Need help I have never used a Digital Electric Camera before.

Need help I have never used a Digital Electric Camera before.

Nikon Cool-pix 5700

Memory card says High speed 40 512 MB

How do I get a smaller F-stop 11 to 16 would be nice

shutter speed 1/60 only Bright sun 1/125 to 1/250 would also be great

I can only get 1/60 at f=1:2.8

Also how to cancel the built in Flash very weak and use another Hot shoe Flash

It seems you could easily answer your own questions here, by searching for the product manual online.

 

COOLPIX 5700 from Nikon

Hi Annette (is that the right thing to call you?)

 

Welcome to your camera. I hope we can help you.

 

Firstly, I hope you have access to the manual? If not, it's available here. (Edit: I see Dave has also linked.)

 

I'm not personally familiar with that camera. As far as I can see from the manual, exposure settings are described from about p.70. If you set manual mode, you should be able to set aperture and shutter speed directly.

 

I would expect you may be limited in the apertures that are available - in compact cameras it's common for only a few relatively large apertures to be an option. Bear in mind that the sensor size is much smaller than a film camera, so the depth of field you get will be much larger at the same f-stop - you're probably going to be at the equivalent of f/11-16 in 35mm camera terms when you're at the largest apertures the camera supports. You shouldn't have a problem with shutter speed.

 

I'll have a rummage in the manual and see whether I can answer your questions directly...

Okay, dpreview reports an 8.8x6.6mm sensor, compared with 36x24mm for 35mm film. The manual says, I believe, that the camera supports ten aperture settings, 1/3 stop apart; if my maths works (sorry, it's late here) that's something like f/2.8 to f/8 at the wide angle setting, and reduced at longer focal lengths. 36/8.8 is roughly 4, so if I remember how equivalence works, f/2.8 is about f/11 in 35mm camera terms; f/4 is similar to f/16 on a 35mm camera with the same field of view.

 

Note this is just for depth of field purposes - this calculation doesn't change exposure settings for ISO and shutter speed. (Disclaimer: I may backtrack on that statement if we discuss the ISO vs noise behaviour of different sensor sizes, but for now, don't let me distract you.)

 

I doubt you want much smaller than this - you'll already have a lot of depth of field, and your image quality may be affected by diffraction. You'll notice you can't blur the background at f/2.8 the way you can with a film camera (or a digital camera with a larger sensor). Shutter speed should "just work", though. It'll be easiest to set these in manual "M" exposure mode.

 

Page 62 of the manual talks about turning off the internal flash. Pages 138 and 139 talk about an external flash. I'd check Nikon's documentation carefully for compatibility information - this is a 2002 vintage camera (which is, I'm afraid, getting on a bit in modern terms), and I'm not sure all modern speedlights will work properly with it, at least automatically.

 

You might also find the dpreview review of the camera here useful.

 

I hope that's enough to get started. Do let us know if we can help. Welcome to the Nikon community. Good luck!

Thanks, Andrew. I didn't mean to be rude.

Thanks, Andrew. I didn't mean to be rude.

 

You got there before me with the link, Dave (I talk too much) - hopefully that was taken in the helpful manner intended!

Andrew yes I have a PDF downloaded Manual and I am lost.

I have only used Manual 35mm SLR and 4X5 LF Cameras

OK using the Sunny 16 Rule 35mm 200 ASA f´16 1/250 what would be the equivalent with this Digital Camera?

I do not want shallow Depth of Field!

The 5700 is about the same age as my 5000. My 5000 probably has the same type of sensor like the 5700 but it has a shorter zoom (28-85mm equivalent) instead of the 5700 28-270mm equivalent. The 5700 also has an EVF which my 5000 doesn't. I still use my 5000 a lot. It's OK for ISO 100. It's noisy at any ISO faster. It shoots RAW but I have to wait about 30 sec after every shot for it to write to card. I have used 1GB card in it and it works fine. 2GB card doesn't work. When I wanted to take the above picture I found that the DSLR has too shallow DOF. I use the 5000 at f/8 and the DOF is a lot.

The aperture will not go smaller than F/8. If it did, the physical aperture size would be so tiny that diffraction would be a massive problem. Unlike DSLR's, the 5700 works well with older Nikon TTL film era flashguns like the SB18. Edited December 31, 2017 by John Seaman

John is correct. Diffraction is an issue with tiny sensor cameras like the CP5700, and most compact and bridge style cameras limit the aperture to around f/8. They compensate by having a top shutter speed of 1/2000th and an ISO that goes down to 64 or thereabouts. So full sunlight exposures are no problem.

 

Why not just put the camera on 'P' - program - mode until you get used to it? Ignore the stupid Sunny 16 'rule'; nobody uses f/16 on a 35mm or smaller format anyway, if they can help it.

 

Don't worry about shallow depth of field. You won't get it at any aperture with that camera!

 

"Unlike DSLR's, the 5700 works well with older Nikon TTL film era flashguns like the SB18."

 

I'm not sure that's true. I've never found a Nikon digital that was compatible with OTF TTL. But then this model does date back to 2002, and Auto Aperture mode is more reliable than flakey TTL.

Edited December 31, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

Joe I did have a 5700 briefly and was surprised to find good exposures with the SB18 in TTL mode.

Joe I did have a 5700 briefly and was surprised to find good exposures with the SB18 in TTL mode.

 

- Except it's not really TTL exposure. The CP5700 uses a reflective flash sensor in its popup flash to regulate the output of a speedlight in its hotshoe. It's actually using the speedlight's TTL control signals to implement Auto Aperture exposure. Nothing wrong with that, since I find AA mode to be far more consistent and reliable than i-TTL. It just isn't TTL.

 

Incidentally, I use AA mode quite a lot with SB-24, 25 and 28 speedlights on my DSLRs. So who needs i-TTL?

OK using the Sunny 16 Rule 35mm 200 ASA f´16 1/250 what would be the

equivalent with this Digital Camera?

 

I do not want shallow Depth of Field!

 

Although, as Joe says, you'll probably find it easier to use the camera with automated exposure (the "P", "A" or "S" modes), "sunny 16" still applies as a guide to exposure in sunlight if you want to expose manually - you just need to allow for changing parameters while keeping the exposure constant.

 

For example, since "sunny 16" says you should use a 1/100s shutter at an ISO/ASA of 100, if all you can select is f/8, you just need to know that f/8 is two stops faster than f/16. Shoot with a shutter speed two stops faster (1/400s) and the exposure should be right, as with a film camera.

 

Unlike a 35mm camera you can also adjust the ISO for each shot if you need to change the shutter speed further (especially indoors). However, higher ISO means more noise (similar to grain on fast film), especially on older cameras with smaller sensors like yours - hence BeBu's warning.

 

Since you've already used both 5x4 and 35mm, I can be a bit clearer about equivalence. I'll just use the long edges of the frame for an approximate comparison since the aspect ratios differ:

 

You'll be used to 5x4 having less depth of field at the same f-stop and field of view as a 35mm camera. The difference has the same ratio as the film size - if you're matching the able of view on the long edge, this means the ratio is 5"/36mm (treating a 35mm film frame as 36mm wide, traditionally), or roughly 3.5x. That is, if you have the same angle of view, if you shoot at (say) f/8 on 35mm, you'll have the same depth of field as f/(3.5x8) = f/28 (just to be clear, NOT f/2.8) using the 5x4.

 

This is because the depth of field is determined by the absolute aperture, not the relative aperture (f-stop). On a 35mm camera, a 100mm lens used at f/2 has an effective aperture 100mm/2 =50mm wide. On a 5x4, you need a (roughly) 350mm lens to get the same view because the film is about 3.5x larger, but to get the same depth of field you need to shoot it at f/7 (f/(2x3.5)). 350mm/7 gets us back to a 50mm aperture.

 

There's a "cone of confusion" from the aperture through each point in the focal plane, with points in front of and behind the focal plane being spread out by the radius of the cone at that distance. If the aperture is smaller, the cone gets narrower, so foreground and background are blurred less and depth of field increases.

 

With the 5700, the sensor is smaller than 35mm film - 8.8mm wide - so we can do the same calculation. Here the scale factor is 36mm/8.8mm, or about 4. At a field of view similar to a 35mm camera at 100mm, the lens on the 5700 is actually at 100mm/4 = 25mm, which is why it's relatively small for a camera with a long zoom in it. At f/8, that's a 3-ish mm aperture (25/8), which is also what you'd get from a 100mm lens on a 35mm camera shot at f/32 (f/4x8) - so the depth of field is tiny. That's about f/100 on your 5x4.

 

Onto my personal way of thinking about equivalence, so please ignore the following if it just causes confusion...

 

ISO (or ASA) measures the sensitivity of film to light per unit area - "sunny 16" works no matter your film size. If this weren't true, cropping a section it of a photograph would be very confusing. But we've said 35mm film needs a larger f-stop than a 5x4 to get the same depth of field. At the same f-stop the 5x4 captures more light than 35mm, because it has a larger film area. If you make the same print size from both cameras, you have to enlarge the 5x4 negative by less; this means there's more grain on the 35mm shot because you've enlarged the grain more. However, if we match depth of field, we're using a smaller aperture on the larger format. To take the same exposure time as well, the larger format film needs to be more sensitive (higher ISO) - which increases the grain size, cancelling out the size advantage (for grain).

 

The 5700's sensor is roughly 4x4 = 16 times smaller than a 35mm frame (ignoring the aspect ratio), and captures 16x less light. You might expect ISO 100 on it to behave like ISO 1600 on a 35mm camera when it comes to noise, just based on the total amount of light contributing to the image. Digital sensors are generally much better at controlling noise than film is at controlling grain, but this is an OLD sensor, and raising the ISO setting will make pictures noisy very quickly.

 

More modern digital cameras with larger sensors have much less of a problem here, but bear in mind this limitation if you're changing ISO. (The same argument applies to, say, cellphones, which do remarkably well given how little light they're actually capturing.)

 

So, for "equivalence", either think in terms of f-stop, equivalent focal length and ISO (which will give you correct exposures but ignores depth of field), OR think in terms of "equivalent aperture" to sort out the depth of field, but also think of noise/grain in terms of "equivalent ISO", which makes these terms cancel out to give a correct exposure.

 

I hope all that helps, and apologies for reiterating anything you're already familiar with. But seriously, don't worry too much, take some shots (free on digital!) and I hope it'll all become clear enough. :-) Good luck!

One more thing I have a Battery Charger and this Battery is a big Joke is it possible to get an Energizer Battery they should last about 2-3 Months.

And thanks to all for your great answers and Happy New Year to all.

Digital cameras use a lot of battery power so the battery won't last long. 2-3 months is a far stretch. You can buy the MB-E5700 and use 6 AA batteries. They last longer but I doubt for 2-3 months unless you really not use it a lot.

That camera is over 15 years old, it's likely the battery is at the end of its life. Apparently you can use 2CR5 batteries.

 

I wouldn't expect much from the images. Any current smartphone will take better photos.

I wouldn't expect much from the images. Any current smartphone will take better photos.

 

Except for the fact that it has a hotshoe and thus the ability to use external flash.

 

Outdoors, my iPhone(6) kicks butt. Inside, I can do better with a D1(1999, 2.7mp) whether with an SB-800 in the hotshoe or with my studio lights.

Edited December 31, 2017 by ben_hutcherson

Replacement EN-EL1 batteries look to be available with a bit of googling. I'd be unsurprised if the original was a bit dead - batteries don't last forever. The MB-E5700 for AAs would give longer life, but it looked a bit pricey (there can't be much demand) when I tried an auction site.

 

Even with a new battery, don't have high hopes. Running a live video feed to the rear LCD will kill the battery of a 2002-vintage camera in a relatively short time (I have a 1990s Agfa that would kill four alkali AAs in a few minutes). Comparing with a film camera, remember that's not doing anything but running the meter (maybe), possibly winding film and cocking the shutter once per frame, and any necessary autofocus - it's not constantly running a sensor or colour LCD like a compact. Modern mirrorless digital cameras are much better, and a modern DSLR doesn't use much more battery than a film SLR unless you start checking every image, but things have changed since 2002.

 

As spearhead says, smartphones will take better images in that they have newer sensor technology; some still don't allow you to access raw or give you direct control over aperture and shutter speed, and the zoom of the 5700 still gives you some reach.

 

I was too polite to ask, but I'm a little concerned that you're finding this camera frustrating to use, and I have to point out that a lot of that is because it's from 2002. I'm trusting it was either a gift or very cheap, in which case there's nothing wrong with that. Before we suggest you spend too much on external flash guns and batteries, though, we should point out that you don't have to spend that much more to get a more recent camera that offers a vastly better shooting experience. Don't be put off all digital cameras by this experience!

 

Happy new year, all.

I don't know Andrew! but I much rather use my Coolpix 5000 which is a bit lesser than the OP camera than the IPhone.

I don't know Andrew! but I much rather use my Coolpix 5000 which is a bit lesser than the OP camera than the IPhone.

 

There's something to be said for more explicit controls - one struggle I had with my recently-deceased cat in her last few months was that my new cellphone won't let me set exposure compensation properly with flash, which is awkward when your target has patches of white. I'd not have that trouble with a dedicated camera. Still, "the best camera is the one you have with you", and I have a lot of cat photos on a phone as a consequence. The same argument is the reason I picked up a refurbished RX100 a couple of years back - it can't do what my D810 can do, but it does fit in the pocket of my jeans, or the side pocket of a laptop bag. The 5700 is quite big for what it can do, by modern standards, but it does still have some advantages over phones.

 

If Annette wants to attend money on a camera that behaves more as she might expect, I'd either suggest a compact similar to an RX100 (or Canon's equivalent) or an RX10 for more reach, or find a cheap dSLR like a used D3100 or D3200 (at a relatively entry level price point). More money gets you more camera, obviously; cheaper cameras often lack the direct control that many on this forum want.

 

Not that I necessarily suggest spending money, just that if there's a consideration of throwing money at batteries and compatible flashes for the 5700, I'd think about the alternative.

 

You can take perfectly good (if sightly low resolution) images with the 5700, but there's no doubt it'll have some quality, flexibility and ease-of-use limitations compared with something newer. I mention this because Annette was starting to sound frustrated with what it can do. All cameras are limited, but some are more limited than others...

I bought this Camera for my Roommate She knows nothing about Photography it is like the Blind leading the Blind

It still only gives me 1/60 at f`1:2.8

Here are three Photos on Jan 1/2008 in Tucson, AZ 5:15 PM

 

I'm not really seeing the problem in those photos.

 

Per the exif data, the photo of the pool is at ISO 100, 1/60, and f/3.3. The parking lot is f/3.7. The shrub is at ISO 200, 1/125, and f/4.

 

The shrub looks a bit underexposed to me, while the other two look fine. The exposures are not out of line for what I'd expect on what appears to be an overcast January day in the late afternoon.

By the reflection on the steel gate, the flash was up. That would explain the 'stuck' 1/60th second shutter speed.

 

As Ben says, the EXIF data shows that the camera is capable of exposures other than 1/60th @ f/2.8.

 

The camera apparently defaults to fully-auto exposure mode when User 1 (U1) is selected. Reset it to that position, give it to your room-mate and forget it!

Upon the battery issue: I looked up replacements; 7.2V 800mAh <- similar to 6 rechargeable AAA cells. Vintage compact cameras with CCD sensors guzzle batteries rapidly. The only reasonable ways to deal with that is to have at least 2 charged spares pocketed or a matching PSU plugged into your wall. The Coolpix 5700 is somewhat advanced; it came at least with Lithium batteries that don't self discharge as rapidly as old school high capacity NiMhs. - I was too lazy to read reviews but suppose you can't expect more than 1h running time powered up from a battery? Still enough time to walk around and take a few shots home.

I believe I saw something in the manual suggesting the flash sync speed was faster than 1/60s (and that it's probably a leaf shutter because it's aperture-dependant). It might well be choosing a large aperture to try to compensate for the weedy flash, though.

 

If it's for someone who doesn't know photography, I agree with Joe: put it in auto exposure and let your room mate worry about composition and finding good subjects, not learning the technicalities of exposure. It's not like you'll have much control over depth of field anyway!