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The Nikon 1 J1 can be 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 plus 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 on board is usually a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Charging $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm standard zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 using a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in a very double-lens kit using 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 usually crafted from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than you would think depending on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for your body only. Furthermore, it feels better quality compared to official product shots would have you believe. Through an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is extremely much a two-handed affair that really needs that you contain the camera’s weight inside left-hand, clutching the lens, and use your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is really the best thing since it pushes you to take note of holding your camera properly, which experts claim goes far towards avoiding shake-induced blur within your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather then like a scaled-down version of the out of date F mount, it is a brand-new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between the attached lens and the camera body, for endless weeks of frustration contacts. The same as around the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for easy lens alignment, even though it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top level in the mount. The lenses themselves use a short silver ridge on the lens barrel, which ought to be in alignment with said dot to ensure that you to definitely be capable of attach the lens for the camera. Even if this may necessitate a little getting used to, this task makes changing lenses quicker and easier.

Without lens attached, you can see the sensor sitting right behind the plane from the bayonet mount. Such as the mount itself, the sensor is new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the amount surface area of the biggest imagers found in compact and bridge cameras such as Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about 50 % of the area of your 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 features a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately exactly the same angle of view to be a 27.2mm lens by using 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 with regard to its angle-of-view range.

All of those other Nikon J1’s faceplate is practically empty, featuring just the lens release, a receiver for your optional ML-L3 infrared remote device, two narrow slits to the microphone either sides in the lens, and an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is not any grip in any way about the front in the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s two ways of powering around the Nikon 1 V1. You can use the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, when you have a collapsible-barrel contact lens attached, you can simply press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that produces your camera to change on automatically. It is deemed an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately a second - not write home about yet still decent and entirely adequate.

You are able to frame your shots with all the rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as about the V1 model, a vital distinction between both the. The LCD screen is 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 with all the J1 alongside the V1, in either 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 prevent camera shake.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 features a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks the majority of the shooting modes which are usually entirely on similar dials - most notably P, A, S and M - community . has enough room to accommodate them. These modes can be obtained about the J1 but you must dive into your rather long-winded and not entirely logical menu to find them. The J1’s mode dial has only 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. Even if this is not a bad collection of functions, the truth that there is no ISO button will doubtlessly spark a lot of photographers considering purchasing the Nikon J1 being unhappy.

There’s a button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is simply not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it allows you to quickly choose from the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it lets you toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s 2 more significant controls on the back with the camera, together with a scroll wheel round the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is used to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (after you have found them inside menu, that’s), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it’s a loupe icon alongside it really is until this control is employed to zoom in on an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Finally, you’ll find four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush resistant to the rear panel of the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Precisely what are the type shooting modes for the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked which has a green camera icon, is to would want to be quite often. Together with the mode dial set to the present position, you are able to pick your required exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great auto mode where the camera analyses the scene when in front of its lens and picks what it really thinks could be the right mode for any particular one scene. You can even select one of the conventional PASM modes, which offer you full menu access and also the chance to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance can also be manually selected, only through the menu, as already mentioned.

Of course there’s AWB and auto ISO at the same time, with all the latter being released in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) enabling you to specify how high you would like you to look if your light gets low. You may also select three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, when the camera takes control of exactly what it focusses on (this isn’t an excellent mode to get as your default since the camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and may consentrate on another thing than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can come up among 135 AF points by first hitting OK and after that moving the active AF point about the frame using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and permit the digital camera in order to that subject mainly because it moves around, as long as it won’t leave the frame needless to say.

The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even with a moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines on the globe, and this also matches our experience - so long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, your camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t as fast as the opposite method. It is usually the camera that decides which AF technique to use - an individual has no affect on this.

In most cases, the J1 usually only turn to contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, i was capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. If you wish to focus manually, you first of all must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which utilize scroll wheel to adjust focus. To assist you with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale over the right side with the frame - but those would be the only focusing aids you get. There isn’t any 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 main focus confirmation beep can be disabled from your menu) and allows using shutter speeds as fast as 1/16,000th of an second and, together with the Electronic Hi setting selected, enables you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while this is a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that 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’d like that -, and the viewfinder goes blank while the pictures will be taken. Single thing that it application we could consider where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really prove useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. As of this rate, several 5 bracketed shots may be consumed in lower than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that will otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown from the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 isn’t going to offer this type of feature - in fact no offer autoexposure bracketing whatsoever.

Selling it to it mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, the camera might be set to shoot Full HD footage, therefore you even get to choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, depending on whether you’d like to use progressive or interlaced video. Should you not need Full HD, there is also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth and still counts as hd. Secondly, you have full manual control of exposure in video mode. It is really an option; you don’t have to shoot in M mode however, you can in the event that’s what you require. Thirdly, you receive fast, continuous AF in video mode, and it works well, particularly good light. Movies are compressed with all the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - and also the massive processing power with the Nikon J1 - you can take multiple full-resolution stills even when recording HD video. This works vice versa too - you may capture a film clip even though the mode dial is incorporated in the Still Image position, simply by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve discovered that in this case your camera will record it at 720p/60fps.

In addition to being efficient at 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 also the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are played back at 30fps, that’s more than 13x slower than the capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world numerous interesting phenomena which happen too soon to look at instantly. The Nikon J1 goes even more by offering a 1200fps video mode, however the resolution and overall quality is too poor for your to be genuinely useful.

The next icon about the mode dial symbolizes Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture at the least 20 photos with a single press of the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. The camera analyses the consumer pictures inside series and discards 15 ones, keeping exactly the five which it thinks would be better in terms of sharpness and composition. This feature can be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there’s a so-called Motion Snapshot mode where the camera records a short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press on the shutter release, so again includes events which in fact had happened ahead of the button was fully depressed - as well as requires a still photograph. The movie along with the still image are stored in separate files however the camera can combine them in to a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we can not really envision people using this shooting mode on a regular basis. (When you see the video over a computer, it will play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is actually only interesting in the event you look at the clip in-camera or hook your camera as much as an HDTV via an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera is run on an inferior EN-EL20 battery to its V1 our government, which is consequently capable of producing much less shots on a single charge, managing around 230, though it helps for making you body smaller sized. The camera’s tripod socket is constructed of metal and is particularly found in line while using lens’ optical axis. This ensures that changing batteries or cards is not possible even though the J1 is mounted on a tripod, because hinges in the battery/card compartment door are so near the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to using the Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus product is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used to date, having the capacity to track and lock give attention to numerous truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates haven’t ever been quite 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 what has modest guide number might suggest, while using clever design minimising red-eye.

Alternatively, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with an individual interface that makes you dive into the menu to reach functions as easy as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons with a finished product, they can at the least result in the “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, while there is a devoted button for exposure compensation - a great thing - I did not find a way to activate an active histogram, eventhough it might have made exposure compensation considerably more useful and straightforward to make use of. Again, this may probably be fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specifically in bright light or aided by the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 merely has a glass dust shield since it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that this V1 offers, plus the smaller battery ensures that you should buy a supplementary one to get to the day’s heavy shooting. The possible lack of an accessory port implies that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are suitable for the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

Something else we failed to like could be that the camera would always show the image just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, therefore we wouldn’t are able to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it by way of a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, as you move the camera is generally fast and responsive, your camera takes excessively long to awaken from sleep mode in the event it is idle for quite a while, causing quite a few missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 is a small , compact, high-performance system camera they like its government might use several tweaks to the graphical user interface to higher suit the needs of serious amateurs. The intended audience of casual users will require to it for the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size along with the fun features it provides. Allow us to now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared from the image quality department.