Report on Nikon 1 J1: Latest Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras
The Nikon 1 J1 is really a stylish compact system camera with 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 plus a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, in addition to Metered Manual. Also aboard is really a built-in pop-up flash with a guide amount of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Pricing $649.95 / 549.99 that has a 10-30mm contact, $699.95 / 599.99 with a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 inside a double-lens kit with all the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to take sale later this month.
The Nikon 1 J1 is certainly caused by made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is also therefore heavier than you would think dependant on its size alone, coming in at 234g for that body only. It also feels better quality than the official product shots maybe have you believe. Through an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 can be quite much a two-handed affair that will need you to support the camera’s weight inside left-hand, clutching the lens, and rehearse your right hand for balance and operating the controls. A great a good thing since it forces you to pay attention to holding your camera properly, which inturn goes a long way towards avoiding shake-induced blur inside your photos.
The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. As opposed to as a scaled-down version of the good old F mount, it’s really a new design that gives 100% electronic communication between your attached lens and also the camera body, for endless weeks of frustration contacts. Exactly like about the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for convenient lens alignment, while it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to # 1 in the mount. The lenses themselves come with a short silver ridge within the lens barrel, which ought to be in alignment with said dot in order for you to have the capacity to attach the lens for the camera. Of course this may necessitate some acclamating yourself with, it really makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.
Without the need of lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting right behind the plane of the bayonet mount. Like the mount itself, the sensor is completely new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the area of the most popular imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only about half the spot of the 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 includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to around 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately the same angle of view as being a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus equivalent to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens in terms of its angle-of-view range.
The remainder of the Nikon J1’s faceplate is nearly empty, featuring only the lens release, a receiver for the optional ML-L3 infrared remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone either side of the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There’s no grip by any means for the front in the Nikon 1 J1.
The two main means of powering within the Nikon 1 J1. Either makes use of the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, if you have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, you can easily press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action which causes you to interchange on automatically. This is an ingenious solution as you have to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over a second - nothing to write home about but still decent and entirely adequate.
You can frame your shots while using rear screen - there is not any electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, an essential difference between the 2. The LCD screen is often 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 while using the J1 alongside the V1, in both bright sunlit conditions or aided by the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding your camera up to eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding camera shake.
The control layout is rather peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 incorporates a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks many of the shooting modes which might be usually seen on similar dials - most notably P, A, S and M - although it has enough room to match them. These modes are available around the J1 nevertheless, you must dive into the rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to locate them. The J1’s mode dial has only 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. Of course this isn’t a bad choice of functions, the reality that there isn’t any ISO button will doubtlessly result in a large amount of photographers serious about buying the Nikon J1 to get unhappy.
We have a button on the rear labelled “F” but alas, this isn’t a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it lets you quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it enables you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more important controls within the back of the camera, including a scroll wheel round the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked that has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is needed to set the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you’ve found them within the menu, that is certainly), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it provides a loupe icon beside it really is that this control can be used to zoom in while on an image to check on for critical concentrate Playback mode. As a final point, you’ll find four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush resistant to the rear panel in the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.
So what are the type shooting modes for the mode dial information about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked with a green camera icon, is to try and will want to be most of the time. Together with the mode dial set to the present position, you can pick your required exposure mode from your menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart automatic mode where the camera analyses the scene facing its lens and picks exactly what thinks would be the right way of that exact scene. You can also make a choice on the conventional PASM modes, which give you full menu access and the capacity 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 in the menu, as stated previously.
Of course there’s AWB and auto ISO too, using the latter being released in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) helping you to specify how high you need the digital camera to go once the light gets low. You may also select three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the place that the camera takes control over exactly what it focusses on (it is not a fantastic mode to possess because your default since the camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and may even give attention to something different than your actual subject); Single Point, in places you can make one among 135 AF points frist by hitting OK after which moving the active AF point around the frame using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, where you pick your subject, press OK and enable you in order to that subject because it moves around, given that it doesn’t leave the frame certainly.
The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This permits the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even using a moving subject. The organization claims the Nikon 1 system cameras will be the fastest-focusing machines on this planet, which matches our experience - providing there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the digital camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t nearly as quickly as the opposite method. It’s always the digital camera that decides which AF solution to use - an individual has no affect on this.
In most cases, the J1 will usually only use 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 will not disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, however the Nikon 1 lenses will not have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you firstly must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that makes use of the scroll wheel to modify focus. To work with you using this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale across the right side in the frame - but those will be the only focusing helps you get. There isn’t any peaking function available as on some rival models.
The J1 has a electronic shutter (the V1 has a mechanical shutter). It’s completely silent (the main focus confirmation beep can be disabled in the menu) and allows using shutter speeds as fast as 1/16,000th of an second and, together with the Electronic Hi setting selected, permits you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that while that is a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that may only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the utilization of this mode precludes AF tracking - you will need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you want that -, plus the viewfinder goes blank even though the pictures are taken. The only application we can consider 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 might be consumed in a lot less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that can otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer this sort of feature - in truth no offer autoexposure bracketing by any means.
Selling it to the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, the digital camera could be set to shoot Full HD footage, so you even get to choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you want to assist progressive or interlaced video. If you can’t need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, that’s really smooth and still counts as high-definition. Secondly, you receive full manual treating exposure in video mode. This is an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode however you can if that’s what you need. Thirdly, you will get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, specially in good light. Movies are compressed while using H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. There are separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - plus the massive processing power in the Nikon J1 - it is possible to take multiple full-resolution stills even when recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you are able to capture a motion picture clip even when the mode dial is in the Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in cases like this the digital camera will invariably record film at 720p/60fps.
And also capable of shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is lower and also the aspect ratio is an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, nevertheless the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that is greater than 13x slower compared to the capture speed of 400fps, letting you get creative and prove to the world a range of interesting phenomena which happen prematurely to watch instantly. The Nikon J1 goes a step forward by providing a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is just too poor for the to be genuinely useful.
Your third icon within the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture a minimum of 20 photos at the single press in the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. The camera analyses the person pictures in the series and discards 15 ones, keeping exactly the five which it thinks might be best regarding sharpness and composition. This feature might be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.
Finally, we have a so-called Motion Snapshot mode when the camera records a quick high-definition movie - whose buffering starts in a half-press with the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened before the button was fully depressed - and as well takes a still photograph. The film along with the still image are stored in separate files but the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we can’t really envision people by using this shooting mode all the time. (When you look at the video on a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is actually only interesting should you observe the clip in-camera or hook the digital camera as much as an HDTV with 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 camera operates on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to the V1 our government, and is particularly consequently capable of producing considerably less shots using one charge, managing around 230, even though it does help to produce the camera body smaller sized. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal which is in line using the lens’ optical axis. This means that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible as you move the J1 is attached with a tripod, as the hinges on the battery/card compartment door are far too near the tripod mount.
So, how did we love to while using the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a lot. In good light, its auto-focus strategy is indeed faster than essentially anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock give attention to a variety of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have never been very high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed after we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful the reason is modest guide number might suggest, with the clever design minimising red-eye.
On the other hand, the Nikon J1 have their share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying anyone interface that pushes you to dive in to the menu to reach 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 have the “F” button customisable by using a firmware update. Also, you will find a devoted button for exposure compensation - a advantage - I did not are able to activate a live histogram, even though it would have made exposure compensation additional useful and to use. Again, this could probably be fixed in firmware.
We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly in bright light or with the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 only has a glass dust shield because it’s defense against unwanted debris, instead of the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, and the smaller battery shows that you will have to buy an extra someone to get to the day’s heavy shooting. Lacking an accessory port ensures that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.
Another thing we didn’t like was that the camera would always show the image just taken for a couple of seconds onscreen, so we would not are able to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at any rate cancel it by way of a half-press with the shutter release). Finally, whilst the camera is usually fast and responsive, the camera takes way too long to wake up from sleep mode if it has been idle for quite a while, resulting in quite a few missed shots.
With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small , compact, high-performance system camera that like its government might use some tweaks to the graphical user interface to improve suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended marketplace of casual users should it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight plus the fun features it offers. Let’s now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared from the image quality department.
Tags: j1, mirroless cameras, nikon, nikon 1, nikon 1 j1, nikon 1 v1, nikon cameras, nikon1, v1