Filter Adapter Tubes

Since the 5700 lens does not have a filter thread, you must use an adapter tube in order to use filters. This page enumerates a few possible solutions. Please do keep in mind the fact that, when the on-camera lens is zoomed back to certain position, all of the adapter tubes other than the 52mm ring approach may generate a shadow in the lower portion of your image if the internal flash is used.

Nikon's Way

Nikon has a 67mm filter adapter ring for the 5700, part number 5597. This adapter ring has three components, a cylindrical tube, a conical tube, and a front cap (left image below). The cylindrical tube is actually a long 53.5mm to 55mm step-up ring. However, since the 55mm end of this tube is of the male type, you cannot use this tube for mounting other lens accessories unless you can find a 52-52 female to female ring. To use this adapter, you have to screw the conical tube to the cylindrical tube as show in the right image below. The conical tube has a 67mm thread size for 67mm filters.

The 53.5mm end of the cylindrical tube should be mounted on to the camera. At the wide angle end, the camera lens is deeply recessed and covered by the tubes (left image below). When the lens is zoomed all the way in, the lens front is almost flushed with the tube opening (middle below). The right image below shows a 67mm polarizer mounted on the filter adapter.

I have seen some reports indicating that the camera lens may bump into the mounted filter causing a Lens Err message. Should this happen, please try to loosen the rings and filters a little to increase the length of the adapter tube. In this way, the Lens Err message will disappear. To overcome this problem completely (if you did encounter this problem), you might want to use a 67-72mm step-up ring and 72mm filters exclusively, The following image shows the use of a 67-72mm step-up ring and a Hoya 81A warm filter. In general, no vignetting will occur at the wide angle end. Because the tube length increases due to the use of a 67-72mm step-up ring, the lens will not bump into the filter. One obvious disadvantage of this setup is that the use of converter lenses may be inconvenient, because you have to remove the filter adapter and mount another adapter tube for converter lenses.

A Cheap Way

Nextphoto has a number of rings of various size for the 5700. The left image below shows a 52mm one. It can be screwed (or jammed) onto 5700's lens thread (middle below) and uses a 52mm filter (below right). The advantage of this solution is its low cost, while the main disadvantage is that it can easily fall off the lens, damaging your filter. So, use this ring with care.

If You Have a Coolfix 5700 Adapter....

If you have converter lenses, you may have already owned a Coolfix 5700 adapter tube, also by Nextphoto. The Coolfix 5700 has two tubes. The outer one has a 62mm thread and is extendable. With a popular 62mm thread, filters and lens cap can be used. The left image below shows a 62mm filter mounted on a Coolfix 5700 when the lens is at the wide angle side, while the right one shows a fully extended Coolfix with the lens being at the telephoto side. You can use a 62mm lens cap, too.

Note that you will get the Lens Err message if the lens is zoomed to telephoto position and hits the mounted filter or lens cap. Hence, the disadvantage of this setup is that one must extend and retract the tube based on the focal length to be used, which is not very convenient, while the main advantage is that it is easy to use both filters and converter lenses.

Yet Another Solution

You may also have a UR-E8 adapter ring for your wide angle (WC-E80) and/or telephoto converter (TC-E15ED) lenses. Nextphoto has a 72mm adapter ring that can be mounted to a UR-E8 to form an adapter tube very similar to the Nikon's 67mm adapter (left below). By screwing them together (below right), we can use 72mm filters.

The left image below shows this setup when the camera lens is at the wide angle end, the middle image shows the lens at the telephoto end, and the right one shows the setup with a Hoya Skylight 1B filter. This setup will not cause vignetting at the wide angle end with one filter, and the space between the filter and camera lens is large enough not to produce the Lens Err message. Of course, you can use a 72mm lens cap! With this setup, it is easy to swap the 72mm tube and Nikon converter lenses.