As one or two people might be aware, one or two of us are rather keen on the Nikon 8440 for u/g photography... it's...

- Smallish
- Cheapish, certainly cheaper than a DSLR
- Has a manual focus mode
- Has full manual control
- Has a bulb or timed shutter release up to 10 minutes
- Has a very wide angle lens (24mm (equiv. 35mm)), with really good sharp optics

Unfortunately it's also several years out of production and is favoured by parapenters and such like for it's wide angle lens meaning eBay prices on 2nd hand ones are often more then you'd pay for a current model.

It's hard to find a sub-DSLR that offers the sort of features needed for u/g but I've just noticed this and thought it worth a mention.

Olympus SP570



Forget the 20x digitial zoom, but it does have a 26mm (equiv. 35mm) lens at it's widest angle setting, plus full manual control, manual focus, is 10MP as opposed to the 8MP 8400 and has a maximum 8 minutes exposure time. All looking good. Oh, and a 3 inch LCD (although not flippable and twistable like the Nikon is - which is very handy when lining up an awkward shot).

Here's the specs on the Olympus site: http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/29_digital_camera_sp-570uz_prod_specifications_18515.htm 

And some reviews http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/digital-cameras/olympus-sp-570-uz-digital-camera-review_roundup.html  and http://www.dcviews.com/reviews/Olympus-SP570/Olympus-SP570-review.htm . I'd like to see a review on DPReview http://www.dpreview.com/  which carries very in-depth reviews, but they haven't done one yet. Here's hoping.

Price seems to be around £230.

If you're reading this Olympus - can I have one to review please :lol:

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The 8400 is also a favourite of the KAP brigade. Although the Canon Powershots have taken over because of CHDK. I would suggest Simon you hold out to look at the new Nikon P6000 which is the nearest Nikon update so far you'll get to the the 8400.

It features 13 mp + on a bigger sensor (very, very important), 28mm equiv, adapter lenses, gps, hot shoe mount, image stabilizer (vibration reduction). It looks like a 8400 and has full manual too.

Nearly forgot RAW too

This SP570 is the model that has replaced my camera, the only difference is that Olympus have thrown on a few more mega pixels.
The only major problem is that the photo's as a default can be quite drab and colourless but this is remeded by turning up the Sharpness and saturation on the camera by about 20%. I dont use photoshop for my pictures!

http://www.camerabox.co.uk/product1.asp?ProductID=4723&gclid=COyf1_-UkJUCFRpUEAod0T9Xfg Camerabox have a batch of SP-570 arriving in a few days, price £229.99, which is the lowest price I can find. Very attractive at that price!.

I am thinking of buying one for general photography as it has an exceptionally wide optical zoom range, ideal for long shots. Half the price of my old Minolta with what was good in its day, 7:1 zoom, and far more pixels too.

Not sure if I would take any camera underground, except in very easy conditions, as they tend to be a bit fragile. But obviously people here do so, very successfully, so perhaps I am over-cautious.

Well, I thought about it very briefly, and made a quick decision and ordered one.

Hopefully I will get a chance to try it out underground in an easy one soon. I did intend to visit Carnaughton Glen in the near future. No climbing or really rough ground there so it should be safe. The biggest hazard is stray golf balls.

Now I am off to Tesco for a torch.....

Could I suggest people also check out the Sony Alpha 200.
This is a 10MP SLR with an excellent specification. I think it is a actually a Canon clone. Various good prices on the net, but Argos are doing it at £299 with 6 months interest free credit!
I've been using one for a while and I'm very pleased with the results. As a plus it will also use my Minolta lenses. :thumbsup:

interesting the A200 I gather is rather noisy at iso 400 and above.
I have had great fun since getting a canon 350d and am really looking forward to being well enough to go underground again to give it a go underground. Especially with a 50mm f1.8 lens.
The biggest letdown is that canon do not mark distances on their cheaper lenses.
I do now regret waiting for so long before getting a DSLR.

The new Olympus e420 is the worlds smallest DSLR but it has a very usefull feature, that is - wireless flash. It can operate I think up to 3 wireless flash guns at once, that does have advantages! I would get one but I'm holding out for the e3 which is also dust proof and water resistant but at £1000 i'm some way off yet.

Also Olympus makes some of the best lens out there, very sharp and great colour rendition, I love them.

I'm rather fond of my Oly E500.
Lenses are very good indeed, especially the 35mm macro.
It is, however, a delicate creature and I wouldn't take it UG.
Somewhere on the Olympus site there is an article on depth of field with some examples of the tables for working out hyperfocal focusing. It can be downloaded as an Excel table and is very useful indeed.

The 8400 is also a favourite of the KAP brigade. Although the Canon Powershots have taken over because of CHDK. I would suggest Simon you hold out to look at the new Nikon P6000 which is the nearest Nikon update so far you'll get to the the 8400.

Some good recommendations there 🙂 I think I'll take Toadstone's advice and hold out for the P6000. It looks ideal for u/g, building on the 8400 (shame not quite so wide angle though) but with a bigger sencccsor and higher resolution.

Here's the full specs from Nikon:

Effective pixels: 13.5 million

Image sensor: 1/1.7-in. CCD; total pixels: approx. 13.93 million

Lens: 4x Zoom-NIKKOR; 6.0-24.0mm (35mm [135] format picture angle: 28-112mm); f/2.7-5.9; 9 elements in 7 groups; Digital
zoom: up to 4x (35mm [135] format picture angle: 448mm)

Focus range (from lens): 50cm (1 ft. 7.7 in.) to infinity; Macro close-up mode: 2cm (0.8 in.) to infinity

Storage media: Internal memory (approx. 48 MB), SD memory cards

Image size (pixels): 4224 x 3168 (13M), 3264 x 2448 (8M), 2592 x 1944 (5M), 2048 x 1536 (3M), 1600 x 1200 (2M), 1280 x 960 (1M), 1024×768 (PC), 640 x 480 (TV), 4224 x 2816, 4224 x 2376 (16:9), 3168 x 3168 (1:1)

Vibration Reduction (VR): Lens shift VR

ISO sensitivity: ISO 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 3200, 6400, Auto (auto gain ISO 64-800), High ISO Sensitivity Auto (ISO 64-1600), Fixed Range Auto (ISO 64-100, 200, 400)

Interface: Hi-Speed USB

Power sources: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL5 (supplied), AC Adapter EH-66 (supplied)

Battery life: Approx. 260 shots with EN-EL5 battery

Dimensions (WxHxD): Approx. 107 x 65.5 x 42 mm (4.2 x 2.6 x 1.7 in.) excluding projections

Weight: Approx. 240 g (8.5oz.) without battery and SD memory card

Supplied accessories*3: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL5, AC Adapter EH-66, USB Cable UC-E6, Audio Video Cable EG-CP14, Strap AN-CP18, Software Suite CD-ROM

Optional accessories: Battery Charger MH-61, Wide-angle Converter WC-E76, Adapter Ring UR-E21, Speedlight SB-400, SB-600, SB-900

Not compatible with Multi Media Cards (MMC).

ISO 3200 and 6400 are available only for image sizes of 3M (2048 x 1536) or smaller.

Supplied accessories may differ by country or area.

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I'm a Canon man me. Here's a few personal opinons of the Canons i've had so far.

Ixus 500. Discontinued but i got it cheap 3 years ago cos of this. 5mp, x3 zoom. A basic compact digital camera. Great little camera that was only let down by the fact that you can only open shutter for 15secs max....oh and the fact thats its now not working. Screen is blank and takes blank photos. The shot of the conveyor in Monkton Farleigh in my Personal Album was taken with Ixus

With the demise of the Ixus i bought a Canon G9 to replace it. 12.1MP, shoots RAW. Again the only let down is the max shutter time of 15 secs. I'm hoping that a CHDK hack will sort this out, but it still takes good pictures. The other draw back i've found is the lens not being wide enough. I fine myself having to step back alot further to take pics, but on the whole am very impressed. Sapperton Canal tunnel in personal album takne with G9, as is the Vulcan pic.

All my other pictures have been taken on a Canon 300D. This cost me alot of money when i first bought it, but i have no regrets. This camera has been places that Canon never intended their cameras to go!. From the darkest depths of Brewery Shaft in Nenthead, a very dusty Russian bunker in Germany, a wet Moel Ferna and several times round Box mines plus other odd places to take a camera, its never let me down!. Nothing has ever broken on it and its fallen out of my camera bag several times and worked ok (inc Mum dropping the contents of said camera bag on a stone tiled floor).

Having used the G9, i took the plunge yesterday and bought a 450D DSLR!!. Same MP (12.1) but i now have 'bulb' and possibly the best thing of all, Live View. No more stooping to set the shoot up when U/G.

DP

After reading the specs (sketchy that they are, even on Nikon's web site) I decided to buy one of these. Partly in the hope to use it underground, but also partly because the only point and shoot pocket sized digitial I've got is getting very old.

Initial impressions are very good. It's got a nice big screen, although unfortunately that doesn't flip and rotate like the 8400 (this was blindingly obvious from the photographs of the camera of course so I wasn't expecting it!).

It's solid, much more solid feeling than the 8400 and is tiny in comparison.

It's got the same full manual mode, and similar approach to manual focus, and with almost the same wide angle capability as the 8400 it was all looking good...

Unfortunately however it's missing the 'timed release' function of the 8400, on the 8400 you had the option of true a bulb mode (press and hold) or timed release of up to 10 minutes - basically press to open the shutter and press again to close it.

The P6000 has a maximum of 30 seconds. And boy is this hard to find out without buying one. DPReview says 'unknown' for max shutter time and Nikon themselves don't mention it at all.

So it's a bit limited for all round u/g use, at least for anythign that requires more than 30 seconds exposure anyway.

Some negative comments have been made about the sensor size and number of pixels suggesting the former is too small for such a large number of the latter; and means a lot of noise over ISO 200. However I probably used ISO 200 on the 8400 all of 3 or 4 times so I'm not worried about that.

The other major annoyance it the quality settings go straight from JPEG to NRW, some sort of proprietry raw format. What's wrong with TIFF.

Good, but not ideal and will probably get more use for holiday photos than u/g!

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I liked the look of this new Nikon, currently using Nikon 5400 for U/G stuff.

It has just put me off a little to hear the max exp time is limited to 30 secs, don't understand that one.

I have found several of my shots are a little on the dark side at 30 secs, and therefore have to go up to 1min.

I wonder if there is or will be any software to alter this on the P6000.

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I wonder if there is or will be any software to alter this on the P6000.

Good point, the firmware reports "COOPIX P6000 Ver.1.0"

Here's hoping Ver.1.1 might address it! :flowers: :flowers:

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with the canon's the cdhk "fixes" some of these problems. I wonder if there is an equivalent for others ?

I've also just ordered a P6000, as a replacement for my stolen 8400. Unfortunately I did not really have a choice as the insurance company wanted to source and replace rather than make cash pay out.
They offered me a P80 but I laughed and sent them packing. In the end I demanded they give me the P6000 :guns:

It was a bit of a gamble as Simon say there spec listed on Nikons web site is very brief. Its sad to here about the shutter time. Lets hope they fix it with a firm ware update at some point.
Looks like I'm looking for another 8400 to fill the gap for the time being.

Will report back with once I had time to get it underground as I'm sure Simon will.

That's disappointing to find out that it doesn't perform well on the extended exposure times. Does anyone think Nikon can be prompted into providing a fix in a future firmware update?

As for the sensor size, I thought that had been increased so allowing the pixel number to be increased. In theory it should not cause interference/graininess at higher ISO. I could understand it if the sensor size had remained the same and the pixel number had been increased to the new level.

As has been said in other posts relating to CHDK. This hack is only applicable to Canon Point and Shot Cameras that use the Digic 2 and some Digic 3 processors. It is a fantastic piece of firmware. To the best of my knowledge no other camera manufacturers have left ways into their software and I suspect Canon didn't do it intentionally.

I use the CHDK all the time and have recently been playing with the video hacks that will allow me to use an underwater enclosure remotely to take pictures and video in a predetermined sequence until the SD card is full. I know LAP is doing the same as I've sent him some links for scripts.

Peter.

From DP Review:

P6000 Sensor size (13MP): 7.4 x 5.55 mm

8400 Sensor size (8MP): 8.8 x 6.6mm

Lots of megapixies for a 1/1.7" sensor...

And to give an idea of how much smaller the P6000 is:

P6000: 107 x 65.2 x 42mm / 280g

8400: 113 x 82 x 75mm / 470g

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The ' press and hold' for B setting can be a pain, however, there is a useful gadget that can be bought for a tenner that makes things easier

I have to say I was mistakenly under the impression that the sensor size had increased.

Still a good camera though and potential KAP camera.