Nikon P5000 (1 Viewer)

Feathered one said:

John

The exif info on the first picture shows 200 ISO the second 100 ISO and third 64 ISO but doesn't give away the Quality info.


Malc

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Hi All
Right I'll try and answer in order, "feathered friend", the pictures are straight out of the camera I have cropped them slightly, only to get them posted on here, limited to size you can post on BF, there has been no sharpening or post processing.

And yes the P5000 comes with bracketing feature 3 options (+-1.0) (+-0.7) (+-0.3) if bracketing is on the camera takes 3 shots normal, under, over exposed

All pictures taken at full 10mp fine mode.

John-Henry EV compensation is available on the camera +2.0 to -2.0 in 1/3rd increments, this feature according to the instructions is available in all modes except manual mode.
Obviously it is early days, so just finding my way round the camera, And ISO is as Feathered Friend has pointed out first picture 200 ISO the second 100 ISO and third 64 ISO.

Hope this info helps?

hio dougie,

are you using the eagle-eye adapter with the P5000 ?

Dougie,
Nice to see some field experience with the new P5000. It looks to me that that the pics are about 1 stop over-exposed, which is surprising if using Spot Area Focusing with link to exposure. I also was worried about the 0.8 frames/second as this is a bit low for tracking moving birds at high magnifications. How did you find in on the duck? Neil.

horukuru said:

hio dougie,

are you using the eagle-eye adapter with the P5000 ?

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Dear Horukuru
Yes I am using the Eagle-Eye adapter, but to connect it to the camera you need the Nikon UR-E20 adapter. Got mine from Ebay cost about £17 including P&P from Japan seller is "ace_of_bicycle2004" he has others in stock.
To be frank here, I find the Eagle-Eye adapter a bit fiddly, so looking to get a different one that is sold over here by "In Focus" its called a Focus DA1 this adapter is a push on type no tightening screws, they are made especially for each type of scope, so they line up centerally every time.

Word of warning here, I have found that you need to zoom camera lens out further to avoid vignetting with the zoom eye-peice, about 2-3 times on the camera, with the fixed eye-piece's, (I have 20X and 32X) camera only needs zooming out about 1x, please note that I am using a Leica Televid 77, this may vary with different scope manufacturers. Personal opinion here but I think fixed eye piece's are better than zooms for digiscoping.

John-Henry you mentioned D-lighting, now I had a session of RFM last night and had a play with this feature, and yes it does work, made a dark image quite acceptable, but in my opinion it was at the expence of adding some colour noise, which I suppose Neat Image would have sorted if I had a copy of it!!.

Neil Yes 0.8fps is slow can't understand why it is so slow, this is the only area that my D-Lux2 shines over the P5000.
Was trying to auto bracket the Shell Duck and by the 3rd exposure the duck had moved out of the frame :-C
Just hope that Nikon can speed things up with a firmware tweek.

One of the features I do like, is the panoramic feature where you can stitch several shots together, when you take a shot with the camera in panoramic mode it leaves a ghost image of the right hand side of the previous shot on LCD screen so you can line up for next shot and so on, saves guessing were the overlap needs to be.

All in all bar the slow continuous frame rate, not a bad little camera so far, as ever there will be something you wish the camera had but it hasn't. I look back at the CP995 I used a few years ago, slow start up, shutter lag, battery life was non exsistant, oh and that wonderful electronic shutter release, lost countless pictures with that hit and miss accessory!! and back then everyone thought they were the dogs dangly bits.

As for the P5000 I think it has the potential to be a good digiscoping camera, no doubt in a few weeks there will be websites telling us what the best settings to use when digiscoping with the P5000 as there are countless sites indicating the settings for previous Nikon models CP995, CP4500

More than happy to answer any other questions. Thanks Dougie

I would be interested to know if anybody has used the P5000 with the Swarovski 80HD scope and 20-60x or 30x or 45x eyepiece

Thanks

Bob

Bob Thompson said:

I would be interested to know if anybody has used the P5000 with the Swarovski 80HD scope and 20-60x or 30x or 45x eyepiece

Thanks

Bob

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I'll be testing this combination in 2 weeks.

P5000 - shooting a movie

I've been trying to find out from (the lack of) reviews if you can use the zoom while shooting a movie. Does anyone know if you can zoom in and out? Most of the cameras do not support using the zoom at the same time.

JD

jdlang said:

I've been trying to find out from (the lack of) reviews if you can use the zoom while shooting a movie. Does anyone know if you can zoom in and out? Most of the cameras do not support using the zoom at the same time.

JD

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Dear JD
Yes you can zoom in and out whilst using movie mode.

Hope this helps Dougie

Dougie said:

Word of warning here, I have found that you need to zoom camera lens out further to avoid vignetting with the zoom eye-peice, about 2-3 times on the camera, with the fixed eye-piece's, (I have 20X and 32X) camera only needs zooming out about 1x, please note that I am using a Leica Televid 77, this may vary with different scope manufacturers.

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Dougie,

Thank you very much for your informative reports about one of the most interesting digiscoping cameras at the moment. :t:

I totally agree with you on vignetting with the zoom eyepieces, but I am a little puzzled with your experiences with fixed EPs, because when I briefly tested the P5000 with a Nikon eyepiece (30xDS), *I think* I was able to use the entire zoom range. The fixed Leica eyepieces should cover the whole FOV at 36mm and the eye-relief of the 20/32x Leica should be at least as good as the 30x Nikon's. At correct distance the circular black frames should have sharp edges. If vignetting is fuzzy (like in one of your test pics), the camera is either too far or too close. Maybe the Nikon and Eagle-Eye adapter tubes would need even more ER? If you are planning to get a new adapter, you might want to test the tube adapter (DA1?) against an "adjustable" adapter (like the SRB Griturn), which might help you to get totally rid of vignetting.

Best regards,

Ilkka

buzzard12 said:

Link here to the press release for the new Nikon P5000. Will retail from end of March, cost at 329 pounds sterling. (around 489 euros)

Claims for ISO 3200 can probably be taken with a pinch of salt as regards digiscoping, however looks very interesting.

Would be interested in hearing from anyone who gets to test the model for Digiscoping...

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022006_nikonP5000.asp

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I found the camera by www.pixmania.com with 350 Euros.

Nikon Connector Ring UR - E20

Costing £19.99, this screws and fits nicely over the lens, once the bracket is removed and then creates a 28mm thread for use with the Swarovski DCA, KOWA DA1 and no doubt many other adap[ters from the CP 4500 days.

Also of course for the NIKON FSB 6 if fitting to a fieldscope

The camera really looks the thing for digiscoping, bit concerned though about the slow burst rate to catch moving subjects. In addition it strikes me that a remote release would be needed at this slow rate rather than using the finger.

Can anyone confirm that the screen does not adjust to brighter/darker if you are in shutter or aperture priority mode?
I was trying this camera out today, and was not able to see the "real" image until the photo was actually taken. I hope this is something that I have overlooked, and not in the camera itself.
If I am changing the shutter speed or lens aperture, I would want to visually see what the camera sees before I commit to the shot.

Thanks for anyone's input on this...

Alan

ajp310 said:

Can anyone confirm that the screen does not adjust to brighter/darker if you are in shutter or aperture priority mode?
I was trying this camera out today, and was not able to see the "real" image until the photo was actually taken. I hope this is something that I have overlooked, and not in the camera itself.
If I am changing the shutter speed or lens aperture, I would want to visually see what the camera sees before I commit to the shot.

Thanks for anyone's input on this...

Alan

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Alan
The image on the LCD screen will darken and lighten if you alter the EV +- in Program, Aperture,, and Shutter Priority to show the effect of the adjustments, other than that in normal mode the screen will remain the same as the camera will automatically compensate the shutter speed for the variation of aperture in Aperture mode, same with aperture in shutter priority.

Hope this help Cheers Dougie

Dougie said:

Alan
The image on the LCD screen will darken and lighten if you alter the EV +- in Program, Aperture,, and Shutter Priority to show the effect of the adjustments, other than that in normal mode the screen will remain the same as the camera will automatically compensate the shutter speed for the variation of aperture in Aperture mode, same with aperture in shutter priority.

Hope this help Cheers Dougie

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Thanks, Dougie...I'll have another look...

Alan

I've received my P5000 today, and had a short and quick test with it at home in the evening. Hopefully over the weekend I'll have more time to play with it.
I'll start with the bottom line - It's very good for digiscoping and other uses!
It works with my three old accessory lenses - the TC-E3ED, WC-E63 and amazingly - with the fisheye converter - FC-E8 and zoom through it!
I've connected it to the Leica Apo 62 scope and the x20-60 Zoom EP (x16-48 on this scope).
Vignetting ends at an equivalent focal length of ~75mm, and from there on, there's no vignetting. This is at middle zoom range of the lens, which allows a lot of flexibility.
I shot at ISO100 only. The image is not clean like of the D200 at this iso setting, but not too far. There's a bit chroma noise that can be eliminated with any noise reduction program.
Focusing at home in the evening was relatively fast. Writing the file at long exposures took a long time (I guess due to noise reduction prcess in the camera).
I've triggered the camera with a small adapter cable release that connects to the tripod socket.
Buying the UR-E20 adapter is almost a must and I was lucky to find one locally.
So far, I feel like "coming home" to the old CP990 and CP4500 and I'm happy!
Attached is a sample shot taken at maximal camera zoom and minimal scope EP zoom (~2000mm combined). Exposure time was close to 2 sec.!
More to come later.

Bob Thompson said:

I would be interested to know if anybody has used the P5000 with the Swarovski 80HD scope and 20-60x or 30x or 45x eyepiece

Thanks

Bob

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Started testing P5000 w Swaro AT80HD and Locking 20-60 Eyepiece.

So far, in poor light, very acceptable results. I can only compare with Coolpix 990 and Pentax 43wr. Much higher % of in focus keepers. Much faster A/F. Acceptable results for ID right up to ISO3200.

Will compare in good light tomorrow.

Initial opinion - Will be excellent for digiscoping.

Have just spent this morning trying out the P5000 with a Swarovski ATS 80HD telescope with a 30x fixed lens and am most impressed. It would seem to be a significant improvement over the Coolpix 4500 I used previously. In particular there is very little chromatic aberration and the autofocusing is fast and sharp. One slight quibble I have is the delay between depressing the shutter and the photo being taken, which makes it difficult to keep ducks, etc in the centre of the picture.

I have attached a couple of shots I took that have not been edited other than cropping and resizing.

Did several tests with the P5000 and Swaro AT80HD in good light. I shot with Aperture priority and varied ISO from 64 to 400.

Summary:

Generally good results
Over exposes by default. There is a need to set to -0.3 or -0.7.
Some chromatic abberation
At times AF hunts more than expected
Screen difficult to see in bright light so ideally some sort of screen shade may be useful in Caribbean light.
Higher % of keepers when compared to CP990 and 43WR ... BUT ... I find that CP990 pictures are better for uncropped pictures ... the colour, sharpness etc ... out of camera are all a little better. However, the P5000 is a far superior digiscoping camera for bird ID shots due to ISO, AF speed etc.

I haven't done any PP on my shots as yet and it is possible the P5000 has been designed with the assumption that more will be done out of the camera when compared to CP990.

Overall I'm very pleased.

I also tested with TC-E3ED, TC-E2 teleconverters and WC-E63 and FC-E8 wide angle lenses.

Very good results with TC-E3ED and FC-E8 with very minor degradation in sharpness.
Excellent results with TC-E2 and WC-63. Nothing here to niggle about.

Forgot to mention that the standard 4x Digital zoom works well for distant ID shots so with TC-E3ED, you can get 3.5*3*4*.7 = 30x reach when compared to binoculars (note .7 factor). Not high quality but good enough for ID.

Overall - Excellent general purpose camera with useful accessory lenses that can be had pretty cheaply (but buy quickly since the prices have started to rise on the CP accessories). Good for digiscoping. In time, as I understand the camera better, I expect this to change to Very Good.

just ordered a FSB-6 bracket from ace of bicycle so looks like i'll be "upgrading" (?) to the P5000 from my P4.
i've been following this story since upgrading from my 60mm Fieldscope III ED to a ED82 for digiscoping and had been wondering what Nikon was up to in regards to next-generation digiscoping cameras.
i know i lot of people are down on the P4 but it's the only digiscoping camera i have ever known and have nothing else to compare it against.
i have some misgivings about the slower shutter speed (than P4) but hope it will be a better camera overall.
anyways, i'll do some field testing comparing the two cameras as soon as i get the FSB-6 bracket.
oh, the EN-EL5 batteries are the same as for the P4 so the four that i presently own will work for the P5000 as well (that's a good thing).
on the whole they are good batteries, we use 2gb SD cards and they will hold their charge till the finish no problem (typically upwards to 380 shots per session).
i have noticed that they don't last as long during cold weather conditions but they do recharge pretty fast.