas, but number 3 is the most obvious. What isn't so obvious is that a very inexpensive adapter makes a number of cameras (such as the CP5000, CP4300 and C5060) quite easy to mount to a threaded eyepiece or eyepiece adapter. It may not be obvious, but the lens of the CP99x/4500 moves back and forth by a significant amount. That it does this inside the body of the camera and behind a piece of glass isn't (for digiscoping purposes) fundamentally different than moving around inside of an adapter tube. Its still moving back and forth behind a fixed threaded fitting.

At first blush, the CP5400 seemed like it would be a great digiscoping camera since the CP5000 was a good one but only had a 3x wide zoom. The 5400's 4x zoom seemed like just the ticket. In other words, it improved in the "number 4" characteristic over the CP5000. But unfortunately, its "number 1" and "number 2" attributes are significantly worse, due apparently to a significantly different approach to the lens design. So the CP5400 isn't as widely adaptible to digiscoping as the CP99x/4500 line is - not because of its externally moving lens, but because of where its entrance pupil is located and how it moves about during zooming.

[ps11aj]

Nikon has released a new 28 mm tele converter that can be applied directly to the cp4500. Can this be a sign of something...?

[adavidbaxter]

Originally Posted by ps11aj

Nikon has released a new 28 mm tele converter that can be applied directly to the cp4500. Can this be a sign of something...?

as a novice, please explain how it would affect the cp4500.

Regards david baxter

[ps11aj]

Originally Posted by adavidbaxter

as a novice, please explain how it would affect the cp4500.

Regards david baxter

I just thought that Nikon wouldn't release new products for a 2,5 year old camera model. Maybe there is a new version of the swivel camera around the corner. One can only hope.
Check this site; http://www.dpreview.com/news/0409/04...ikontce3pf.asp

[IanF]

It looks like the new lens was designed for the Nikon CP8400, a different camera altogether though I wonder if anyone has tried it for digiscoping yet?

I haven't had the benefit yet of trying the new Contax 4UR or the Kyocera version, but so far I'd still rate the CP4500 as the best digiscoping camera on the go - whilst stocks last!!! I have the Contax SL300RT to compare and it's certainly has a far better operating system, placing it on a par with the CP990 but not quite up to CP4500 as regards image quality.

[ps11aj]

[quote=IanF]It looks like the new lens was designed for the Nikon CP8400, a different camera altogether though I wonder if anyone has tried it for digiscoping yet?[QUOTE)

The cp8400 needs an adapter for the new TC-E3PF converter but you can apply it directly on the cp4500 look at Nikon's site;
http://nikonimaging.com/global/produ...erter/list.htm

Regards

[IanF]

A marketing ploy by Nikon ?

[ps11aj]

Originally Posted by IanF

A marketing ploy by Nikon ?

Do you really think that Nikon have humor?

[mcapper]

To note

New Nikon spec at:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0509/0...pixs4.asp#specs

see thread 'heads up on 4500 replacement' in digiscoping cameras forum for full discussion.

M

[trealawboy]

What about this one?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0509/05..._coolpixs4.asp