Nikon Rubber Eyecup

Perfect for the job. Lost mine off the camera and these are just dandy. No other comments as they are just what I ordered. No complaints.

Essential for serious D100 use, but could have been combined

This is an essential item for serious D100 use, but it has enough parts in common that it should have been combined with the charger rather than sold as a separate item.

The EH-5 is essential for one purpose only: you cannot clean the CCD without it. If you buy it for that purpose, it is also useful for when connected to a computer, which drains the battery pretty quickly. You can further use it when doing studio photography, but, given that a single battery charge is good for around 600 shots, you may prefer to have one less cable to organise unless studio photography is your mainstay.

Why should you want to clean the CCD? With 35mm film, the surface onto which you are recording is used just once. Any dust which is in your camera will spoil at worst one picture, but probably will never build up to the extent that it is noticeble. With a compact digital, the camera is never opened, and there is no possibility of dust entering. With a true SLR digital, though, dust enters whenever you change lenses, as well as tiny slivers of metal which get shaved off at the same time. The sensor is a charged couple device, and the charge attracts whatever dust is in the camera. There's a function in Nikon capture to cancel out dust, but, if you are using the camera a lot, and with different lenses, you are eventually going to need to clean it.

There's been a lot of discussion online about cleaning the CCD. Nikon recommends using the mirror lock-up function and a blower (_not_ compressed gas). This function only operates when the camera is plugged into this mains adapter, to avoid the risk that there won't be enough power to close it again.

However, one piece of advice which I found online was that you could get the shutter to lock open with the mirror up by setting everything to manual and using the Bulb (extended exposure) function. Unfortunately, this does not work! The shutter opens correctly, but because the CCD is charged (ie - Charged Couple Device), it attracts dust far more rapidly than you can get rid of it.

Therefore, although seemingly expensive, the EH-5 is the only way to go, because only when you use the EH-5 and the mirror lock-up is the shutter open and the CCD uncharged.

Nikon does not recommend cleaning the CCD with anything other than an air blower. However, both Fuji and Kodak recommend Eclipse fluid and specially designed, clean room manufactured swabs for cleaning their CCDs. Nikon does sell such a kit in Japan, but not yet in the UK.

As far the other uses of the adapter, there is some real value in being able to save the batteries when connected to a computer, either for downloading or while using Nikon Capture Control. The EN EL3 batteries do have a limited, albeit long, useful life, which probably equates to 'forever' if you are just using the batteries for taking pictures, but will be substantially less if you do a lot of downloading.

I bought the EH-5 solely because I needed to clean the CCD. The other benefits do add value, but wouldn't have persuaded me to buy it.

I give this 4 stars because it does do exactly what it says it does. However, it could have been designed in with the charger unit and supplied with the camera, or, at the least, have been built into the more expensive double charger unit, and so saved at least one box-worth of electronics.

Nikon 67mm filter Nc

Excellent product but expensive, hence only four stars. Cheaper versions are available, but when you've paid over £800 for a Nikon D90,18-105 kit + SDHC card, I really can't see the point of putting anything less than a Nikon filter in front of that lens, whatever the price! Jim.

Another great converter for the Coolpix 5700/8700

Only started using this a few weeks before I moved on to a D200 DSLR... -- but it's well worth the money for the amount of additional crystal-clear magnification it gives you. It can also be used, like the wide-angle converter, at the macro end of things, with great success! (And it's a lot lighter than either that one or the fish-eye...!)

Nikon's dog neckless

This lenshood is more peculiar than usefull. It protects the lens against rain in moderate amaounts, but the sun has almost free access into it. I have tried taking the hood off in sunlight, and the difference between having it on and not at all is indeed minimal. As a compensation the hood comes out pretty cheap.