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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 as much as 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 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 that has a guide quantity of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Costing $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm contact, $699.95 / 599.99 using a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 inside a double-lens kit together with the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to take a sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is mainly constructed from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than what you know already based on its size alone, coming in at 234g for that body only. It also feels higher quality as opposed to official product shots would have you believe. With an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is very much a two-handed affair that will need one to support the camera’s weight inside left hand, clutching the lens, and utilize your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is the good thing mainly because it pushes you to pay attention to holding your camera properly, which inturn goes a considerable ways 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. Instead of as being a scaled-down version on the traditional F mount, it is just a brand-new design that delivers 100% electronic communication relating to the attached lens and also the camera body, due to endless weeks of frustration contacts. Exactly like on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, you will find there’s white dot for simple lens alignment, while it has moved on the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top with the mount. The lenses themselves have a short silver ridge within the lens barrel, which ought to be in alignment with said dot to enable you to definitely manage to attach the lens to the camera. Even if this may require a certain amount of adjusting to, this task makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

Without lens attached, you will see the sensor sitting directly behind the plane on 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 expanse of the most popular imagers utilised in compact and bridge cameras such as Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most of the spot of your standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip has a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Given that Four Thirds includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” breaks down to to about 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately the identical angle of view as a 27.2mm lens with 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 regarding its angle-of-view range.

Other Nikon J1’s faceplate is actually empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver with the optional ML-L3 infrared remote device, two narrow slits for that microphone either sides in the lens, with an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is no grip by any means about the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

There are 2 strategies to powering about the Nikon 1 J1. Either utilize the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, when you have a collapsible-barrel the len’s attached, you can just press the unlocking button around the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that triggers your camera to change on automatically. It is an ingenious solution as you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately an extra - nothing to write home about but nonetheless decent and entirely adequate.

You may frame your shots using the rear screen - there isn’t any electronic viewfinder as for the V1 model, a key 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 only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF with all the J1 alongside the V1, in bright sunlit conditions or aided by 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 quite peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 has a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks most of the shooting modes which might be usually situated on similar dials - that include P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to match them. These modes can be found within the J1 but you have to dive into your rather long-winded instead of entirely logical menu to get them. The J1’s mode dial merely 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. Even if this is not a bad range of functions, the fact there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly create a wide range of photographers considering buying the Nikon J1 to be unhappy.

There’s a button on the rear labelled “F” but alas, it’s not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it allows you to quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it permits you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are 2 more valuable controls within the back with the camera, together with a scroll wheel round the four-way pad as well as a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you’ve found them within the menu, that is certainly), as the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it’s got a loupe icon next to it truly is until this control is employed to zoom in on an image to check for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, you will find four small buttons round the navigation pad, flush resistant to the rear panel in the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

What exactly are the types shooting modes on the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked having a green camera icon, is to would want to be quite often. While using mode dial set to the present position, you’ll be able to pick your desired exposure mode from the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant auto mode in which the camera analyses the scene looking at its lens and picks exactly what it thinks is the right way of that one scene. You may also find out in the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access and the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift is available in P mode). ISO and white balance can also be manually selected, only on the menu, as stated previously.

Naturally there’s AWB and auto ISO too, while using latter arriving three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) permitting you to specify how high you desire you to travel in the event the light gets low. You can even choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the location where the camera takes management of what it really focusses on (this is simply not a great mode to get when your default as being the camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and will give attention to something more important than your actual subject); Single Point, in which you can come up certainly one of 135 AF points by first hitting OK and moving the active AF point round the frame while using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, that you pick your subject, press OK and permit your camera to trace that subject as it moves around, so long as it won’t leave the frame needless to say.

The Nikon 1 J1 has an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even over a moving subject. This company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras would be the fastest-focusing machines on the globe, and also this matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t nearly as soon as another method. It’s always the camera that decides which AF strategy to use - the consumer has no affect on this.

Normally, the J1 in most cases only head for 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 won’t disappoint here. Manual focusing can be possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses don’t have focus rings. If you need to focus manually, first you must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that utilize scroll wheel to adjust focus. To assist you using this type of, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central part of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale across the right side from the frame - but those are the only focusing helps you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with an electronic shutter (the V1 also offers a mechanical shutter). It is absolutely silent (the target confirmation beep could be disabled in the menu) and allows the utilization of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of an second and, with the Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that while this is the major achievement, it’s tied to a buffer that will only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the utilization of this mode precludes AF tracking - you must lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, along with the viewfinder goes blank even though the pictures will be taken. About the only application we can easily think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really be useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. When it reaches this rate, a number of 5 bracketed shots could be consumed below 0.1 second, rendering small movements which could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown from the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 isn’t going to offer this kind of feature - in fact it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing by any means.

Trying out the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, the digital camera may be set to shoot Full HD footage, and also you even arrive at select from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, dependant upon whether you want to help progressive or interlaced video. If you can’t need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, which can be really smooth yet still counts as high-definition. Secondly, you obtain full manual control over exposure in video mode. It becomes an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode but you can if that is what you need. Thirdly, you receive fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, particularly in good light. Movies are compressed with all the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will discover separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - and also the massive processing power on the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills even while recording HD video. This works the opposite too - you can capture a movie clip even if the mode dial is within the Still Image position, by simply pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in this case you will invariably record it at 720p/60fps.

And also being able to shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is gloomier plus the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, even so the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that is a lot more than 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, enabling you to get creative and display to the world an array of interesting phenomena which happen straight away to see in real time. The Nikon J1 goes further by providing a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is just too poor with the to become genuinely useful.

The 3rd icon on the mode dial is short for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows your camera to capture at the very least 20 photos at a single press on the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. The camera analyses the person pictures within the series and discards 15 of these, keeping just the five which it thinks should be regarding 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 where the camera records a concise high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press in the shutter release, so again includes events which had happened prior to button was fully depressed - as well as takes a still photograph. The movie and also the still image are saved in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them right into a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we simply cannot really envision people by using this shooting mode regularly. (When you see the video using a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, and this mode is really only interesting if you observe 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 digital camera operates on a lesser EN-EL20 battery to its V1 government, which is consequently able to produce even less shots using one charge, managing around 230, even though it helps to generate the camera body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket is made of metal which is found in line while using lens’ optical axis. This actually also means that changing batteries or cards is not possible while the J1 is attached with a tripod, because hinges from the battery/card compartment door are so nearby the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one hand, we liked it a lot. In good light, its auto-focus product is indeed faster than just about anything we’ve used until now, being able to track and lock focus on a range of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates haven’t been extremely high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed whenever we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that the modest guide number might suggest, together with the clever design minimising red-eye.

However, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying anyone interface that can make you dive into your 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 might no less than result in the “F” button customisable with a firmware update. Also, while there is a passionate button for exposure compensation - the positive thing - I didn’t find a way to activate an active histogram, although it would’ve made exposure compensation a lot more useful and straightforward to work with. Again, this could oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specifically in bright light or while using the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 only has a glass dust shield because it’s defense against unwanted debris, instead of the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that this V1 offers, and also the smaller battery signifies that you’ll want to buy an additional one to get through a day’s heavy shooting. Lacking an accessory port implies that almost no Nikon 1 accessories are suitable for the J1, including the external flash and GPS unit.

Something more important we didn’t like was that the camera would always show the picture just taken for a couple of seconds onscreen, therefore we wouldn’t try to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it by using a half-press with the shutter release). Finally, as the camera is usually fast and responsive, you takes overly long to get up from sleep mode gets hotter continues to be idle for a while, leading to many missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 is a small , compact, high-performance system camera they enjoy its government would use a few tweaks to its gui to improve suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended marketplace of casual users will require to it due to the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size along with the fun features it includes. We will now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside image quality department.