Review of Nikon 1 J1: Brand-new Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras
The Nikon 1 J1 is a stylish compact system camera using a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor as well as the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds of up to 60 fps at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector along with a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 even offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, along with Metered Manual. Also agreeable is often a built-in pop-up flash having a guide amount of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Coming in at $649.95 / 549.99 that has a 10-30mm standard zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 having a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in a very double-lens kit with all the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to take a sale later this month.
The Nikon 1 J1 is generally made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than you would think based on its size alone, weighing in at 234g to the body only. Furthermore, it feels better made as opposed to official product shots maybe have you believe. With the essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is very much a two-handed affair that really needs someone to secure the camera’s weight inside the left hand, clutching the lens, and employ your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is the good thing because it pushes you to focus on holding the digital camera properly, which in turn goes far towards avoiding shake-induced blur inside your photos.
The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather than as being a scaled-down version in the classic F mount, it’s actually a fresh design that gives 100% electronic communication involving the attached lens as well as the camera body, thanks to 12 contacts. Exactly like about the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for convenient lens alignment, although it has moved in the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) up with the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge within the lens barrel, which ought to be in alignment with said dot for one to be capable of attach the lens towards the camera. Even though this may necessitate a certain amount of becoming accustomed to, it genuinely makes changing lenses quicker and easier.
With no lens attached, you can see the sensor sitting right behind the plane of the bayonet mount. Much like the mount itself, the sensor is brand new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has quantity area of the largest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras such as the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about 50 % the spot of your standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip has a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” breaks down to to around 2.72, which means that a 10mm lens has approximately precisely the same angle of view being a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus comparable to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens when it comes to its angle-of-view range.
Other Nikon J1’s faceplate is almost empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared remote device, two narrow slits with the microphone either sides from the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip by any means on the front with the Nikon 1 J1.
There are 2 ways of powering about the Nikon 1 J1. Either utilize on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel the len’s attached, you can easily press the unlocking button within the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that creates the digital camera to exchange on automatically. This is an ingenious solution because you require to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over another - not even attempt to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.
You can frame your shots with all the rear screen - there is not any electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, a vital difference between both. The LCD screen is a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that features wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours but only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF when using the J1 alongside the V1, either in bright sunlit conditions or with all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the digital camera around eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and get away from camera shake.
The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 carries a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks most of the shooting modes that happen to be usually seen on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - community . has enough room to support them. These modes can be purchased about the J1 but you must dive into your rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to get them. The J1’s mode dial only has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller has four functions mapped onto its Up, Right, Down and Left buttons; including AE/AF-Lock, exposure compensation, flash mode and self-timer, respectively. Evidently this is not a bad collection of functions, the reality that there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly produce a lots of photographers serious about purchasing Nikon J1 being unhappy.
There’s a button for the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is simply not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it allows you to quickly choose from the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it enables you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more essential controls on the back from the camera, including a scroll wheel throughout the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked that has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you’ve found them inside menu, which is), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it’s got a loupe icon beside it is until this control is used to zoom in by using an image to evaluate for critical focus in Playback mode. Last but not least, you can find four small buttons about the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel in the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.
What exactly are those shooting modes around the mode dial information about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked which has a green camera icon, is to try and will want to be more often than not. While using mode dial set to this position, you may pick your required exposure mode on the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant automatic mode when the camera analyses the scene looking at its lens and picks just what it thinks may be the right way of that particular scene. You can even pick one from the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access as well as the chance to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift comes in P mode). ISO and white balance can also be manually selected, only from your menu, as mentioned previously.
Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO too, with the latter being released in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you need the camera to look if your light gets low. You can also select three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, when the camera takes management of exactly what focusses on (it is not a fantastic mode to get when your default because camera obviously can’t read the mind and might focus on something else entirely than your actual subject); Single Point, the place you can select among 135 AF points starting with hitting OK and moving the active AF point across the frame using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, the place you pick your subject, press OK and let the digital camera to follow that subject mainly because it moves around, providing it doesn’t leave the frame needless to say.
The Nikon 1 J1 comes with an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion since the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This will give the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even with a moving subject. The corporation claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, this also matches our experience - provided that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the digital camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than you are on most cameras, isn’t nearly you’d like additional method. It certainly is your camera that decides which AF method to use - the consumer doesn’t have any impact on this.
Usually, the J1 will usually only head for contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had arrived capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly will not disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, although Nikon 1 lenses do not have focus rings. If you need to focus manually, you first ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and then utilize the scroll wheel to alter focus. To be of assistance with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale on the right side with the frame - but those would be the only focusing aids you get. There is not any peaking function available as on some rival models.
The J1 comes with a electronic shutter (the V1 also offers an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the main focus confirmation beep may be disabled from your menu) and allows the utilization of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of a second and, while using Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that although this is the major achievement, it’s restricted by a buffer that will only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the usage of this mode precludes AF tracking - you should lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, and the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are increasingly being taken. About the only application we can visualize where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really be convenient is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. Only at that rate, several 5 bracketed shots could be consumed in a lot less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that may otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown from the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 will not offer this sort of feature - the truth is it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.
Selling it to the video mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First of all, your camera can be set to shoot Full HD footage, and you even reach choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you’d rather work with progressive or interlaced video. Should you not need Full HD, in addition there are 720p @ 60fps, which can be really smooth but still counts as hd. Secondly, you have full manual treating exposure in video mode. It is really an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode but you can if that’s what exactly you need. Thirdly, you get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, specially in good light. Movies are compressed using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - along with the massive processing power of the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills while recording HD video. This works the other way round too - it is possible to capture a movie clip regardless if the mode dial is in the Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in this instance the digital camera will forever record the video at 720p/60fps.
As well as being efficient at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is gloomier and the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, though the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are played back at 30fps, that is more than 13x slower as opposed to capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world an array of interesting phenomena that happen too soon to see or watch instantly. The Nikon J1 goes a little more forward by providing a 1200fps video mode, nevertheless the resolution and overall quality is too poor for that being genuinely useful.
The next icon within the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture no less than 20 photos at a single press in the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. The digital camera analyses anyone pictures from the series and discards 15 of which, keeping just the five which it thinks might be best with regards to sharpness and composition. This feature might be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.
Finally, there’s a so-called Motion Snapshot mode the place that the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts at the half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events which had happened prior to a button was fully depressed - and as well has a still photograph. The film and also the still image are saved in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them into a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we can not really envision people employing this shooting mode all the time. (When you see the video using a computer, it’ll play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is really only interesting in case you observe the clip in-camera or hook the digital camera as much as an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)
The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. The digital camera operates on a compact EN-EL20 battery to the V1 your government, and is also consequently able to produce even less shots for a passing fancy charge, managing around 230, although it does help to create the digital camera body small. The camera’s tripod socket is made of metal and is situated in line together with the lens’ optical axis. This actually also signifies that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible even though the J1 is attached with a tripod, because the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are too towards the tripod mount.
So, how did we like utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one hand, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus product is indeed faster than essentially anything we’ve used so far, being able to track and lock concentrate on numerous truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding lots of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have never been high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed when we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that the modest guide number might suggest, while using clever design minimising red-eye.
In contrast, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning with an individual interface that forces you to dive in to the menu to gain access to functions as basic as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons into a finished product, they might at the very least make the “F” button customisable via a firmware update. Also, to find out a dedicated button for exposure compensation - which is a positive thing - Some are able to activate a live histogram, although it might have made exposure compensation considerably more useful and straightforward to make use of. Again, this could likely to end up fixed in firmware.
We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or while using the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 just has a glass dust shield as it’s defense against unwanted debris, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit the V1 offers, as well as the smaller battery signifies that you will need to buy an extra you to definitely go through the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port ensures that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.
Something else we would not like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken for some seconds onscreen, and we didn’t try to turn this instant postview function completely off (even if you can at any rate cancel it using a half-press of the shutter release). Finally, whilst the camera is mostly fast and responsive, your camera takes way too long to arise from sleep mode gets hotter may be idle for a time, leading to several missed shots.
In fact, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a smaller than average and compact, high-performance system camera that like its big brother could use a number of tweaks to its interface to increase suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended target market of casual users should it for its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size as well as the fun features there is. We will now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside image quality department.
Tags: j1, mirroless cameras, nikon, nikon 1, nikon 1 j1, nikon 1 v1, nikon cameras, nikon1, v1