Ikelite Coolpix 5000 "First Look"

Hi Gang,

Ikelite is shipping the Coolpix 5000 housing and I received one of the first ones.

I have put together a page with some shots of my setup and some test shots from a "bench test" and a "pool test."

Results are excellent!!!

For a complete writeup, see:

http://www.reefpix.org/iketest/index.htm

Quick summary of conclusions:

Housing is compact, light, and very well balanced.

All camera functions/buttons are accessible, including the AE/AF lock button.

Camera/strobe/TTL exposure is EXCELLENT! I was really pleased with the results. Here's a TTL exposure using dual strobes w/ a dual sync cord:

(Yes, a Coke can is a great test subject, it is bright red, has large and small text and is also reflective. These shots were taken against a white background in the pool as well. Extremely challenging shot.

Any and all questions/comments/suggestions/feedback appreciated.

Cheers

James Wiseman

[Edited on 3-29-2002 by jamesw]

Great minds think alike James - when I was testing out a C4040z the coke bottle was my tests ubject

Looks nice James, several questions.

1. Can you access the mode selector switch with the camera's controls?

2. Ike says that in the second batch the switch for the auto focus lock will be moved to the side. Do you think this will be an advantage? Enough to wait for??

3. As I understand it the flat port is removable to use the alternative dome port for the wide angle adaptor. True? Do you see any problems with changing ports or maintance of the ports O rings?? Especially do you think you could just leave a port on for a length of time and not worry about it?

4. Why did you try on the add on macro lens? You can already get better than the equivelant of 1:1 macro with a 35mm camera with this camera and it focuses almost to the lens. Since an add on diopter will only decrease the focus distance and with the 5000 the close focus distance is essentially zero do you think an add on macro lens is of any value?

5. Did ike give you any idea when the dome port will be out?

6. Have you any experience with the various add on wide angle lenses? Specifically are they soft in the corners?

Hi David,

1. Can you access the mode selector switch with the camera's controls?

Yep, sure can. This allows you to switch between full manual and aperture priority.

2. Ike says that in the second batch the switch for the auto focus lock will be moved to the side. Do you think this will be an advantage? Enough to wait for??

Yep, this was one of my suggestions as well. I think that Ikelite will move this lever to the side so that it is more of a "trigger finger grip." The AE/AF lock control works ok where it is though, but it would work better on the side IMO. Enough to wait for? That totally depends on you...

3. As I understand it the flat port is removable to use the alternative dome port for the wide angle adaptor. True? Do you see any problems with changing ports or maintance of the ports O rings?? Especially do you think you could just leave a port on for a length of time and not worry about it?

I've never used a housing with interchangable ports before, so this is a new one for me as well. Ikelite has been making housings with interchangable ports for years, so they should jump in and answer this question - not me.

4. Why did you try on the add on macro lens? You can already get better than the equivelant of 1:1 macro with a 35mm camera with this camera and it focuses almost to the lens. Since an add on diopter will only decrease the focus distance and with the 5000 the close focus distance is essentially zero do you think an add on macro lens is of any value?

Yes and no. What really worries me is bumping into corals and invertebrates when taking a macro shot. I don't want to get .75 inches away for a coral to take a macro shot if I don't have to. I had a chance to pick up an Inon macro diopter so I did. We'll see how it works. I'm already in love with the Coolpix's macro capability. Now I'm going for that 1.5 or 2 to 1 macro...

5. Did ike give you any idea when the dome port will be out?

Ike? "Mork calling Orsen, come in Orsen."

6. Have you any experience with the various add on wide angle lenses? Specifically are they soft in the corners?

Nope. I decided when I bought the Coolpix 5000 that I wasn't going to use an add-on wet-mate WA lens. Not when Nikon makes an awesome 19mm lens for the Coolpix. With that in mind, I started looking for housings. Another thing that is GREAT about the Coolpix WC-E68 is that the front lens element doesn't move when you zoom the camera. This means that an excellent domeport can be designed for this lens allowing you to use the full zoom range without any softness or vignetting due to the dome. Pretty cool eh? I think that's a LOT better than a wet-mate converter lens.

Cheers and hope this helps,

James Wiseman

James, when you pull out the back of the housing with the camera attached can you change the battery without detaching the camera from the back of the housing?

Thanks

On the G2 housing, you must pop the camera off the plate, to change batteries. But since a battery gives about 3.5 hours of on time, and since it only takes a minute to mount and close up the housing, it is not at all an issue. The ergonomics are just so good.

Hey James. Could you post a picture that shows how the flash is connected up - both at camera, and where it comes out the camera.

Is it through the back plate, so that it comes out all together, or??

Thanks,

Don

Hi Guys,

Let's see if I can answer all of these questions in one post...

Dave:

Yes, you have to take the camera off of the tray to change the battery right now.

Great idea!!!!! Ike, if you could shave about 3/4" off of the right side of the tray, you wouldn't have to even take the camera off the tray to change batteries. You could leave the bump stop pin where it is and shave off a .75" x 1.75" area at the corner of the tray to allow the battery door to swing open.

Don:

The cable inside the housing goes from the camera's hotshoe to a bulkhead in the back of the housing. So, when you take the back plate off (open the housing) off comes the back, tray, camera, and hot-shoe cable. It all comes out together.

Here's a closeup of the back of the housing:

Sorry I can't get a picture of the camera hookup with the back of the housing off to show you, but I've only got one digicam this weekend. I loaned my older CP990 out to a friend... I've marked up a closeup taken through the top of the housing to help illustrate some of this:

I gotta tell you, it's REALLY nice to have a camera with a hotshoe. The connector in the Ike housing just snaps right into the hot shoe.

Cheers

James Wiseman

[Edited on 3-31-2002 by jamesw]

Hi, I just want to know if the shutter lag on the CP5000 bothers you UW or are you using the LCD all the time, in order to shorten the time

Do you have any UW images yet?

Thanks

Boris

Of course it bothers me...:-) But not more than any other consumer level digital camera would. Unless you have an SLR, you are going to have to live w/ shutter lag.

With that said, I have been shooting a CP990 underwater for a little over a year, so I have grown accustomed to accounting for the shutter lag when I compose my shots. You get used to it.

FWIW, I use the LCD all the time.

I don't have any pictures from the CP5000 diving yet, but I hope to soon. It shouldn't be TOO much different than my CP990 pictures here:

www.reefpix.org/belize/index.htm

HTH

James Wiseman

James, I agree. The shutter lag is annoying, and it would be better if it were not there. But it is far from the worst problem, and with several cameras at least, we know that the drawbacks do not prevent them being useful tools for underwater imaging.

Shutter lag can be cut to nearly 0, on at least the Canon G2, and the CP5k, by using the "half press, recompose, then shoot", technique. Pretty sure this works on the Olys and Sony 707, also.

For me, a bigger problem is the slowness of the auto focus. Almost requires a focus assist, below 50 or 60 feet, which scares the fishies..

Another bigger issue is the LCD visibility in daylight. I used a friend's Sony 707 yesterday, and noticed that the LCD was barely usable, on a heavily cloud covered day! The G2 is almost infinitely more useable. I haven't held a G2 and CP5k next to each other...

Another issue, that I've noticed, is that due to the fact that many of these setups are using optical slaves, the re-cycle time, on the camera's built in flash, becomes the limiting factor. All these cool strobes, that recycle in less than 1 sec, but the little camera's flash takes 10-15 seconds.

James, since you are using a hotshoe connection, does the camera completely turn off the builtin flash? That might turn into a nice advantage.

Maybe we should move this to the tips & techniques... Seems like we know enough now, to have a productive brainstorming, on how the details matter, and what cameras have what details, which way...

For the Olympus C3000:

The shuttler lag is very small if you use focus lock.

Otherwise, it seems like about 1/2 second to me (not measured with any precision).

I've never had a problem with the LCD in the water.

Bright sun light yes, but never underwater.

The recycle time is about 4 seconds for the built in flash if set to full.

It's about 3 seconds when set to -2 EV, which is all that's needed to trigger the YS90DX's in my setup.

With the built in flash off, the file write time becomes the limiting factor.

Shooting on SHQ, I can get in 2 shots within about 1 second, but then the camera

has to take about a 6 second timeout to write. On HQ, I can get in many more.

The C3000 does not have much of a RAM buffer, maybe some of the others are better.

Herb

With the Coolpix cameras, you hook the strobe up via sync cord, so you can turn the internal flash off entirely. That's what I do.

The Coolpix 5000 fires an annoying little preflash no matter what you do (it's proven to do absolutely nothing) but it doesn't affect recycle time.

The limiting factor w/ my setup is external strobe recycle time. The camera beats my Nikon SB102 every time.

Shutter lag is short when using the AE/AF lock or shutter half-press, but it nothing like my Nikonos where the shutter trips when I push the button.

Just takes some getting used to.

Cheers

James