Hi Everyone,

I have decided to splurge and get an 8mm lens for the d70, can someone send me a full set of images to run some tests in pw4 stitching. Preferably a full set taken in raw with a d70 and sigma 8mm,
I have setup a temporary ftp site at
ftp:  202.60.67.24
username : wwwtsst
password : easy
Also has anyone played with the agnos setup adapter for the fc e9 and d70, does will this also work with the fc e8?
Cheers, Craig

Hi vrboy

You have chosen a very good setup.

To adapt the FC-E9 to the D70 you must use a 24mm focal length lens on the camera. This can be a 18-70mm or other lens at that focal length. The FC-E9 is adapted to the lens via a foam adapter ring and the Agnos MrotatorB. This rotator requirs an additional bracket  to mount the camera to the rotator. The setup is quite heavy and a little combersom. The foam adapter is held in position by slight compression between the lens and the FC-E9. This setup  is not the best way to do 2 or 3 shot panos. Also you can use a Nikor fixed 24mm lens and Agnos makes a threaded lens adapter ring that will mate the 24mm lens to the FC-E9. This may produce a better image than the 18-70mm set up due to the better 24mm lens but the sigma will produce a better quality image.

The quality of your image on this set up is a combonation of the FC-E9 and the chosen lens attached to the camera. You are using 2 lenses and the quality is directly realted to the quality optics you are using. This setup will produce a "softer image" for sure. Most agree that the FC-E9 yields a softer image thatn the FC-E8 plus you are resolving through a second lens that is NOT desighned for fisheye photography.

The D70+sigma 8mm is a much better choice. Many use it to produce excellant pano's.

The FC-E8 can not be adapted to the D70 or any other DSLR camera. The "diopter" of the lens is too small. This lens is superior to the FC-E9 because it produces a sharper image. It has to with the diopter size of the lens. The larger diopter of the FC-E9 does not "resolve" as much detial as the FC-E8. The are nearly identical in design but the construction of the elements is slightly different. In addition the FC-E9 only covers 180 degress "on some cameras". It may only cover 179 degrees or a max of 181 depending on your camera setup. The FC-E8 is a true fisheye covering 183 degrees. Shooting 2 shot hemis with the FC-E9 will not work because the you are not getting the necessary overlap to stitch the images.

The FC-E8 will only adapt to Coolpix5000 or earlier cameras. I don't know about other cameras like Cannon etc. But the cameras CCD sensor must the the right size to accommodate the diopter size of this lens.
See this link http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/accessory/converter/list.htm

You should use the Sigma lens as it will produce a much better image than the FC-E9. You will have to shoot 4 drum images with this setup. If you use a Coolpix series camera that takes the FC-E8 you can shoot 2 hemi or 3 hemi panos.

Gen. Lee

Thanks Gen

I have been using the coolpix range since the cp700 and followed right through to the 4500,see my big brother post in the forum for some vr stuf i did with the cp4500.

 thanks for the info, do you know anyone who can upload four nikon d70 raw format drum images taken with a nikon d70 + sigma 8mm combo for me to my ftp to play with, I know there are test images in pw4 but i want to do a raw conversion myself

ftp:  202.60.67.24
username : wwwtsst
password : easy

No, I don't know anyone with this setup. But I am sure there are some folks here that could help you out. A lot or members here use this set up.

I saw your other post and looked at the big brother images. Very good stuff. Nice work

Nice cleint to have. How you get that one. hehe. Family.... just kidding.

If you still want some D70 + sigma8mm, I'd happily send you some from Sunny Melbourne. Just pm me to confirm you still need them .

Simon