Article on Nikon 1 J1: Innovative Nikon Mirroless Cameras

The Nikon 1 J1 is usually a stylish compact system camera using a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor along with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds up to 60 fps at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector and also a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, and also Metered Manual. Also agreeable can be a built-in pop-up flash using a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display along with an electronic shutter. Costing $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm standard zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 having a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in the 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 certainly caused by made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts which is therefore heavier than what you know already depending on its size alone, weighing 234g for your body only. It also feels better made versus the official product shots would have you believe. With the essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that will need that you support the camera’s weight inside the left-hand, clutching the lens, and make use of your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is the best thing since it pushes you to take note of holding your camera properly, which experts claim goes quite a distance towards avoiding shake-induced blur as part of your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. As opposed to to be a scaled-down version of the out of date F mount, it’s really a completely new design that gives 100% electronic communication involving the attached lens along with the camera body, due to 12 contacts. Exactly like within the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for straightforward lens alignment, even though it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) up in the mount. The lenses themselves have a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot in order for you to definitely be able to attach the lens towards the camera. While this might need a bit of becoming familiar with, this process makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.

With no lens attached, you can observe the sensor sitting directly behind the plane on the bayonet mount. Like the mount itself, the sensor is brand-new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the surface of the most popular imagers utilised in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most the region of your standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip features a 1.36x longer diagonal versus the Nikon CX imager. Considering that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” computes to around 2.72, and therefore a 10mm lens has approximately the identical 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 equal to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens in terms of its angle-of-view range.

The other Nikon J1’s faceplate is nearly empty, featuring just the lens release, a receiver for that optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits for your microphone each side of the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There’s no grip in any way around the front from the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s 2 options for powering about the Nikon1 J1. You can either use the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, for those who have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, just press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that creates the digital camera to interchange on automatically. This is an ingenious solution as you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over a second - not even attempt to write home about yet still decent and entirely adequate.

It is possible to frame your shots while using the rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, an integral distinction 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 only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF aided by the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or while using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera up to eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and avoid trembling camera.

The control layout is pretty peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 includes a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks most of the shooting modes that happen to be usually seen on similar dials - that include P, A, S and M - eventhough it has enough room to allow for them. These modes are available around the J1 however you need to dive into your rather long-winded and never entirely logical menu to find them. The J1’s mode dial only has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller also offers four functions mapped onto its Up, Right, Down and Left buttons; including AE/AF-Lock, exposure compensation, flash mode and self-timer, respectively. Even though this isn’t a bad choice of functions, the fact that there isn’t any ISO button will doubtlessly result in a lots of photographers enthusiastic about buying the Nikon J1 being unhappy.

There exists a button about the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are 2 more significant controls around the back in the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is needed to create the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you’ve found them within the menu, that is), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it provides a loupe icon near to it can be until this control is needed to zoom in on an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last of all, you’ll find four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush against the rear panel with the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what are shooting modes around the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked which has a green camera icon, is to would want to be more often than not. While using mode dial set for this position, you can pick your required exposure mode from your menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant automatic mode the location where the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks just what it thinks would be the right way of that specific scene. You may also find out of the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access and also the ability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift is available in P mode). ISO and white balance can also be manually selected, but only on the menu, as mentioned previously.

Naturally there’s AWB and auto ISO likewise, using the latter arriving three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) enabling you to specify how high you need the digital camera to travel when the light gets low. Also you can select three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the place that the camera takes power over exactly what focusses on (it’s not an incredible mode to possess because your default since the camera obviously can’t read your mind and might give attention to something else than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can select considered one of 135 AF points starting with hitting OK then moving the active AF point round the frame while using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and let you to trace that subject since it moves around, so long as it does not leave the frame of course.

The Nikon 1 J1 comes with an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion because Fujifilm F300EXR did. This permits the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. This company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines on earth, and this also matches our experience - provided that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t nearly as soon as additional method. It is the camera that decides which AF approach to use - an individual doesn’t have any affect this.

Generally speaking, the J1 will usually only turn to contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, i was capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly does not disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses do not have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you firstly should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and use the scroll wheel to adjust focus. To help you with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central area of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along 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). It’s totally silent (the attention confirmation beep might be disabled from your menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of an second and, with the Electronic Hi setting selected, enables you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that although this is a major achievement, it’s limited by a buffer which could only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the usage of this mode precludes AF tracking - you must lower the frame rate to 10fps if you need that -, and also the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are being taken. One application we can easily visualize where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. As of this rate, a number of 5 bracketed shots could possibly be consumed under 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 won’t offer this type of feature - in reality no offer autoexposure bracketing in any way.

Trying the video mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First and foremost, your camera may be set to shoot Full HD footage, and you even arrive at choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, according to whether you’d rather help progressive or interlaced video. If you can’t need Full HD, additionally, there is 720p @ 60fps, which can be really smooth nevertheless counts as hd. Secondly, you get full manual treatments for exposure in video mode. It is an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode however, you can in the event that’s what you require. Thirdly, you obtain fast, continuous AF in video mode, and it works well, particularly in good light. Movies are compressed while using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - along with the massive processing power with the Nikon J1 - you may take multiple full-resolution stills whilst recording HD video. This works the opposite way round too - it is possible to capture a film clip even if the mode dial is with the Still Image position, simply by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in cases like this your camera will invariably record it at 720p/60fps.

Not only is it effective at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is leaner and the aspect ratio is surely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, nevertheless the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are played back at 30fps, and that is in excess of 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, allowing you to get creative and prove to the world a multitude of interesting phenomena that happen too rapidly to see or watch in real time. The Nikon J1 goes a step forward through providing a 1200fps video mode, nevertheless the resolution and overall quality is simply too poor with the to get genuinely useful.

The third icon for the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture at the very least 20 photos at the single press of the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the consumer pictures within the series and discards 15 ones, keeping exactly the five who’s thinks would be best when it comes to sharpness and composition. This feature could be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there’s a so-called Motion Snapshot mode when the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press with the shutter release, so again includes events which have happened ahead of the button was fully depressed - and as well uses a still photograph. The film plus the still image are residing in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them to a single slow-motion clip with music. It’s fun but we can’t really envision people employing this shooting mode frequently. (If you view the video on a computer, it’ll play back at normal speed, without sound, this mode is absolutely only interesting in case you observe the clip in-camera or hook the camera around an HDTV via an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. You is run on a reduced EN-EL20 battery to its V1 big brother, and is consequently capable of producing much less shots on a single charge, managing around 230, although it helps for making you body more compact. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal which is situated line while using lens’ optical axis. This ensures that changing batteries or cards is not possible whilst the J1 is attached with a tripod, since the hinges in the battery/card compartment door are far too nearby the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to with all the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a great deal. In good light, its auto-focus system is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used up to now, the ability to track and lock give attention to numerous truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding many sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have never been quite 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 what has modest guide number might suggest, with the clever design minimising red-eye.

Conversely, the Nikon J1 does have it’s share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning from the person interface that forces you to dive into 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 your finished product, they can at least make “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, to find out a passionate button for exposure compensation - the industry good thing - I didn’t are able to activate a live histogram, community . would have made exposure compensation additional useful and to utilize. Again, this might oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or with all the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 has only a glass dust shield as it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit which the V1 offers, and also the smaller battery implies that you will have to buy an additional anyone to arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. The possible lack of an accessory port implies that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are suitable for the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

Something more important we wouldn’t like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken for a couple seconds onscreen, and now we failed to be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (even though you can at any rate cancel it by way of a half-press with the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is often fast and responsive, the digital camera takes way too long to get up from sleep mode when it is idle for a time, leading to many missed shots.

All things considered, the Nikon 1 J1 is usually a small, and compact, high-performance system camera that like its larger are able to use a number of tweaks to its user interface to better suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended marketplace of casual users will like it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size as well as the fun features there is. Let’s now observe how the Nikon 1 J1 fared within the image quality department.

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