Report on Nikon 1 J1: New Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras

The Nikon 1 J1 is usually a stylish compact system camera using 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 also a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also provides more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, and also Metered Manual. Also fully briefed is usually a built-in pop-up flash using a guide number of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Priced at $649.95 / 549.99 which has a 10-30mm the len’s, $699.95 / 599.99 using a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in a double-lens kit with all the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to go on sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is certainly caused by constructed from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts which is therefore heavier than you would think dependant on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for the body only. Additionally, it feels better made as opposed to official product shots would have you believe. With the essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is incredibly much a two-handed affair that needs you to definitely contain the camera’s weight inside left-hand, clutching the lens, and utilize your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is certainly an excellent mainly because it forces you to pay attention to holding you properly, which experts claim goes a long way towards avoiding shake-induced blur with your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather then being a scaled-down version with the out of date F mount, it is a brand-new design that gives 100% electronic communication between attached lens plus the camera body, due to endless weeks of frustration contacts. Exactly like for the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there is a white dot for quick 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 for the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot to ensure that that you have the ability to attach the lens on the camera. Even if this may necessitate some adjusting to, it really makes changing lenses quicker and easier.

With no lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting directly behind the plane with the bayonet mount. Much like the mount itself, the sensor is brand-new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the expanse of the most popular imagers utilised in compact and bridge cameras such as Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only about 50 % of the area of a standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip carries a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Since Four Thirds has a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” computes to around 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately the identical angle of view as a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus similar to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens in terms of its angle-of-view range.

Other Nikon J1’s faceplate is actually empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits for that microphone both sides with the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip at all within the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s two strategies to powering around the Nikon J1. You may make use of the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, when you have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, you can easily press the unlocking button within the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that creates the digital camera to modify on automatically. It is really an ingenious solution as you have to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately an extra - not write home about yet still decent and entirely adequate.

You’ll be able to frame your shots while using the rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, a key difference between the 2. The LCD screen is really 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 either bright sunlit conditions or while using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding your camera up to eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and avoid trembling camera.

The control layout is very peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 includes a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks many of the shooting modes that happen to be usually seen on similar dials - that include P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to allow for them. These modes can be purchased around the J1 but you ought to dive to the rather long-winded and not entirely logical menu to locate them. The J1’s mode dial only has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller even 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 is not a bad choice of functions, the reality that there isn’t any ISO button will doubtlessly spark a large amount of photographers considering purchasing Nikon J1 to get unhappy.

You will find there’s button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, it is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it lets you quickly choose from the continuous shooting modes, when it’s in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more important controls about the back of the camera, including a scroll wheel around the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked using a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized setting the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you’ve found them inside menu, that is certainly), as the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it’s a loupe icon close to it’s that it control is used to zoom in upon an image to evaluate for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last but not least, you will find four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush up against the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what on earth are the types shooting modes on the mode dial information about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked having a green camera icon, is where you will want to be usually. While using mode dial set to this particular position, you’ll be able to pick your desired exposure mode in 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 exactly what it thinks will be the right way of that specific scene. Also you can find out with the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access and the power to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance may also be manually selected, only from your menu, as mentioned previously.

Obviously there’s AWB and auto ISO too, together with the latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you need you to travel when the light gets low. You may also pick from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the place that the camera takes management of what it really focusses on (this is simply not an excellent mode to have as the default as being the camera obviously can’t read your brain and could concentrate on something more important than your actual subject); Single Point, where you can select one among 135 AF points frist by hitting OK then moving the active AF point round the frame with all the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, the place you pick your subject, press OK and allow you in order to that subject as it moves around, providing it does not leave the frame naturally.

The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar way because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This permits the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The organization claims the Nikon 1 system cameras would be the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, which matches our experience - so long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t as fast as another method. It certainly is you that decides which AF solution to use - an individual doesn’t have a impact on this.

Most of the time, the J1 in most cases only use contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had been able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly does not disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you initially should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that makes use of the scroll wheel to regulate focus. To help you using this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale down the right side in the frame - but those are definitely the only focusing aids you get. There’s no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has an electronic shutter (the V1 has an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the target confirmation beep may be disabled in the menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of your second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that although it is a major achievement, it’s tied to a buffer which could only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you will need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, along with the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are increasingly being taken. The linksys e2000 application you can visualize where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. As of this rate, a series of 5 bracketed shots may very well be consumed in under 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 won’t offer such a feature - in truth this doesn’t offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.

Trying the video mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, you could be set to shoot Full HD footage, and you also even arrive at choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, depending on whether you want to work with progressive or interlaced video. If you don’t need Full HD, additionally, there is 720p @ 60fps, that is really smooth and still counts as hi-def. Secondly, you have full manual control of exposure in video mode. It becomes an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode however you can in the event that’s what you need. Thirdly, you receive fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, especially in good light. Movies are compressed using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You can find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - and also the massive processing power with the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you can capture a movie clip even if the mode dial is within the Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in such cases the camera will usually record the video at 720p/60fps.

As well as being 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 gloomier plus the aspect ratio is an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, but the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and stuff like that. These videos are played back at 30fps, which is a lot more than 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world a range of interesting phenomena which happen prematurely to see or watch instantly. The Nikon J1 goes further by a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is just too poor for your for being genuinely useful.

Your third icon about the mode dial is short for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture no less than 20 photos at the single press from the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. The digital camera analyses anyone pictures within the series and discards 15 of which, keeping exactly the five which it thinks are best with regard 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 short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press with the shutter release, so again includes events that have happened prior to a button was fully depressed - plus needs a still photograph. The film plus the still image are trapped in separate files but the camera can combine them into a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people by using this shooting mode all the time. (In the event you view the video on the computer, it’ll play back at normal speed, without sound, and this mode is basically only interesting in case you look at the clip in-camera or hook the digital camera approximately an HDTV by using an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and supports the fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera runs on a compact EN-EL20 battery to its V1 big brother, and is also consequently able to produce even less shots for a passing fancy charge, managing around 230, even though it does help to generate your camera body more compact. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal and is in line while using lens’ optical axis. And also this means that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely while the J1 is installed on a tripod, because hinges on the battery/card compartment door are too near the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one hand, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than essentially anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock target a selection of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a lot of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have not been quite high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed whenever we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that the modest guide number might suggest, with the clever design minimising red-eye.

Conversely, the Nikon J1 have their share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning from the person interface that forces you to dive in to the menu gain access to functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to some finished product, they are able to no less than increase the risk for “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, as there is an avid button for exposure compensation - the industry great thing - Some are able to activate an active histogram, community . might have made exposure compensation considerably more useful and straightforward to work with. Again, this can probably be fixed in firmware.

We also 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 just has a glass dust shield as it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that this V1 offers, along with the smaller battery implies that you should buy another you to definitely get through a day’s heavy shooting. Having less an accessory port means that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are appropriate for the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.

Another thing we would not like could be that the camera would always show the photo just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, so we would not are able to turn this instant postview function completely off (although you can at any rate cancel it by using a half-press in the shutter release). Finally, as the camera is generally fast and responsive, the digital camera takes way too long to awaken from sleep mode in the event it has become idle for quite a while, causing numerous missed shots.

All things considered, the Nikon 1 J1 is usually a smaller than average and compact, high-performance system camera that they like its our government would use several tweaks to its user interface to raised suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended marketplace of casual users will like it due to the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size plus the fun features it offers. We will now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.

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