I am using a coolpix 8400.  I am taking the pictures in Raw and Tiff format.  Each shot I take it takes 20 to 30 seconds for each shot I take.  I wasnt sure if there was a way to fix this, so that I could take the shots quicker.  I recently bought a PNY High Speed 4gig compact flash card, but its still taking a long time.  
 
 
Thanks,
 
Chris

Chris
Its the Coolpix cameras.  
 
I have a really fast 300x speed Lexar card and it takes what seems like forever for the Coolpix to save large JPEGs. The same card on my Canon is lightning fast.
 
The Coolpix is so slow that when I'm shooting multiple JPEG exposures for HDR compositing, some times the clouds move from one exposure to another.
 
I've tried using TIFF on my 5400 and the save time is even longer.

Chris,
 
Forget saving in Tiff. User either RAW or JPEG. IF you can stand the long save times (and there's NOTHING you can do to improve the time it takes on a Coolpix 8400) RAW is going to give you a lot more over JPEG.

once I have my images shot in Raw format, can I then use them in Photomatix, or do they need to be converted?  

Another question.  Is there an upgraded camera that I could purchse that would be compatible with the FC-E9 lens to use with stitcher DS

You're going to be taking the stitched results into Photomatix and not the source hemispheres, so the answer is no - you can't use them in Photomatix.
 
You need to process the RAWs and convert them to TIFF before taking them into Stitcher for stitching.
 
Sorry, there's no upgrade camera anymore for the FC-E9. We sell the Nikon P5100 but this uses the smaller FC-E8 fisheye.

Would you say that the the nikon P5100 combo produces better results than the Coolpix/FC-E9?

AGNO'S proposes an adapter for the P5100 with FC-E9:
http://www.agnos.com/prodotti.htm? [...] ROTATORPM9
Best regards
Tim

Or take a look at mine!
http://www.360tacticalvr.co.uk/gbu [...] PK004.html
 
We also sell the rotator on it's own here:
http://www.360tacticalvr.co.uk/gbu [...] TA033.html
 
Here's a sample output from this system:
 
Java:
http://www.360tacticalvr.co.uk/showcase/p5100/immervision/p5100_java.html
 
Flash:
http://www.360tacticalvr.co.uk/showcase/p5100/immervision/p5100_flash.html
 
Sorry, I don't have direct side by side examples to compare.
 
[img]chrome://piclens/content/launch.png[/img]

Andrew
Did you notice Agnos has a rotator and adapter for the Raynox DCR-CF185 lens on the P5100?

Yes. I've no idea how that's going to work.