I'm looking to upgrade from a Nikon 995 to the Nikon 5700.  I know they make a fisheye lens for the newer camera, but I need to find out if the 5700 can shoot the "F1" or hemispherical type picture needed by panoweaver.  From the little I can find out about it, it doesn't appear to be able to do so.  Can anyone shed any light on this for me, or would I be better off going with the 4500, keeping my investment in lenses, pano head and so on intact?

Thanks in advance,

D. Rose

I don't understand exactly what you mean with F1 mode, but I've got the 5700. Tell me where I should have a look at.

I use it with FC-E9 and UR-E12.

A test pano: http://www.su-n.de/panos/kitchen/kitchen.html

I bought the 5700 because I wanted to have raw/nef file format. But now I know that it's not necessary. A cheaper one would do the job, too.

Cheers,

Sven =)

Nice looking pano, Sven.

It would be under the Lens menu, but I don't believe that option will be seen on the 5700.  I just wanted to know if the pictures produced were the round hemisphere image, surounded by black - the samples included with panoweaver show the type image I'm looking for.

I'm only guessing here, but do you just leave the lens setting at normal, and put the FC-E9 on and shoot that way?  I've noticed on mine that with the fisheye lens on, I get the same type image at the normal lens setting.

Thanks for the help.

D. Rose

Lens is set to normal and the images are surrounded by black, yes.

Sample images from me are here: http://www.easypano.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=1&TopicID=487&PagePosition=1

Sven =)

Btw, I use the mRotatorB from agnos.com.

Cheers,

Sven =)

Hi,

For what is worth I would recommend you upgrade to either the CP4500 or CP5000 instead of the CP5700.

Why? Costing really!Like you said you will need a new Fisheye Lens, Panohead etc.

If you were starting from scratch, well then the 5700 or 8700 would be a good choice. Though in mine and others opinions the FC-E9 is a little softer on the edges then the FC-E8 used on the older CP9XX, CP4500 - CP5000 series which have a slightly sharper image.

If you are doing "Normal" (I.E not full screen pano's for Internet display) the CP4500 or CP5000 is more then enough. If you wish to do full screen then look at a D/SLR as the lenses for the CP series don't really cut it.

Check my sample on my website, all are CP4500 except the full screen which is Canon 10D D/SLR Sigma Fisheye.

Regards, Smooth

I tried using the FC-E8 with my Coolpix 4500 and the results are dismal: everything is unsharp (not out of focus, but unsharp, distorted) whereas with my Coolpix 5000 the results are fine...I can't understand why the difference between the results from the two cameras.
The Agnos mRotator should have made it easy to switch from one camera to the other, but I think the 4500 (which takes excellent, sharp, well-focused pictures normally) is not, in my experience, the camera to use with the FC-E8. Besides, the 5000 is quite inexpensive these days, and the FC-E8 is quite a bit smaller, lighter, and ... sharper than the FC-E9 according to reports I've read.

Hi Robert,

I cannot see any reason why your CP4500 and FC-E8 would give bad results? Plenty of us how visit this forum use this set up and I have not seen this happen. Maybe you could post some images from both cameras of the same panorama in un-stitched, unmodified form?

I do believe that the CP5000 and CP4500 have slightly different set up menus. Your are right though the CP5000 is cheap to buy now - so unless you want the swivel action (or smaller camera) then the CP5000 would be the one to buy.

Regards, Smooth

How about the CP8700? Will the extra pixels contained in the final image result in a significantly sharper panorama than the one shot with a CP5000 ?

Can anyone post a sample pano shot with the CP8700?

Regards,
Chiranjeev