Writeup on Nikon 1 J1: Innovative Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras

The Nikon 1 J1 is a stylish compact system camera which has a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor plus the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds all the way 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 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, in addition to Metered Manual. Also fully briefed is often a built-in pop-up flash which has a guide amount of 5, a 3 inch rear display along with an electronic shutter. Pricing $649.95 / 549.99 with a 10-30mm zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 that has a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 inside a double-lens kit while using 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to be sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is usually crafted from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts which is therefore heavier than you would think determined by its size alone, weighing 234g for that body only. Furthermore, it feels better quality versus the official product shots maybe have you believe. By having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is incredibly much a two-handed affair that requires one to contain the camera’s weight in the left hand, clutching the lens, and make use of your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is certainly the best thing the way it forces you to pay attention to holding your camera properly, which inturn goes a considerable ways 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. As opposed to as a scaled-down version on the out of date F mount, it’s really a new design that delivers 100% electronic communication involving the attached lens along with the camera body, from 12 contacts. Much like for the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for easy lens alignment, while it has moved on the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top from the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge about the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot to ensure that someone to be capable of attach the lens to the camera. While this might require a certain amount of becoming familiar with, this process makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

With no lens attached, you can see the sensor sitting directly behind the plane on the bayonet mount. Much like the mount itself, the sensor is new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the expanse of the biggest imagers used in compact and bridge cameras such as Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about 50 % the location of a standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip features a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, which means that 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 comparable 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 almost empty, featuring just the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared handheld control, two narrow slits for the microphone either sides from the lens, and an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip whatsoever for the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

There are 2 ways of powering on the Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1. You can either utilize the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel contact lens attached, just press the unlocking button within the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that produces the camera to change on automatically. This is an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately another - not even attempt to write home about yet still decent and entirely adequate.

You are able to frame your shots while using the rear screen - there is not any electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, an important difference between the two. The LCD screen is really 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 all the J1 alongside the V1, in bright sunlit conditions or aided by the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera as much as eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and steer clear of trembling camera.

The control layout is pretty peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 has a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes which can be usually found on similar dials - most notably P, A, S and M - eventhough it has enough room to support them. These modes can be purchased on the J1 nevertheless, you have to dive into your rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to seek out them. The J1’s mode dial just 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. Although this isn’t a bad choice of functions, the truth that there isn’t any ISO button will doubtlessly produce a lots of photographers considering acquiring the Nikon J1 to get unhappy.

There’s a button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, it is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it means that you can quickly make a choice from the continuous shooting modes, when it is in Video mode it allows you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are two more important controls around the back from the camera, together with a scroll wheel throughout the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is needed to set the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (after you have found them from the menu, that may be), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it provides a loupe icon alongside it really is that control is employed to focus while on an image to test for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, you can find four small buttons about the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel with 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 likely. With the mode dial set to this particular position, you are able to pick your desired exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart automatic mode when the camera analyses the scene looking at its lens and picks what it thinks would be the right mode for that one scene. It’s also possible to find out from the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access and the ability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance can be manually selected, only from the menu, as stated previously.

Obviously there’s AWB and auto ISO at the same time, while using latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you would like you to search if your light gets low. It’s also possible to pick from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the location where the camera takes power over what it really focusses on (this is not a terrific mode to obtain because your default because the camera obviously can’t read your brain and could concentrate on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, in which you can pick one of 135 AF points starting with hitting OK after which moving the active AF point around the frame using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in places you pick your subject, press OK and permit your camera to monitor that subject because it moves around, providing it doesn’t leave the frame naturally.

The Nikon 1 J1 has an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly since the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The organization claims the Nikon 1 system cameras will be the fastest-focusing machines on earth, and this also matches our experience - given that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, your camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than you are on most cameras, isn’t you’d like additional method. It certainly is your camera that decides which AF solution to use - the user doesn’t have a affect this.

Usually, the J1 will usually only use 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 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 first of all must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK then make use of the scroll wheel to focus. To be of assistance using this type of, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along the right side with the frame - but those include the only focusing aids you get. There is absolutely no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has a electronic shutter (the V1 also has a mechanical shutter). It is absolutely silent (the target confirmation beep could be disabled from the menu) and allows the usage of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of the second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that although this can be a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that will only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the utilization of this mode precludes AF tracking - you must lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, as well as the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are being taken. About the only application we could imagine where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. At this rate, a number of 5 bracketed shots may be drawn in lower than 0.1 second, rendering small movements which could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer such a feature - in reality it does not offer autoexposure bracketing whatsoever.

Trying out the playback quality mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, the digital camera is usually set to shoot Full HD footage, and you also even get to select from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, determined by whether you would like to work together with progressive or interlaced video. If you do not need Full HD, in addition there are 720p @ 60fps, and that is really smooth but still counts as hi-def. Secondly, you receive full manual control of exposure in video mode. This is an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode however, you can if that is the thing you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay 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 due to this - along with the massive processing power on the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works the opposite too - it is possible to capture a film clip even if the mode dial influences Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in cases like this you will usually record film at 720p/60fps.

And also being effective at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is less plus the aspect ratio is definitely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, though the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are played back at 30fps, which can be more than 13x slower compared to capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world several interesting phenomena that happen prematurely to see in real time. The Nikon J1 goes even more by giving a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is way too poor for the for being genuinely useful.

The third icon within the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the digital camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos at the single press with the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. Your camera analyses the average person pictures in the series and discards 15 of those, keeping the five who’s thinks are best with regard to sharpness and composition. This feature may be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, you will find there’s so-called Motion Snapshot mode the location where the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened prior to button was fully depressed - and in addition needs a still photograph. The movie plus the still image are held in separate files however the camera can combine them right into a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we can’t really envision people employing this shooting mode frequently. (If you view the video on the computer, it’s going to play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is actually only interesting if you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook you up to an HDTV with an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up the fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera runs on a reduced EN-EL20 battery to its V1 government, and it is consequently able to produce even less shots about the same charge, managing around 230, eventhough it does help to create you body small. The camera’s tripod socket consists of metal and it is positioned in line while using lens’ optical axis. This actually also shows that changing batteries or cards is not possible while the J1 is attached to a tripod, since the hinges on the battery/card compartment door are so near to the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to using the Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it a good deal. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used to date, to be able to track and lock focus on a selection of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding lots 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 as we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that its modest guide number might suggest, while using clever design minimising red-eye.

Alternatively, the Nikon J1 have their own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies starting with the person interface that makes you dive in to the menu to get into functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to some finished product, they may at the least result in the “F” button customisable via a firmware update. Also, as there is a devoted button for exposure compensation - the positive thing - I didnrrrt find a way to activate a live histogram, though it would’ve made exposure compensation much more useful and easy to make use of. Again, this could probably be fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly in bright light or while using the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 merely has a glass dust shield as it’s defense against unwanted debris, instead of the more proactive sensor cleaning unit the V1 offers, plus the smaller battery shows that you will have to buy an added one to go through the day’s heavy shooting. The possible lack of an accessory port implies that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, like the external flash and GPS unit.

Something more important we would not like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken for a couple seconds onscreen, and now we wouldn’t try to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at any rate cancel it with a half-press in the shutter release). Finally, even though the camera is mostly fast and responsive, you takes far too long to awaken from sleep mode if this has been idle for a while, leading to many missed shots.

Of course, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small , compact, high-performance system camera they like its big brother would use a couple of tweaks to the graphical user interface to raised suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended audience of casual users should it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and also the fun features it includes. Why don’t we now observe the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside image quality department.

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