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The Nikon 1 J1 can be a stylish compact system camera with a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor and also the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds as high as 60 frames per second 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 even offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, in addition to Metered Manual. Also on board is really a built-in pop-up flash with a guide number of 5, a 3 inch rear display and an electronic shutter. Priced at $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 in the double-lens kit together 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 certainly caused by constructed from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is therefore heavier than what you know already based on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for that body only. Furthermore, it feels better made than the official product shots would have you believe. By having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is extremely much a two-handed affair that requires you to definitely retain the camera’s weight inside the left-hand, clutching the lens, and use your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is a very important thing as it can make you take note of holding you properly, which experts claim goes further towards avoiding shake-induced blur inside your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather then as a scaled-down version from the good old F mount, it’s actually a new design that provides 100% electronic communication between your attached lens as well as the camera body, courtesy of twelve contacts. Just like around the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for easy lens alignment, while it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top level of the mount. The lenses themselves come with a short silver ridge for the lens barrel, which has to be in alignment with said dot to enable one to have the ability to attach the lens to your camera. While this may need a little bit of acclamating yourself with, this process makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.

With no lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting directly behind the plane in the bayonet mount. Just like the mount itself, the sensor is completely new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has quantity area of the biggest imagers found in compact and bridge cameras like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most of the vicinity of your standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Since Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, and therefore a 10mm lens has approximately precisely 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 when it comes to its angle-of-view range.

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

There are 2 ways of powering around the Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1. You may either utilize on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel standard zoom lens attached, you can easily press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that triggers the camera to change on automatically. It is really an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes approximately a 2nd - not write home about but still decent and entirely adequate.

You may frame your shots utilizing the rear screen - there’s no electronic viewfinder as around the V1 model, a vital difference between the 2 main. The LCD screen can be a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that boasts 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 all the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera around eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and prevent camera shake.

The control layout is quite peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 carries a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes which might be usually seen on similar dials - such as P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to allow for them. These modes are available around the J1 however you ought to dive into the rather long-winded but not entirely logical menu to get 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 is not a bad number of functions, the reality that there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly create a wide range of photographers serious about buying the Nikon J1 to become unhappy.

There is a button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, it is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it means that you can quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it enables you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are 2 more vital controls about the back in the camera, together with a scroll wheel across the four-way pad along with a rocker switch marked using a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you have found them inside the menu, that may be), whilst the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it’s got a loupe icon alongside it is until this control can be used to focus while on an image to check for critical focus in Playback mode. Lastly, you can find four small buttons about the navigation pad, flush contrary to the rear panel of the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

What exactly are those shooting modes within the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked with a green camera icon, is to try and should be quite often. Using the mode dial set to this particular position, you’ll be able to pick your desired exposure mode on the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a brilliant automatic mode the location where the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks exactly what thinks would be the right mode for that one scene. Also you can make a choice on the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access and also the power to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift comes in P mode). ISO and white balance may also be manually selected, but only in the menu, as mentioned above.

Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO also, with the latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) helping you to specify how high you want your camera to visit once the light gets low. Also you can choose between three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, in which the camera takes power over just what it focusses on (this isn’t a great mode to obtain because your default because camera obviously can’t read the mind and may even concentrate on another thing than your actual subject); Single Point, the place you can decide considered one of 135 AF points by first hitting OK after which moving the active AF point throughout the frame utilizing the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in places you pick your subject, press OK and let the camera to follow that subject mainly because it moves around, providing this doesn’t happen leave the frame needless to say.

The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection likewise because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This allows the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The corporation claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are the fastest-focusing machines in the world, and this matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, you switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t you’d like the other method. It is the camera that decides which AF approach to use - the user doesn’t have a affect on this.

Usually, the J1 will usually only make use of contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had been capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly will not disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. If you need to focus manually, you first should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which utilize scroll wheel to regulate focus. To assist you with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central portion of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale down the right side in the frame - but those are definitely the only focusing helps you get. There’s no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with an electronic shutter (the V1 also offers a mechanical shutter). It’s absolutely silent (the main objective confirmation beep can be disabled from the menu) and allows the use of shutter speeds as quickly as 1/16,000th of the second and, with all the Electronic Hi setting selected, permits you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that although it is a major achievement, it’s restricted by a buffer that can only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the utilization of this mode precludes AF tracking - you need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you want that -, as well as the viewfinder goes blank as you move the pictures will be taken. About the only application we can easily think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy 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 the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 won’t offer a real feature - in reality it does not offer autoexposure bracketing in any way.

Trying out the playback quality mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First of all, the camera might be set to shoot Full HD footage, and also you even be able to choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you’d like to work with progressive or interlaced video. Unless you need Full HD, there is also 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth and still counts as high definition. Secondly, you will get full manual treating exposure in video mode. This is an option; it’s not necessary to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can if that is things you need. Thirdly, you obtain fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, especially in good light. Movies are compressed while using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. There are separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and thanks to this - and also the massive processing power from the Nikon J1 - you’ll be able to take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works vice versa too - you’ll be able to capture a film clip even if the mode dial is incorporated in the Still Image position, by simply pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in such cases the digital camera will usually record film at 720p/60fps.

And also 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 and the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, though the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which is greater than 13x slower as opposed to capture speed of 400fps, allowing you to get creative and display to the world several interesting phenomena that happen straight away to observe instantly. The Nikon J1 goes a step forward by a 1200fps video mode, however the resolution and overall quality is too poor for your to be genuinely useful.

Another icon for the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos at a single press from the shutter release, including some which are taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the consumer pictures from the series and discards 15 of which, keeping only the five who’s thinks would be better when it comes to sharpness and composition. This feature might be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, you will find there’s so-called Motion Snapshot mode in which the camera records a brief high-definition movie - whose buffering starts at the half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events which had happened before the button was fully depressed - and also requires a still photograph. The movie and also the still image are stored in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them right into a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people making use of this shooting mode frequently. (If you see the video with a computer, it will play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is actually only interesting if you see the clip in-camera or hook the camera approximately an HDTV with 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 runs using a lesser EN-EL20 battery to its V1 government, and is consequently capable of producing much less shots about the same charge, managing around 230, even though it helps to produce your camera body smaller. The camera’s tripod socket is made of metal and is positioned in line using the lens’ optical axis. This actually also means that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely while the J1 is attached with a tripod, because hinges in the battery/card compartment door are far too close to the tripod mount.

So, how did we like while using Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it a whole lot. In good light, its auto-focus product is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used up to now, to be able to track and lock target 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 when we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that it is modest guide number might suggest, together with the clever design minimising red-eye.

On the other hand, the Nikon J1 does have it’s share of frustrating idiosyncrasies starting with the person interface that can make you dive into your menu to gain access to functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons with a finished product, they may a minimum of make “F” button customisable by using a firmware update. Also, to find out a devoted button for exposure compensation - the positive thing - I didnrrrt try to activate an active histogram, eventhough it would have made exposure compensation additional useful and simple to work with. Again, this will more likely fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or with the telephoto lens which doesn’t 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 how the V1 offers, plus the smaller battery ensures that you’ll need to buy an added that you get through a day’s heavy shooting. Lacking an accessory port signifies that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are compatible with the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

One more thing we would not like was that the camera would always show the image just taken for a couple of seconds onscreen, so we didn’t try to turn this instant postview function completely off (even though you can at any rate cancel it via a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, whilst the camera is often fast and responsive, the camera takes way too long to arise from sleep mode if it may be idle for quite a while, leading to many missed shots.

All things considered, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small and compact, high-performance system camera they enjoy its our government would use several tweaks to the graphical user interface to better suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended target market of casual users will cherish it due to its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size along with the fun features it provides. Let’s now see how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.