Exclusive article directory Melissa Sells DenverPost articles to our free content Article Directory

The Nikon 1 J1 is often 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 as high as 60 fps at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector along with a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, as well as Metered Manual. Also agreeable is often a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide number of 5, a 3 inch rear display as well as an electronic shutter. Charging $649.95 / 549.99 with a 10-30mm contact lens, $699.95 / 599.99 which has 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 crafted from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than you would think depending on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for your body only. What’s more, it feels better quality compared to official product shots maybe have you believe. With the essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that needs you to definitely contain the camera’s weight within the left hand, clutching the lens, and employ your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is certainly an excellent the way it forces you to pay attention to holding the camera properly, which inturn goes far 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. Instead of as being a scaled-down version with the ancient F mount, it is a brand spanking new design that can offer 100% electronic communication relating to the attached lens and the camera body, due to twelve contacts. Similar to on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, you will find there’s white dot for quick lens alignment, even though it has moved from your 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top level from the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot for you to definitely be able to attach the lens towards the camera. While this may require a little becoming accustomed to, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

Without the need of lens attached, you can see the sensor sitting right behind the plane from the bayonet mount. Such as the mount itself, the sensor is brand-new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the floor of the most popular imagers used in compact and bridge cameras much like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most of the spot of an standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip features a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” calculates to around 2.72, and thus a 10mm lens has approximately a similar angle of view being a 27.2mm lens by using 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 when it comes to its angle-of-view range.

The other Nikon J1’s faceplate is virtually empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver for the optional ML-L3 infrared remote device, two narrow slits to the microphone either sides on the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is not any grip in any respect on the front from the Nikon 1 J1.

There are two ways of powering on the Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1. You can utilize on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, you can easily press the unlocking button around the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that produces your camera to interchange on automatically. It is an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately another - absolutely nothing to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.

It is possible to frame your shots with all the rear screen - there is absolutely no electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, a key distinction between both the. The LCD screen is a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that features wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF with all the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or with all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the digital camera around eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding trembling camera.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 features a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks a lot of the shooting modes that happen to be usually available on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - although it has enough room to allow for them. These modes are offered about the J1 and you ought to dive into the rather long-winded instead of entirely logical menu to find them. The J1’s mode dial just has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller also 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 isn’t a bad choice of functions, the reality that there is no ISO button will doubtlessly create a great deal of photographers interested in acquiring the Nikon J1 to be unhappy.

You will find there’s 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, during Video mode it lets you toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. The two main more important controls about the back with the camera, together with a scroll wheel across the four-way pad and also a rocker switch marked which has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized to create the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you’ve found them within the menu, which is), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it’s got a loupe icon next to it can be that it control is needed to zoom in by using an image to check for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, you’ll find four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel in the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Just what exactly are the ones shooting modes around the mode dial information on? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked with a green camera icon, is to try and will need to be most likely. With all the mode dial set to the present position, you’ll be able to pick your desired exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode in which the camera analyses the scene looking at its lens and picks just what it thinks would be the right mode for that particular scene. You can even make a choice with the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access plus the power to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, but only through the menu, as stated previously.

Obviously there’s AWB and auto ISO as well, with all the latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you would like your camera to travel if your light gets low. You can also choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, when the camera takes control over what it focusses on (this is not a great mode to obtain when your default because camera obviously can’t read your mind and might focus on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, in which you can come up among 135 AF points first by hitting OK then moving the active AF point throughout the frame with all the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, that you pick your subject, press OK and allow the digital camera to follow that subject since it moves around, so long as it won’t leave the frame of course.

The Nikon 1 J1 has an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly as the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even over a moving subject. This company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are definitely the fastest-focusing machines on this planet, and this also matches our experience - providing there’s enough light. When light levels drop, you switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t nearly as soon as the opposite method. It’s always the camera that decides which AF solution to use - the consumer has no impact on this.

In most cases, the J1 will often only head for contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we were able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly won’t disappoint here. Manual focusing can be possible, however the Nikon 1 lenses don’t have focus rings. If you wish to focus manually, you first of all ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which utilize the scroll wheel to adjust focus. To be of assistance with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along the right side from the frame - but those include the only focusing aids you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with a electronic shutter (the V1 boasts an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the main focus confirmation beep may be disabled through the menu) and allows the use of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of a second and, while using Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while it is a major achievement, it’s tied to a buffer that can only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, using this mode precludes AF tracking - you have to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you want that -, as well as the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are taken. The linksys e2000 application we can imagine where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really prove useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. At this rate, several 5 bracketed shots could be consumed in less 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 isn’t going to offer this kind of feature - in reality it doesn’t offer autoexposure bracketing in any way.

Trying out the video mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, the digital camera might be set to shoot Full HD footage, so you even arrive at select 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you’d like to use progressive or interlaced video. Unless you need Full HD, there’s also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth whilst still being counts as high-definition. Secondly, you will get full manual control over exposure in video mode. It is an option; it’s not necessary to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can if that is things you need. Thirdly, you will get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, specially in good light. Movies are compressed utilizing the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. There are separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and thanks to this - in addition to the massive processing power in the Nikon J1 - you can take multiple full-resolution stills whilst recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you are able to capture a movie clip even if the mode dial is with the Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in this instance your camera will forever record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.

As well as being competent at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is lower plus the aspect ratio is surely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, even so the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so on. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which is over 13x slower compared to capture speed of 400fps, allowing you to get creative and prove to the world a range of interesting phenomena which happen straight away to observe in real time. The Nikon J1 goes further by a 1200fps video mode, though the resolution and overall quality is way too poor for your for being genuinely useful.

The next icon within the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows your camera 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. The digital camera analyses anyone pictures inside series and discards 15 of which, keeping just the five that it thinks might be best when it comes to sharpness and composition. This feature could be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there is a so-called Motion Snapshot mode when the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press on the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened prior to a button was fully depressed - and also has a still photograph. The movie plus the still image are saved in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with music. It’s fun but we not able to really envision people employing this shooting mode all the time. (Should you comprehend the video using a computer, it will play back at normal speed, without sound, and this mode is really only interesting should you observe the clip in-camera or hook your camera up to an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and supports the fastest UHS-I speed class. The digital camera is run on a lesser EN-EL20 battery to the V1 larger, which is consequently capable of producing much less shots for a passing fancy charge, managing around 230, even though it helps to make the camera body small. The camera’s tripod socket is made from metal which is situated line with all the lens’ optical axis. This actually also ensures that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible whilst the J1 is attached to a tripod, because hinges in the battery/card compartment door are extremely towards the tripod mount.

So, how did we like while using Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a great deal. In good light, its auto-focus product is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used until now, the ability to track and lock consentrate on a variety of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a lot of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates never been quite 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 what has modest guide number might suggest, while using clever design minimising red-eye.

Alternatively, the Nikon J1 have their own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with an individual interface that forces you to dive in to 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 the least result in the “F” button customisable by using a firmware update. Also, nevertheless there is a separate button for exposure compensation - the advantage - I didn’t try to activate an active histogram, community . can have made exposure compensation a lot more useful as well as simple make use of. Again, this could apt to be fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or aided by 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, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit which the V1 offers, as well as the smaller battery means that you’ll want to buy another one to get through a day’s heavy shooting. Lacking an accessory port shows that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

Something else we did not like was that the camera would always show the picture just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, and that we failed to be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at any rate cancel it using a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is usually fast and responsive, the digital camera takes far too long to wake up from sleep mode when it continues to be idle for a while, causing numerous missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 is often a small, and compact, high-performance system camera that they like its your government would use several tweaks to the gui to improve suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended market you work in of casual users will require to it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight and the fun features it gives you. Why don’t we now observe how the Nikon 1 J1 fared within the image quality department.