Nikon Coolpix 8800 (1 Viewer)

[hollis_f]

I'm seriously thinking of getting a Coolpix 8800. I would like to use it for general use and occasional bird photography. Anyone use the remote unit with it yet?

The remote has one biiiiig problem when it comes to birding pictures - all it does is activate the 3-second timer :h?: And, because it's IR, you have to be standing in front of the camera (or reach your hand round in front of it). It's obviously been designed solely to be used for taking self portraits. For any of the other reasons that people might want a RC it's almost useless.

 

[hollis_f]

Step-ups for proper filter sizes are available here - http://www.nextphoto.net/8800.htm - adaptors for the TCON-17 should be appearing soon.

Well, I've now got the Nextphoto adaptors and used them to attach the TCON-17. That gives 600mm equiv. And since I've bought it, the tele lens has been attached more often that not. An added bonus is that you can keep the Nextphoto adaptor tubes attached and they protect the lens from being knocked.

 

[Kevin Bates]

I'm seriously thinking of getting a Coolpix 8800. I would like to use it for general use and occasional bird photography. Anyone use the remote unit with it yet?

I just been looking in to buying this camera as a backup for my 20D but I found the focus speed was a bit too slow for bird photography although the image quality was good. In the end I decided to keep my Panasonic FZ20.

 

[Kevin Bates]

Update to above, I now have a 8800 as well as a FZ20. I have been able to get some decent images on the 8800 but its not as fast as the FZ20.

 

[Neil]

Kevin,
I'm pleased to see some good quality examples of what these cameras can do on your site. Nice work. Too many people are posting tests photos that are no better than a 1.3meg camera was capable of 7 years ago. If the camera is go on a scope then it should be able to produce better photos than the workhorse Nikon CP990/4500 otherwise why change what works. From the test reports I've seen on www.dpreview.com , the Canon A95 suffers from 'fringing' and the Nikon 8800 is too slow. The tests I've see from recent buyers seem to support this ( as they would ). I'm looking at Canon,Nikon,Olympus , Panasonic and maybe Sony when I upgrade to a 7/8meg camera for digiscoping. I'm still to be convinced that people can improve on the photos from the 990/4500. Neil.

 

[hollis_f]

Kevin,
I'm pleased to see some good quality examples of what these cameras can do on your site. Nice work. Too many people are posting tests photos that are no better than a 1.3meg camera was capable of 7 years ago. If the camera is go on a scope then it should be able to produce better photos than the workhorse Nikon CP990/4500 otherwise why change what works. From the test reports I've seen on www.dpreview.com , the Canon A95 suffers from 'fringing' and the Nikon 8800 is too slow. The tests I've see from recent buyers seem to support this ( as they would ). I'm looking at Canon,Nikon,Olympus , Panasonic and maybe Sony when I upgrade to a 7/8meg camera for digiscoping. I'm still to be convinced that people can improve on the photos from the 990/4500. Neil.

Neil, I think you may have missed an important point here. I doubt that anybody's using the 8800 for digiscoping - it'd be almost totally useless. The point of the 8800 is that you get a relatively big zoom (350mm equiv.) and image stabilisation in a very small package. That makes it quite handy when you haven't got your digiscoping kit with you.

So the photos you may see taken by an 8800 won't be as good as those taken through a 80mm scope. But they'll be better than those taken by almost any other digicam of the same mass/price. And they're loads better than those that weren't taken because the camera/scope combination was still at home.

 

[Neil]

Neil, I think you may have missed an important point here. I doubt that anybody's using the 8800 for digiscoping - it'd be almost totally useless. The point of the 8800 is that you get a relatively big zoom (350mm equiv.) and image stabilisation in a very small package. That makes it quite handy when you haven't got your digiscoping kit with you.

So the photos you may see taken by an 8800 won't be as good as those taken through a 80mm scope. But they'll be better than those taken by almost any other digicam of the same mass/price. And they're loads better than those that weren't taken because the camera/scope combination was still at home.

My comment on the 8800 was not on it's quality , which from what I've seen it very good (I'm interested in the 8400 myself for digiscoping ) but that it's a bit too slow for bird photography (particularly small birds). It's a problem I've experienced myself with previous generations of digicams. It's the main reason I got the Kyocera SL400R which is 10x faster than the CP4500 on a scope. My Panasonic Lumix FZ10 is also much faster than the CP4500 and has a 12x lens/2.8/Image Stabilised and from what I've been reading is much faster than the Nikon 8400/8800. If you want to photograph small birds in trees and in flight then fringing and speed are very important. I'm looking forward to reviews by users of these new generation of digiscams that really test them out in the real world of low light,fast moving birds who don't want to have their photos taken. The fringing in my Panasonic is unacceptable and the quality against light is poor so I can't use it for flight shots which is why at the moment I'm hanging a D100 plus Nikon 300mm f4 ED lens around my neck all day. I'm hoping someone can convince me that one of these new digicams can solve my neck problems.Neil.

 

[Kevin Bates]

Neil take a look at this shot the first image I took with my 8800 one hour after getting it.

http://www.airlinersuk.net/March_3_Robin.jpg

I have also posted a Tufted Duck image in the gallery and you can clearly see the VR in action.

I have a couple of Canon 20D's with 50-500 and 100-400 lenses as well as the FZ20. I think the 8800 gives more of a DSLR tyoe image compared to the FZ20 but you do need good light to get that f5 lens to work at the tele end.

 

[poledark]

Hi I am very much a new boy regarding serious bird photography, but have been fiddling about for a number of years attaching cameras to scopes,,albeit cheap scopes and simple engineering, and have never really had much success.
Recently got the chance to take a lot of pics of a kingfisher and using my Olympus C3000Z (3x zoom) I got some good shots, one or two with a fish in it's mouth.

But they were to far away, albeit only about 22feet so needed a lot of enlarging.
I did not want to have to get involved in lots of lenses and attachments, but did want good quality pics, and ended up with the 8800.

I was dissapointed to find the IR only worked when facing the camera, but intend to make an attachment to allow me to bounce the IR off a small mirror ( I have tested it and it will work!)

Sorry to ramble on here but I spent a couple of weeks testing and deleting and I am
beginning to get some results and have high hopes for more.

I am quite pleased (actually delighted ) with this one....hand held at about 25ft.,

http://www.poledark.co.uk/116crop.jpg

Den

 

[jmmx]

Coolpix 8800 - Review & 53mm > 52mm adaptoer

Is anyone familiar with the Nikon Coolpix 8800? Please give a review if you own this camera.

OK - I really did not want to get into this, but since you ask...

I own an 8800, have so for about 6 mos.

FIRST - it is easy (on internet) and not expensive to find a 53 -> 52 mm adapter so you can use standard 52mm filters, etc.

Impressions

To begin with, I come from a strong background in photography, not birding. So my impressions of the camera may be different from your needs. Second, I do not have experience with a lot of other cameras to compare.

Keeping this in mind....

Overall - good point-shoot plus. Zooms to 300 mm (wow!) Vibration Reduction (VR) really helps. Up to 8 Mpixels! Takes fine pix. My wife - not a technical wiz - took it to Ecuador for a month and came back with over 1000 pix, many really great shots.

Caveat: Even with VR you cannot shoot hand-held at 300mm - esp in low light (it rains a lot here in western Oregon) Maybe I'll do better in the summer.


- Auto focus is slow. - set to infinity (easy to do) or pre-focus.

- Maximum aperture is too small 2.8 at wide is ok, but 5.2 at 300mm is not good. But what can you expect for the price!

- No cable release! The little remote only works in self timer mode (stupid!)

--------
Save speed

Remember, 8 Mp Raw is a BIG file. It takes about 7 secs to save one of these. But 8M extra is only about 1.5 sec and the same for for 5M Extra. 5M fine is maybe 0.5 sec?

I SELDOM use 8 M. With digital it is so easy to take a lot of pix that the large files - 12.1 MBytes - would quickly eat up even a large hard disk. If you know that you are going to get a great shot, and you know you will want to print it large (or crop) then go for the 8 M size. Otherwise 5M is pretty darn good!

​

What I like:

- It seems to take pretty good pix and has a lot of flexibility in terms of professional settings.

- Has 2 user modes - settings presets. So I have one for when I'm shooting birds and another one for general. Too bad it does not have 4 or 5!

- I like the flash shoe so I can use my Nikon pro flash. But you folks may not find that helpful.

- takes great li'l movies!

​

Reviews from http://reviews.cnet.com/ are helpful.

I'm not sure what else to say. I hope this was helpful.

Regards from Oregon!

 

[jules.b]

Remore and shutter delay on coolpix 8800

"- No cable release! The little remote only works in self timer mode (stupid!)"

Firmware version 1.7 fixes this!

 

[poledark]

Been using my 8800 for a few months now for all type of pics, lots of them for birds at close range.
I use the 5mb setting and can take pics of birds "hopping from twig to twig" as fast as the bird settles. The digi zoom gives good results up to 2x (gives me a 20x zoom) hand held, even at 4x in poor light it gives reasonable ID pics

The 8800 is NOT slow, it just slows down when using the 8mb setting, but that is common to all cameras isn't it? when "chasing birds" i either use a manual setting for focus or simple prefocuss by pressing the shutter halfway....this allows you to wait for the bird to pose and is virtually instantaneous.

The 1.7 converter attaches via an adaptor screwed direct to the body.

Remote...upgrade to the version 1.7 and you can set the timer on 3 secs and take as many pics with the remote as you want without having to reset.



I have purchased a "cheap" Kenco 3x converter lens and it is US with any combination of camera settings.

Is "Speed" really a problem?, I have fiddled a bit with scopes and simply getting the bird to keep still long enough is surely the real problem, you only need one shot don't you? or do you want a camera that takes a load in one burst and hope to get a good one? Not my idea of photography.

Look, compose and take pic.

Sorry this post is a bit jumbled but I am thinking as I write,

Den

 

[tonyaltn]

I just sold my 8800 after getting the D50...I miss it alot. Yes, it is a very slow camera, slow start up time, write speed, focus, zoom, and shut down. The filter size is 53.5mm, I had the Bower 53.5mm to 58mm step up ring so I could use any standard hood, or filters that I wanted without the need for adapter tubes (terrible things). And the tilt and swivel screen meant I didnt need to lay in the water to get a nice, low to the ground, slow shutter speed shot of a running stream...now I do, lol. The lens is a 8.9 - 98mm, but the 8.9mm seems more like a 50 or 55mm when it came to being wide. The zoom was nice, but not enough, the 15 scene modes were great to have for sure, the image quality is excellent but not as sharp as a D50 or D70 even with the ED glass. What I miss most are the image size options of the 8.0Mp's, the D50 being only 6.1Mp dont produce the nice big images I like to work with in PS. Although the D50 is alot faster, and produces sharper images, I almost wish I still had the 8800 because it will do alot more...but it costs twice as much also. You cant go wrong with the 8800...but since you returned the 8700 because of the speed...DONT BUY IT...its just as slow.