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The Nikon 1 J1 is usually a stylish compact system camera having a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor along with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds up 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, and also Metered Manual. Also agreeable is really a built-in pop-up flash having a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Priced at $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm standard zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 with 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 be on sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is certainly caused by made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is therefore heavier than what you know already depending on its size alone, coming in at 234g for the body only. Additionally, it feels higher quality compared to official product shots maybe have you believe. Through an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is extremely much a two-handed affair that requires that you hold the camera’s weight inside left-hand, clutching the lens, and make use of your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is the best thing because it makes you take note of holding you properly, which goes quite a distance 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. As an alternative to to be a scaled-down version with the ancient F mount, it is a fresh design that gives 100% electronic communication relating to the attached lens plus the camera body, due to a dozen contacts. The same as within the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for convenient lens alignment, while it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) up of the mount. The lenses themselves feature a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot in order for that you manage to attach the lens towards the camera. While this might require a little acclamating yourself with, this task makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

With no lens attached, you can see the sensor sitting right behind the plane in the bayonet mount. Such as mount itself, the sensor is fresh. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the surface area of the biggest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about half the region of any standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip includes a 1.36x longer diagonal compared to the Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds has a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, meaning that 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 comparable to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens when it comes to its angle-of-view range.

Other Nikon J1’s faceplate is nearly empty, featuring exactly the lens release, a receiver for the optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone both sides from the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is no grip in any respect on the front from the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s two methods for powering about the Nikon 1 V1. Either makes use of the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, should you have a collapsible-barrel zoom lens attached, you can just press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that triggers your camera to modify on automatically. It is really an ingenious solution that you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately an extra - nothing to write home about but nevertheless decent and entirely adequate.

You may frame your shots while using rear screen - there isn’t any electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, a key distinction between the 2 main. 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 the J1 alongside the V1, in both bright sunlit conditions or with all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the digital camera approximately eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding camera shake.

The control layout is rather peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 features a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes that are usually entirely on similar dials - such as P, A, S and M - community . has enough room to fit them. These modes can be obtained around the J1 and you ought to dive into your rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial merely has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller has 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 number of functions, the truth that there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly create a lot of photographers considering acquiring the Nikon J1 to become unhappy.

You will find there’s button about the rear labelled “F” but alas, it’s not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, while in Video mode it allows you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. The two main more valuable controls on the back in the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked having 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 is), whilst the rocker switch controls the aperture. Precisely why it has a loupe icon beside it can be that control is employed to zoom in with an image to check on for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last of all, you will discover four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush contrary to the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Precisely what are the ones shooting modes around the mode dial exactly about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked that has a green camera icon, is to try and will want to be most likely. While using mode dial set to the present position, it is possible to pick your desired exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode the location where 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 may also choose one in the conventional PASM modes, which provide you with full menu access and also the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift is available in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, only through the menu, as already mentioned.

Obviously there’s AWB and auto ISO too, with all the latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you wish you to travel if the light gets low. You can even select three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, where the camera takes management of what it focusses on (this is simply not a terrific mode to obtain as the default because camera obviously can’t read your mind and will focus on something different than your actual subject); Single Point, the place you can decide one of 135 AF points beginning with hitting OK and after that moving the active AF point throughout the frame utilizing the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, where you pick your subject, press OK and allow the digital camera to trace that subject the way it moves around, so long as this doesn’t happen leave the frame certainly.

The Nikon 1 J1 has a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This allows the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras will be the fastest-focusing machines on this planet, which matches our experience - provided that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, you switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t nearly you’d like another method. It really is you that decides which AF method to use - anyone doesn’t have a affect on this.

Generally speaking, the J1 will most likely 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 isn’t going to disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses don’t have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you firstly have to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and utilize the scroll wheel to regulate focus. To assist you using this type of, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central part of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale down the right side with the frame - but those are the only focusing aids you get. There is absolutely no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has a electronic shutter (the V1 even offers an analog shutter). It is absolutely silent (the main objective confirmation beep could be disabled through the menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds as fast as 1/16,000th of any second and, while using Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while this can be a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that will only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you have to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, as well as the viewfinder goes blank as the pictures are now being taken. The only application we can easily consider where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. Only at that rate, a number of 5 bracketed shots may very well be taken in less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that can otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown from the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer this kind of feature - the truth is no offer autoexposure bracketing whatsoever.

Getting to film mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, you may be set to shoot Full HD footage, and also you even arrive at pick from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, depending on whether you’d like to assist progressive or interlaced video. Should you not need Full HD, there’s also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth but still counts as high definition. Secondly, you receive full manual treatments for exposure in video mode. It is deemed an option; you don’t have to shoot in M mode but you can if that is what you need. Thirdly, you get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, particularly good light. Movies are compressed while using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will discover separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - in addition to the massive processing power with the Nikon J1 - you are able to take multiple full-resolution stills even while recording HD video. This works vice versa too - you are able to capture a film clip regardless if the mode dial is within the Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in such a case the digital camera will record the video at 720p/60fps.

And also able to shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is gloomier as well as the aspect ratio is definitely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are played back at 30fps, which can be greater than 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, permitting you to get creative and show the world an array of interesting phenomena which happen too rapidly to look at in real time. The Nikon J1 goes even further by providing a 1200fps video mode, though the resolution and overall quality is way too poor for that to get genuinely useful.

The next icon around the mode dial stands for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the digital camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos with a single press of the shutter release, including some that had been taken before fully depressing the button. The camera analyses the consumer pictures in the series and discards 15 of those, keeping merely the five so it thinks would be better when it comes to sharpness and composition. This feature could be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, we have a so-called Motion Snapshot mode in which the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts at a half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events which in fact had happened prior to button was fully depressed - as well as has a still photograph. The film and the still image are saved in separate files though the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we can not really envision people by using this shooting mode all the time. (In the event you observe the video on a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, and this mode is actually only interesting should you see the clip in-camera or hook you up to an HDTV by using an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and supports the fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera operates on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to its V1 larger, and is particularly consequently capable of producing considerably less shots about the same charge, managing around 230, while it does help to produce you body more compact. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal and is also found in line with the lens’ optical axis. This ensures that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely whilst the J1 is installed on a tripod, as the hinges of the battery/card compartment door are extremely near to the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to with all the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a lot. In good light, its auto-focus strategy is indeed faster than just about anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock concentrate on a range of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding many sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have not 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 its modest guide number might suggest, together with the clever design minimising red-eye.

In contrast, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with anyone interface that forces you to dive into your menu to get into functions as basic as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons into a finished product, they may no less than result in the “F” button customisable via a firmware update. Also, nevertheless there is a devoted button for exposure compensation - which is a positive thing - Some find a way to activate an active histogram, eventhough it would have made exposure compensation far more useful as well as simple to make use of. Again, this might oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specially in bright light or when 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’s defense against unwanted debris, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, and the smaller battery shows that you should buy another you to definitely go through the day’s heavy shooting. The possible lack of an accessory port signifies that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are compatible with the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.

One more thing we wouldn’t like was that the camera would always show the picture just taken for a couple seconds onscreen, and now we would not be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (even though you can at least cancel it using a half-press of the shutter release). Finally, as the camera is mostly fast and responsive, the camera takes way too long to wake from sleep mode when it is idle for a while, producing numerous missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small and compact, high-performance system camera that like its our government might use a couple of tweaks to the program to improve suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended target market of casual users will require to it due to the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size along with the fun features it includes. Let’s now observe the Nikon 1 J1 fared within the image quality department.