I've had the P7000 for about a week now and have been shooting with it everyday, including two full days of digiscoping.
Nikon have done a good job of beefing up the Coolpix P series and making it a "professional" digicam which can compete with the Canon G series. I suspect it might be a bit late though as the Micro Four Thirds cameras and the new Sony Nex series have taken things to a new level.
Unfortunately the 7x zoom lens makes it tricky to digiscope and I had to put it on the Balance Bar to get the lens close enough to the eyepiece to minimise vingetting. I can't eliminate it with a normal eyepiece of 17 - 20 mm of Eye Relief. The attached composite photo shows vignetting on the 25 - 50 zoom with the camera lens at 28 mm ( wide ) which is where you have to use it. As soon as you zoom the lens it retracts and the vignetting gets much worse.
A nice feature is Continuous shooting in Jpeg which I use a lot in my digiscoping. Surprisingly though the processing time seems slower than the P6000 , although you can start shooting again after it's processed a few frames. You can take 5 frames Continuously in Raw but the processing gives you enough time to go and make coffee. It uses the same Remote as the P6000 and 8400 but is not included. The screen is nice and bright and I could use it out in the sun with difficulty. The dials on the top for Expose Comp and Iso/Quality etc are nicely placed .
I shot all day on 1 battery for about 1500 jpegs ( 7 gigs).
I mostly used the 45x eyepiece with this camera which gave me about 1200 mm which is not bad for waterbirds and birds feeding close but the P6000 will give at least double this which is what I call serious digscoping. 1200 mm is where the 500/600 mm tele lens plus teleconverters will get you and you have Auto Focus.
Here are a few shots from this week.
Neil
Nikon P7000 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 45x eyepiece and Balance Bar
Nikon have done a good job of beefing up the Coolpix P series and making it a "professional" digicam which can compete with the Canon G series. I suspect it might be a bit late though as the Micro Four Thirds cameras and the new Sony Nex series have taken things to a new level.
Unfortunately the 7x zoom lens makes it tricky to digiscope and I had to put it on the Balance Bar to get the lens close enough to the eyepiece to minimise vingetting. I can't eliminate it with a normal eyepiece of 17 - 20 mm of Eye Relief. The attached composite photo shows vignetting on the 25 - 50 zoom with the camera lens at 28 mm ( wide ) which is where you have to use it. As soon as you zoom the lens it retracts and the vignetting gets much worse.
A nice feature is Continuous shooting in Jpeg which I use a lot in my digiscoping. Surprisingly though the processing time seems slower than the P6000 , although you can start shooting again after it's processed a few frames. You can take 5 frames Continuously in Raw but the processing gives you enough time to go and make coffee. It uses the same Remote as the P6000 and 8400 but is not included. The screen is nice and bright and I could use it out in the sun with difficulty. The dials on the top for Expose Comp and Iso/Quality etc are nicely placed .
I shot all day on 1 battery for about 1500 jpegs ( 7 gigs).
I mostly used the 45x eyepiece with this camera which gave me about 1200 mm which is not bad for waterbirds and birds feeding close but the P6000 will give at least double this which is what I call serious digscoping. 1200 mm is where the 500/600 mm tele lens plus teleconverters will get you and you have Auto Focus.
Here are a few shots from this week.
Neil
Nikon P7000 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 45x eyepiece and Balance Bar
