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The Nikon 1 J1 is 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 fps 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 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, and also Metered Manual. Also fully briefed can be a built-in pop-up flash which has a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Priced at $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm contact lens, $699.95 / 599.99 with a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in the double-lens kit with the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to take sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is mainly made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than what you know already based on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for that body only. Additionally, it feels higher quality compared to the official product shots would have you believe. With an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 can be quite much a two-handed affair that really needs someone to contain the camera’s weight in the left-hand, clutching the lens, and rehearse your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is the good thing because it forces you to look closely at holding the camera properly, which goes a considerable ways towards avoiding shake-induced blur within your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather then being a scaled-down version of the ancient F mount, it’s a fresh design that gives 100% electronic communication involving the attached lens along with the camera body, due to a dozen contacts. Similar to around the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for quick lens alignment, though it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to # 1 in the mount. The lenses themselves come with a short silver ridge for the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot to ensure that you to have the ability to attach the lens to your camera. Even if this might require some becoming accustomed to, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and easier.

Without having lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting directly behind the plane from the bayonet mount. Just like the mount itself, the sensor is brand new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double surface of the most popular imagers utilized in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about half the region of a standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip features a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Considering that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to around 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately precisely the same angle of view being a 27.2mm lens while on 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 with regard to its angle-of-view range.

The other Nikon J1’s faceplate is actually empty, featuring the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared handy remote control, two narrow slits for the microphone both sides of the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is absolutely no grip at all within the front in the Nikon 1 J1.

The two main ways of powering for the Nikon J1. You can utilize on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, should you have a collapsible-barrel contact lens attached, you can simply press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that creates the camera to switch on automatically. It is really an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over a second - not even attempt to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.

It is possible to frame your shots while using rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as about the V1 model, a vital difference between the two. The LCD screen is 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, in both bright sunlit conditions or with the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding you approximately eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and get away from camera shake.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 has a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks many of the shooting modes that happen to be usually found on similar dials - such as P, A, S and M - even though it has enough room to match them. These modes are offered for the J1 nevertheless, you have to dive in to the rather long-winded and never entirely logical menu to seek out them. The J1’s mode dial has only 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 though this isn’t a bad number of functions, the truth that there isn’t any ISO button will doubtlessly create a large amount of photographers interested in purchasing Nikon J1 being unhappy.

There exists a button on the rear labelled “F” but alas, it is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it permits you to quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more valuable controls on the back with the camera, including a scroll wheel round the four-way pad along with a rocker switch marked that has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is needed to set the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you’ve found them from the menu, that may be), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it provides a loupe icon beside it can be until this control is utilized to focus while on an image to evaluate for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, there are four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel with the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

What exactly are shooting modes around the mode dial information on? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is to try and will want to be usually. Together with the mode dial set for this position, it is possible to pick your required exposure mode on the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant auto mode the location where the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks what it thinks is the right mode for any particular one scene. You can also find out on the conventional PASM modes, which offer you full menu access as well as the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift comes in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, only from the menu, as stated previously.

Of course there’s AWB and auto ISO likewise, using the latter arriving three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) permitting you to specify how high you wish the camera to travel if your light gets low. You may also choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, in which the camera takes management of what it really focusses on (this isn’t an excellent mode to own as the default because camera obviously can’t read your head and might consentrate on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, where you can decide one of 135 AF points beginning with hitting OK and after that moving the active AF point throughout the frame while using four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, where you pick your subject, press OK and enable the digital camera in order to that subject as it moves around, given that doesn’t necessarily leave the frame certainly.

The Nikon 1 J1 has an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion as the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This permits the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even using a moving subject. The organization claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are definitely the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, and also this 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 soon as the opposite method. It is usually your camera that decides which AF strategy to use - anyone doesn’t have affect this.

Normally, the J1 will often only turn to 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 does not disappoint here. Manual focusing is also possible, even though the Nikon 1 lenses do not have focus rings. In order to focus manually, you first ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that utilize scroll wheel to focus. To work with you using this type of, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central portion of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale over the right side in the frame - but those are the only focusing aids you get. There is not any peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has a electronic shutter (the V1 also offers a mechanical shutter). It’s absolutely silent (the target confirmation beep may be disabled on the menu) and allows the use of shutter speeds as soon as 1/16,000th of a second and, with the Electronic Hi setting selected, lets you 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 can only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, using this mode precludes AF tracking - you must lower the frame rate to 10fps if you’d like that -, along with the viewfinder goes blank as the pictures are taken. The linksys e2000 application we can think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really be useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. With this rate, several 5 bracketed shots could be consumed in a lot less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements which could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown within the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer this sort of feature - the truth is it does not offer autoexposure bracketing at all.

Trying out the playback quality mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, you may be set to shoot Full HD footage, therefore you even reach choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, according to whether you want to work together with progressive or interlaced video. If you don’t need Full HD, there is also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth nevertheless counts as high-definition. Secondly, you obtain full manual treating exposure in video mode. It becomes an option; you don’t have to shoot in M mode however you can if that’s what exactly you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, specifically in good light. Movies are compressed utilizing the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and thanks to this - along with the massive processing power on the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills whilst recording HD video. This works in reversed order too - you can capture a movie clip even when the mode dial is in the Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in this case you will usually record film at 720p/60fps.

As well as being able to shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 also can shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is less and also the aspect ratio is surely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and stuff like that. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that’s more than 13x slower compared to 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 a little more forward through providing a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is too poor with the being genuinely useful.

Another icon for the mode dial symbolizes Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the digital camera to capture at least 20 photos for a single press from the shutter release, including some that had been taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the average person pictures in the series and discards 15 of which, keeping exactly the five it thinks should be with regards to sharpness and composition. This feature is usually genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there is a so-called Motion Snapshot mode in which the camera records a short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events which had happened ahead of the button was fully depressed - and in addition uses a still photograph. The film along with the still image are stored in separate files though the camera can combine them into a single slow-motion clip with music. It’s fun but we not able to really envision people making use of this shooting mode on a regular basis. (In the event you look at the video with a computer, it’s going to play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is basically only interesting should you look at the clip in-camera or hook the camera approximately an HDTV with an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. The digital camera runs on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to its V1 our government, and is particularly consequently capable of producing even less shots using one charge, managing around 230, even though it does help to make the camera body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket consists of metal and it is found in line while using lens’ optical axis. This shows that changing batteries or cards is not possible while the J1 is attached with a tripod, as the hinges in the battery/card compartment door are extremely near the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to using the Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it a lot. In good light, its auto-focus strategy is indeed faster than basically anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock consentrate on a range of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a great deal of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates haven’t ever been very 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 the reason is modest guide number might suggest, using the clever design minimising red-eye.

On the other hand, the Nikon J1 have their share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying an individual interface that can make you dive into your menu to reach functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to your finished product, they might a minimum of increase the risk for “F” button customisable by using a firmware update. Also, as there is a separate button for exposure compensation - that is a positive thing - I didnrrrt are able to activate a live histogram, community . would’ve made exposure compensation much more useful and simple to use. Again, this could more likely fixed in firmware.

We 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 has only a glass dust shield because it’s defense against unwanted debris, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit the V1 offers, and also the smaller battery means that you will have to buy another one to arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. Lacking an accessory port signifies that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are works with the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

Something more important we would not like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, therefore we wouldn’t be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it by using a half-press of the shutter release). Finally, even though the camera is often fast and responsive, you takes excessively long to get up from sleep mode if this has become idle for a while, resulting in many missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 is a small, and compact, high-performance system camera they like its government might use a couple of tweaks to the gui to higher suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended target audience of casual users will like it for the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and the fun features it gives you. Let us now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside the image quality department.