Article on Nikon 1 J1: Innovative Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras
The Nikon 1 J1 is really a stylish compact system camera using a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor as well as the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds of up 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, in addition to Metered Manual. Also agreeable is usually a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide volume of 5, a 3 inch rear display as well as an electronic shutter. Pricing $649.95 / 549.99 having a 10-30mm zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 which has a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in a double-lens kit while using 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to be on sale later this month.
The Nikon 1 J1 is mainly constructed from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts which is therefore heavier than you would think based on its size alone, coming in at 234g with the body only. Furthermore, it feels higher quality compared to the official product shots maybe have you believe. Through an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is very much a two-handed affair that will need one to retain the camera’s weight inside the left hand, clutching the lens, and utilize your right hand for balance and operating the controls. A great an excellent the way it pushes you to take note of holding your camera properly, which in turn goes far 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. As an alternative to as a scaled-down version with the ancient F mount, it’s actually a new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between the attached lens and also the camera body, due to several contacts. Similar to on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for quick lens alignment, while it has moved in the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top level of the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot for one to be capable of attach the lens for the camera. Although this may necessitate a bit of becoming familiar with, it genuinely makes changing lenses quicker and easier.
Without the need of lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting directly behind the plane of 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 surface of the largest imagers found in compact and bridge cameras such as the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only most the spot of the standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates a 1.36x longer diagonal compared to Nikon CX imager. Considering that Four Thirds includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” calculates to about 2.72, and therefore a 10mm lens has approximately the identical angle of view being a 27.2mm lens on 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 regarding its angle-of-view range.
All of those other Nikon J1’s faceplate is nearly empty, featuring the lens release, a receiver for that optional ML-L3 infrared remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone each side with the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is absolutely no grip by any means within the front in the Nikon 1 J1.
There are two methods for powering around the Nikon1 J1. You may utilize the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can simply press the unlocking button on the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that produces the digital camera to modify on automatically. It is deemed an ingenious solution as you have to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over an additional - absolutely nothing to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.
You are able to frame your shots while using rear screen - there is absolutely no electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, an important difference between both. 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 bright sunlit conditions or with all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding your camera approximately eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding camera shake.
The control layout is pretty peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 incorporates a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks the majority of the shooting modes which can be usually entirely on similar dials - especially P, A, S and M - although it has enough room to match them. These modes are offered on the J1 but you have to dive in to the rather long-winded and not entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial just 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 if this isn’t a bad collection of functions, the fact there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly produce a lot of photographers thinking about purchasing the Nikon J1 to get unhappy.
There exists a button on the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it lets you quickly make a choice from the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more significant controls within the back in the camera, including a scroll wheel throughout the four-way pad along with a rocker switch marked which has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is employed to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you have found them inside the menu, that’s), as you move the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it’s a loupe icon near to it’s that it control is needed to zoom in by using an image to check on for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, you can find four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.
So what are those shooting modes on the mode dial information on? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is the place you would want to be more often than not. With the mode dial set to this particular position, you are able to pick your required exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great automatic mode the place that the camera analyses the scene before its lens and picks exactly what thinks may be the right mode for that specific scene. You may also find out from the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access as well as the power to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift can be purchased in P mode). ISO and white balance can be manually selected, only from your menu, as already mentioned.
Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO likewise, while using latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) permitting you to specify how high you want the digital camera to visit when the light gets low. It’s also possible to select from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, where the camera takes management of exactly what it focusses on (this isn’t a terrific mode to own when your default since the camera obviously can’t read your mind and may focus on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, in places you can make considered one of 135 AF points first by hitting OK then moving the active AF point round the frame utilizing the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and invite the camera to trace that subject as it moves around, given that it doesn’t leave the frame needless to say.
The Nikon 1 J1 comes with an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This permits the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even on a moving subject. The organization claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are the fastest-focusing machines on earth, which matches our experience - given that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the digital camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than you are on most cameras, isn’t as quickly as another method. It’s always the digital camera that decides which AF approach to use - the user has no affect on this.
Usually, the J1 will most likely only use contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, there we were able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly won’t disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses do not have focus rings. In order to focus manually, first you have to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which make use of the scroll wheel to alter focus. To help you with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central area of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale across the right side with the frame - but those would be the only focusing helps you get. There isn’t any peaking function available as on some rival models.
The J1 posseses an electronic shutter (the V1 boasts an analog shutter). It’s totally silent (the attention confirmation beep can be disabled from the menu) and allows the usage of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of the second and, while using 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 tied to a buffer that could only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you should lower the frame rate to 10fps if you need that -, plus the viewfinder goes blank as you move the pictures are being taken. The linksys e2000 application we can easily think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really be convenient is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. As of this rate, several 5 bracketed shots could possibly be consumed in lower than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer this sort of feature - in fact it does not offer autoexposure bracketing by any means.
Moving on to the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, you can be set to shoot Full HD footage, and you also even get to choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, dependant upon whether you prefer to work together with progressive or interlaced video. If you don’t need Full HD, there’s also 720p @ 60fps, and that is really smooth and still counts as hi-d. Secondly, you obtain full manual treating exposure in video mode. This is an option; you won’t need to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can in the event that’s the thing you need. Thirdly, you 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. You can find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - as well as the massive processing power of the Nikon J1 - you may take multiple full-resolution stills even when recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you may capture your favorite shows clip even if the mode dial influences Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in cases like this your camera will record the recording at 720p/60fps.
And also being capable of shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is less and the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, nevertheless the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo etc. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that’s more than 13x slower compared to the capture speed of 400fps, enabling you to get creative and display to the world a multitude of interesting phenomena which happen straight away to see in real time. The Nikon J1 goes a little more forward by offering a 1200fps video mode, even so the resolution and overall quality is way too poor with the to be genuinely useful.
Another icon within the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the digital camera to capture no less than 20 photos in a single press on the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. Your camera analyses the average person pictures within the series and discards 15 ones, keeping just the five so it thinks would be better when it comes 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 when the camera records a concise high-definition movie - whose buffering starts in a half-press on the shutter release, so again includes events which had happened prior to the button was fully depressed - and as well requires a still photograph. The film and also the still image are stored in separate files even so the camera can combine them right into a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people applying this shooting mode regularly. (When you see the video using a computer, it’s going to play back at normal speed, without sound, this mode is basically only interesting should you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook your camera as much as an HDTV by using an HDMI cable.)
The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up the fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera is run on an inferior EN-EL20 battery to the V1 big brother, which is consequently capable of producing much less shots on a single charge, managing around 230, though it helps to create the digital camera body smaller. The camera’s tripod socket is constructed of metal and is also in line using the lens’ optical axis. And also this ensures that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely as you move the J1 is installed on a tripod, as the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are too near to the tripod mount.
So, how did we like using the Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it a great deal. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used until now, to be able to track and lock consentrate on numerous truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding many sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have never been extremely high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed if we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that it is modest guide number might suggest, with the clever design minimising red-eye.
Conversely, the Nikon J1 have their own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with the user interface that makes you dive into your menu to get into functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to a finished product, they are able to at the very least increase the risk for “F” button customisable via a firmware update. Also, you will find a passionate button for exposure compensation - that is a a valuable thing - I didnrrrt be capable of activate a live histogram, community . can have made exposure compensation a lot more useful and easy to utilize. Again, this might oftimes be fixed in firmware.
We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, especially in bright light or while using the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 merely has a glass dust shield because it is defense against unwanted debris, instead of the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, plus the smaller battery implies that you should buy another you to definitely arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. Having less an accessory port shows that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are compatible with the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.
Yet another thing we would not like could be that the camera would always show the picture just taken for some seconds onscreen, and now we did not try to turn this instant postview function completely off (although you can at least cancel it with a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, as you move the camera is often fast and responsive, the camera takes way too long to awaken from sleep mode in the event it is idle for some time, causing numerous missed shots.
Of course, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small , compact, high-performance system camera they like its larger can use some tweaks to its user interface to better suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended market you work in of casual users will require to it due to the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size as well as the fun features it gives you. Why don’t we now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside the image quality department.