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The Nikon 1 J1 is usually a stylish compact system camera using a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor and also 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 as well as a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, in addition to Metered Manual. Also up to speed is really a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display as well as an electronic shutter. Coming in at $649.95 / 549.99 which has a 10-30mm the len’s, $699.95 / 599.99 having a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 within a double-lens kit while using 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 generally created from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is also therefore heavier than you would think determined by its size alone, weighing 234g to the body only. Furthermore, it feels better made compared to the official product shots would have you believe. With the essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is very much a two-handed affair that really needs one to support the camera’s weight in the left-hand, clutching the lens, and rehearse your right hand for balance and operating the controls. A great a very important thing the way it forces you to look closely at holding the digital camera properly, which experts claim 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. Rather then to be a scaled-down version from the classic F mount, it’s really a brand spanking new design that gives 100% electronic communication between the attached lens plus the camera body, due to several contacts. Similar to for the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for straightforward lens alignment, even though it has moved from your 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to # 1 in the mount. The lenses themselves feature a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which must be in alignment with said dot for someone to have the ability to attach the lens on the camera. Even if this might need a little becoming accustomed to, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.

Without having lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting directly behind the plane in the bayonet mount. Like the mount itself, the sensor is brand new. 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 just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only about half the vicinity of any standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip carries a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” calculates to about 2.72, and therefore a 10mm lens has approximately a similar angle of view like a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus similar to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens in terms of its angle-of-view range.

The remainder of the Nikon J1’s faceplate is almost empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits for that microphone either side of the lens, along with an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There’s no grip in any respect within the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

There are 2 options for powering around the Nikon J1. You may either make use of the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel the len’s attached, you can simply press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that creates the camera to exchange on automatically. It is deemed an ingenious solution as you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes about an extra - not even attempt to write home about but nonetheless decent and entirely adequate.

You may frame your shots while using rear screen - there isn’t any electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, an important difference between the two. The LCD screen is usually 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 when using the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or with all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera around eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and steer clear of trembling camera.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 carries a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes which can be usually situated on similar dials - especially P, A, S and M - even though it has enough room to match them. These modes can be purchased around the J1 nevertheless, you must dive into your rather long-winded but not 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 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 is not a bad collection of functions, the reality that there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly spark a large amount of photographers interested in purchasing Nikon J1 being unhappy.

You will find there’s button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, this isn’t a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it allows you to quickly pick from the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are two more vital controls for the back with the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad as well as a rocker switch marked having a loupe icon. The scroll wheel can be used to create the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you have found them inside the menu, that is), whilst the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it’s a loupe icon alongside it really is until this control is needed to focus by using an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last but not least, you can find four small buttons throughout the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Precisely what are the type shooting modes for the mode dial information about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked that has a green camera icon, is to should be usually. With all the mode dial set to this position, you can pick your required exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great automatic mode in which the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks exactly what thinks could be the right mode for that specific scene. You can also select one on the conventional PASM modes, which provide you with full menu access along with the chance 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, only through the menu, as mentioned previously.

Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO too, with all the latter being released in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) helping you to specify how high you want the camera to look if your light gets low. You can even select from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, in which the camera takes control over exactly what it focusses on (it is not a terrific mode to possess as your default since the camera obviously can’t read your head and might give attention to something more important than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can pick one among 135 AF points frist by hitting OK after which moving the active AF point throughout the frame while using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, the place you pick your subject, press OK and permit you to track that subject mainly because it moves around, provided that this doesn’t happen leave the frame obviously.

The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection similarly as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This allows the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. This company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras will be the fastest-focusing machines in the world, this also matches our experience - provided that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t you’d like the opposite method. It really is your camera that decides which AF solution to use - the person doesn’t have affect on this.

Normally, the J1 will most likely only turn to 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 doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing can be possible, even though the Nikon 1 lenses do not have focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you initially ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK then utilize the scroll wheel to adjust focus. To be of assistance with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale on the right side in the frame - but those will be the only focusing aids you get. There’s no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has an electronic shutter (the V1 also offers an analog shutter). It’s completely silent (the main focus confirmation beep can be disabled from the menu) and allows the use of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of the second and, while using Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while that is a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that can only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you need that -, and also the viewfinder goes blank as you move the pictures are increasingly being taken. About the only application you can think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. As of this rate, a number of 5 bracketed shots may very well be taken in below 0.1 second, rendering small movements that will otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 won’t offer such a feature - actually it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing by any means.

Getting to the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. To start with, you may be set to shoot Full HD footage, and also you even arrive at choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, according to whether you would like to help progressive or interlaced video. If you don’t need Full HD, there’s also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth yet still counts as hi-d. Secondly, you have full manual control of exposure in video mode. It is an option; you don’t have to shoot in M mode but you can in the event that’s what exactly you need. Thirdly, you will get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, particularly in good light. Movies are compressed with all the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You can find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - plus the massive processing power in the Nikon J1 - you are able to take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works vice versa too - you can capture a film clip even though the mode dial influences Still Image position, by simply pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in cases like this the camera will record the recording at 720p/60fps.

Not only is it efficient at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is lower and the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, but the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo etc. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which can be over 13x slower than the capture speed of 400fps, permitting you to get creative and display to the world a multitude of interesting phenomena that happen too rapidly to observe instantly. The Nikon J1 goes a little more forward by a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is just too big poor for the to be genuinely useful.

The 3rd icon on the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows your camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos with a single press on the shutter release, including some which are taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the person pictures from the series and discards 15 of these, keeping only the five it thinks should be in terms of sharpness and composition. This feature may 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 for a half-press with the shutter release, so again includes events that have happened before the button was fully depressed - and in addition needs a still photograph. The film and also the still image are stored in separate files however the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with music. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people by using this shooting mode all the time. (If you comprehend the video with a computer, it’ll play back at normal speed, without sound, this mode is very only interesting if you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook you approximately an HDTV through 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 is run on a lesser EN-EL20 battery to the V1 our government, and is particularly consequently able to produce considerably less shots for a passing fancy charge, managing around 230, eventhough it does help for making you body small. The camera’s tripod socket is made from metal and it is positioned in line with the lens’ optical axis. And also this shows that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely while the J1 is attached with a tripod, as being the hinges with the battery/card compartment door are way too towards the tripod mount.

So, how did we like utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one hand, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than basically anything we’ve used so far, to be able to track and lock focus on a variety of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates never been very good. 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 that its modest guide number might suggest, with all the clever design minimising red-eye.

In contrast, the Nikon J1 has its share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying an individual interface that pushes you to dive to the menu gain access to functions as basic as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to a finished product, they might at the least have the “F” button customisable by using a firmware update. Also, to find out an avid button for exposure compensation - a great thing - Some try to activate an active histogram, community . would have made exposure compensation additional useful as well as simple to work with. Again, this could probably be fixed in firmware.

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

Something else we failed to like could be that the camera would always show the picture just taken for a few seconds onscreen, therefore we failed to be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at any rate cancel it with a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is often fast and responsive, the digital camera takes much too long to get up from sleep mode if it is idle for some time, producing many missed shots.

Of course, the Nikon 1 J1 is really a smaller than average compact, high-performance system camera that they like its your government could use some tweaks to the user interface to improve suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended audience of casual users should it due to its sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight along with the fun features there is. Let’s now observe the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.