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The Nikon 1 J1 is usually a stylish compact system camera featuring a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor as well as the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds of up to 60 fps at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector and a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, together with Metered Manual. Also agreeable is a built-in pop-up flash with a guide volume of 5, a 3 inch rear display along with an electronic shutter. Charging $649.95 / 549.99 with a 10-30mm the len’s, $699.95 / 599.99 with a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 within a double-lens kit with 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 made out of aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than what you know already depending on its size alone, weighing 234g for your body only. What’s more, it feels better quality than the official product shots maybe have you believe. Having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that needs one to retain the camera’s weight from the left hand, clutching the lens, and utilize your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is an excellent since it can make you focus on holding the digital camera properly, which goes a long way 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. Rather then being a scaled-down version from the ancient F mount, it is just a brand-new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between your attached lens as well as the camera body, courtesy of twelve contacts. Exactly like for the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there exists a white dot for simple lens alignment, even though it has moved in the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top in the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge on the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot to enable you to definitely be capable of attach the lens on the camera. Of course this may require a bit of adjusting to, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

Without the need of lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting right behind the plane from the bayonet mount. Just like the mount itself, the sensor is completely new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double floor of the largest imagers used in compact and bridge cameras like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about half the spot of an standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates a 1.36x longer diagonal compared to the Nikon CX imager. Since Four Thirds features a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” computes to around 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately the same angle of view to be a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus the same as a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens in terms of its angle-of-view range.

The rest of the Nikon J1’s faceplate is almost empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver for that optional ML-L3 infrared remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone either side on the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is no grip whatsoever around the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s two methods for powering around the Nikon 1 V1. Either utilize on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, for those who have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can simply press the unlocking button within the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that triggers you to interchange on automatically. It is deemed an ingenious solution as you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over another - nothing to write home about but nonetheless decent and entirely adequate.

You are able to frame your shots utilizing the rear screen - there is no electronic viewfinder as within the V1 model, an important distinction between both the. The LCD screen is really a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that features wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours but only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF aided by the J1 alongside the V1, either in bright sunlit conditions or while using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the digital camera as much as eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and avoid camera shake.

The control layout is pretty peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 incorporates a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks most of the shooting modes which can be usually found on similar dials - most notably P, A, S and M - even though it has enough room to accommodate them. These modes can be obtained around the J1 however you need to dive in to the rather long-winded and never entirely logical menu to locate them. The J1’s mode dial just 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. Evidently this isn’t a bad choice of functions, the fact that there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly result in a wide range of photographers enthusiastic about getting the Nikon J1 being unhappy.

There exists a button for the rear labelled “F” but alas, it’s not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s 2 more essential controls within the back with the camera, including a scroll wheel across the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is employed to create the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you’ve found them inside the menu, that’s), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it provides a loupe icon alongside it truly is this control is used to zoom in by using an image to check on for critical focus in Playback mode. Finally, you can find four small buttons throughout the navigation pad, flush up against the rear panel with the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Precisely what are the ones shooting modes about the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is to try and will need to be more often than not. Using the mode dial set to this particular position, you may pick your required exposure mode from the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant auto mode the place that the camera analyses the scene when in front of its lens and picks just what it thinks may be the right way of that particular scene. It’s also possible to make a choice on the conventional PASM modes, which offer you full menu access and also the capacity to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift can be purchased in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, but only in the menu, as mentioned above.

Certainly there’s AWB and auto ISO also, while using latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you desire you to visit if the light gets low. You may also choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, where the camera takes management of what it really focusses on (it is not an excellent mode to own as your default as being the camera obviously can’t read your head and will concentrate on something different than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can decide certainly one of 135 AF points by first hitting OK after which moving the active AF point round the frame with all the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, where you pick your subject, press OK and allow your camera to follow that subject since it moves around, providing this doesn’t happen leave the frame needless to say.

The Nikon 1 J1 has a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection likewise as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This enables the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The corporation claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, and this matches our experience - given that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, your camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t nearly as soon as one other method. It is the camera that decides which AF solution to use - the user has no affect this.

Generally speaking, the J1 will usually only use contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had arrived capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly isn’t going to disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, however the Nikon 1 lenses will not have focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you firstly must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which utilize scroll wheel to modify focus. To help you with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along the right side of the frame - but those will be the only focusing helps you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with a electronic shutter (the V1 boasts a mechanical shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the target confirmation beep can be disabled from the menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds you’d like 1/16,000th of a second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, permits you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while this is a major achievement, it’s limited by a buffer which 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 want that -, and the viewfinder goes blank as you move the pictures will be taken. The linksys e2000 application we can think about 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 possibly be drawn in below 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 will not offer such a feature - the truth is it does not offer autoexposure bracketing in any way.

Trying the video mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First of all, your camera could be set to shoot Full HD footage, and also you even arrive at choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, determined by whether you’d rather assist progressive or interlaced video. If you don’t need Full HD, additionally, there is 720p @ 60fps, which can be really smooth yet still counts as hi-def. Secondly, you obtain full manual treatments for exposure in video mode. It is deemed an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode and you can if that’s what exactly you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, especially in good light. Movies are compressed while using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - as well as the massive processing power of the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills whilst recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you are able to capture a show clip even when the mode dial is with the Still Image position, just by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in this instance you will invariably record film at 720p/60fps.

In addition to 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 lower along with the aspect ratio is an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo etc. These videos are played back at 30fps, and that is over 13x slower than the capture speed of 400fps, enabling you to get creative and display to the world a range of interesting phenomena that happen too quickly to observe in real time. The Nikon J1 goes a little more forward by a 1200fps video mode, even so the resolution and overall quality is too poor with the to become genuinely useful.

The 3rd icon about the mode dial is short for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos in a single press on the shutter release, including some which are taken before fully depressing the button. The digital camera analyses anyone pictures inside series and discards 15 of these, keeping merely the five which it thinks would be better in terms of sharpness and composition. This feature is usually genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there’s a so-called Motion Snapshot mode when the camera records a quick 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 - plus uses a still photograph. The movie along with the still image are residing in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them into a single slow-motion clip with music. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people applying this shooting mode regularly. (In case you look at the video using a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, this mode is basically only interesting should you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook the digital camera as much as an HDTV via an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera is run on a reduced EN-EL20 battery to the V1 government, and is consequently able to produce even less shots on one charge, managing around 230, while it helps to make you body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket is made of metal and is situated in line with the lens’ optical axis. This too means that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible whilst the J1 is attached with a tripod, as the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are far too near to the tripod mount.

So, how did we like using the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus strategy is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used thus far, the ability to track and lock concentrate on a selection of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding many 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 if we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful what has modest guide number might suggest, together with the clever design minimising red-eye.

On the other hand, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning from the user interface that pushes you to dive to the menu gain access to functions as easy as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to a finished product, they are able to no less than make the “F” button customisable via a firmware update. Also, as there is a devoted button for exposure compensation - that is a good thing - I didn’t find a way to activate a live histogram, although it might have made exposure compensation far more useful as well as simple to use. Again, this can more likely fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly in bright light or with the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 just has a glass dust shield because it’s defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, as well as the smaller battery implies that you will need to buy an additional anyone to arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port ensures that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are suitable for the J1, like the external flash and GPS unit.

Another thing we didn’t like could be that the camera would always show the image just taken for some seconds onscreen, therefore we didn’t be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it via a half-press in the shutter release). Finally, even though the camera is often fast and responsive, your camera takes far too long to wake from sleep mode when it has been idle for a short time, causing several missed shots.

That being said, the Nikon 1 J1 is often a smaller than average and compact, high-performance system camera that like its your government are able to use several tweaks to its program to raised suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended market you work in of casual users will require to it for the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size along with the fun features there is. Let us now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared within the image quality department.