Review of Nikon 1 J1: Innovative Nikon Mirroless Digital cameras
The Nikon 1 J1 can be a stylish compact system camera having a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor and the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds up to 60 frames per second at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector and a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also provides more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, together with Metered Manual. Also aboard is often a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide number of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Priced at $649.95 / 549.99 that has a 10-30mm standard zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 using 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 be sale later this month.
The Nikon 1 J1 is generally made out of aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than you would think determined by its size alone, weighing in at 234g for your body only. Additionally, it feels higher quality as opposed to official product shots maybe have you believe. By having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that will need one to contain the camera’s weight inside left-hand, clutching the lens, and employ your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is a very important thing the way it makes you take note of holding the digital camera properly, which in turn goes a considerable ways towards avoiding shake-induced blur in your photos.
The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Instead of like a scaled-down version with the good old F mount, it is a brand-new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between your attached lens as well as the camera body, courtesy of 12 contacts. Similar to on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there exists a white dot for quick lens alignment, though it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top from the mount. The lenses themselves have a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which has to be in alignment with said dot for you to definitely be capable of attach the lens towards the camera. While this may require a little bit of adjusting to, it really makes changing lenses quicker and easier.
Without lens attached, you will see the sensor sitting right behind the plane with the bayonet mount. Just like the mount itself, the sensor is new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double expanse of the largest imagers utilised in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only about half the location of any standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip includes a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Given that Four Thirds incorporates a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” computes to about 2.72, which means that a 10mm lens has approximately the same angle of view to be a 27.2mm lens while on an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus the same as a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens when it comes to its angle-of-view range.
All of those other Nikon J1’s faceplate is nearly empty, featuring only the lens release, a receiver with the optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone spare on both from the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip in any way about the front with the Nikon 1 J1.
There’s two means of powering for the Nikon1 J1. You can makes use of the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, you can simply press the unlocking button around the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that produces you to switch on automatically. It is an ingenious solution as you have to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately an extra - nothing to write home about but nevertheless decent and entirely adequate.
It is possible to frame your shots using the rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, a key difference between the 2 main. The LCD screen is usually a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that boasts wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours but only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF with the J1 alongside the V1, in both bright sunlit conditions or while using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding your camera as much as eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and prevent trembling camera.
The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 includes a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks a lot of the shooting modes which are usually available on similar dials - that include P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to fit them. These modes can be purchased on the J1 however you ought to dive in to the rather long-winded but not entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial merely 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 range of functions, the fact there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly result in a large amount of photographers interested in acquiring the Nikon J1 being unhappy.
There exists a button within the rear labelled “F” but alas, this isn’t a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it lets you quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, while in Video mode it enables you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are 2 more essential controls for the back on the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad as well as a rocker switch marked having a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is used to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (after you have found them from the menu, that is certainly), whilst the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it provides a loupe icon next to it truly is until this control is needed to focus with an image to check on for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last but not least, you will find four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.
Precisely what are the type shooting modes on the mode dial information on? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is to try and will need to be most of the time. With all the mode dial set for this position, it is possible to pick your required exposure mode in the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode the place that the camera analyses the scene facing its lens and picks just what it thinks will be the right way of any particular one scene. You may also pick one in the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access along with the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance can even be manually selected, only from your menu, as stated earlier.
Certainly there’s AWB and auto ISO at the same time, while using latter arriving three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) letting you specify how high you wish the camera to look if your light gets low. You can even choose between three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, when the camera takes charge of what it focusses on (this isn’t an incredible mode to have since your default as being the camera obviously can’t read the mind and could give attention to another thing than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can make among 135 AF points first by hitting OK after which moving the active AF point round the frame utilizing the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in places you pick your subject, press OK and permit you to follow that subject mainly because it moves around, so long as it does not leave the frame needless to say.
The Nikon 1 J1 comes with a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This will give the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even on a moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras would be the fastest-focusing machines on earth, and this also matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, your camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t as quickly as the opposite method. It certainly is you that decides which AF approach to use - the person does not have any relation to this.
Most of the time, the J1 in most cases only turn to contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had arrived able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you initially ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that makes use of the scroll wheel to focus. To assist you with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale on the right side in the frame - but those are the only focusing aids you get. There isn’t any peaking function available as on some rival models.
The J1 comes with an electronic shutter (the V1 also offers a mechanical shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the target confirmation beep can be disabled in the menu) and allows the utilization of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of any second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, allows you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that while it is a major achievement, it’s restricted by a buffer that can 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 -, along with the viewfinder goes blank as the pictures are taken. The only application you can think of where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. When it reaches this rate, some 5 bracketed shots might be consumed lower than 0.1 second, rendering small movements which could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown in the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 won’t offer this sort of feature - the truth is it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing whatsoever.
Moving on to the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Most notably, you is usually set to shoot Full HD footage, therefore you even get to choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, depending on whether you prefer to work with progressive or interlaced video. If you can’t need Full HD, in addition there are 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth but still counts as hi-d. Secondly, you get full manual control over exposure in video mode. It is really an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode and you can if that’s what you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, particularly in good light. Movies are compressed using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will discover separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - along with the massive processing power with the Nikon J1 - you may take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works the opposite way round too - it is possible to capture your favorite shows clip regardless if the mode dial is with the Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in this case you will forever record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.
And also being efficient at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is leaner and also the aspect ratio is definitely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, but the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and stuff like that. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that’s over 13x slower as opposed to capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world a multitude of interesting phenomena that happen too rapidly to see in real time. The Nikon J1 goes a step forward by providing a 1200fps video mode, even so the resolution and overall quality is just too poor for the to get genuinely useful.
The third icon around the mode dial stands for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture no less than 20 photos at the single press in the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. Your camera analyses the individual pictures within the series and discards 15 of which, keeping just the five it thinks should be with regards to sharpness and composition. This feature may be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.
Finally, we have a so-called Motion Snapshot mode the location where the camera records a short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts at the half-press in the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened prior to button was fully depressed - and as well has a still photograph. The film plus the still image are held in separate files though the camera can combine them in to a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we can’t really envision people using this shooting mode regularly. (Should you see the video using a computer, it’s going to play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is absolutely only interesting should you look at the clip in-camera or hook you approximately an HDTV with an HDMI cable.)
The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up the fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera is run on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to the V1 big brother, and it is consequently capable of producing much less shots using one charge, managing around 230, even though it helps to generate the camera body more compact. The camera’s tripod socket is constructed of metal and it is in line using the lens’ optical axis. This too ensures that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible as you move the J1 is placed on a tripod, as the hinges on the battery/card compartment door are far too near the tripod mount.
So, how did we love to utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a lot. In good light, its auto-focus strategy is indeed faster than just about anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock concentrate on numerous truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates haven’t ever been high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed if we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that the modest guide number might suggest, using the clever design minimising red-eye.
On the other hand, the Nikon J1 have their share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning with the person interface that can make you dive in the menu to gain access to functions as basic as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to some finished product, they can at least result in the “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, to find out a separate button for exposure compensation - the a valuable thing - I didn’t are able to activate a live histogram, eventhough it would’ve made exposure compensation far more useful and straightforward make use of. Again, this may oftimes be fixed in firmware.
We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or while using the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 has only a glass dust shield since it is defense against unwanted debris, as opposed to the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, plus the smaller battery signifies that you’ll need to buy an added anyone to go through the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port means that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are appropriate for the J1, including the external flash and GPS unit.
Yet another thing we failed to like was that the camera would always show the image just taken for some seconds onscreen, therefore we wouldn’t find a way to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it via a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, even though the camera is mostly fast and responsive, the camera takes overly long to wake up from sleep mode gets hotter has been idle for some time, causing quite a few missed shots.
That being said, the Nikon 1 J1 is a small and compact, high-performance system camera they enjoy its our government can use a couple of tweaks to the graphical user interface to higher suit the needs of serious amateurs. The intended target audience of casual users will require to it due to the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and the fun features it provides. We will now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.
Tags: j1, mirroless cameras, nikon, nikon 1, nikon 1 j1, nikon 1 v1, nikon cameras, nikon1, v1