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The Nikon 1 J1 can be a stylish compact system camera using a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor as well as 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 as well as 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 up to speed can be a built-in pop-up flash having a guide quantity of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Coming in at $649.95 / 549.99 that has a 10-30mm zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 which has a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in the 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 crafted from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than you would think depending on its size alone, weighing in at 234g with the body only. Additionally, it feels better quality versus the official product shots would have you believe. Through an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is incredibly much a two-handed affair that needs one to support the camera’s weight from the left hand, clutching the lens, and rehearse your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is actually an excellent mainly because it pushes you to take note of holding the digital camera properly, which in turn goes a long way towards avoiding shake-induced blur in your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. As an alternative to like a scaled-down version of the good old F mount, it’s a brand spanking new design that can offer 100% electronic communication involving the attached lens plus the camera body, due to 12 contacts. Similar to around the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for simple lens alignment, though it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the peak of the mount. The lenses themselves use a short silver ridge for the lens barrel, which must be in alignment with said dot to ensure you to definitely manage to attach the lens to your camera. Although this might require some acclamating yourself with, it really makes changing lenses quicker and easier.

Without lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting right behind the plane of the bayonet mount. Such as mount itself, the sensor is completely new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the surface of the most popular imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras much like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only about half the spot of the standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Considering the fact that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” calculates to about 2.72, which means that a 10mm lens has approximately exactly the same angle of view as a 27.2mm lens by using 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 regarding its angle-of-view range.

The other Nikon J1’s faceplate is virtually empty, featuring only the lens release, a receiver with the optional ML-L3 infrared remote device, two narrow slits to the microphone each side of the lens, along with an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is absolutely no grip by any means within the front in the Nikon 1 J1.

There’s two options for powering within the Nikon 1 J1. Either utilize on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, for those who have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can easily press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that creates your camera to exchange on automatically. It is deemed an ingenious solution because you require to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over a 2nd - absolutely nothing to write home about but nonetheless decent and entirely adequate.

You’ll be able to frame your shots while using rear screen - there is no electronic viewfinder as within the V1 model, a key difference between the two. The LCD screen is really 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 while using the J1 alongside the V1, in either bright sunlit conditions or when using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding your camera nearly eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding camera shake.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 carries a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks a lot of the shooting modes which can be usually found on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - community . has enough room to support them. These modes are available around the J1 however, you ought to dive in to the rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial merely has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller boasts 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 collection of functions, the belief that there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly cause a great deal of photographers considering purchasing Nikon J1 to get unhappy.

There is a button about the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it means that you can quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it allows you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s 2 more vital controls about the back with the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked which has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is employed setting the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you’ve found them within the menu, that may be), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it provides a loupe icon alongside it truly is until this control is needed to focus with an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last of all, you can find four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush up against the rear panel on the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Precisely what are the ones shooting modes on the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked having a green camera icon, is where you will want to be quite often. While using mode dial set for this position, you are able to pick your desired exposure mode from your menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode in which the camera analyses the scene when in front of its lens and picks what it thinks is the right mode for any particular one scene. It’s also possible to pick one from the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access and the ability 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 from your menu, as stated previously.

Of course there’s AWB and auto ISO too, together with the latter being released in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you desire the digital camera to search if your light gets low. You may also choose between three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the location where the camera takes control over what it focusses on (it is not a great mode to obtain when your default as being the camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and may even focus on something more important than your actual subject); Single Point, the place you can make one of 135 AF points by first hitting OK after which moving the active AF point around the frame using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and permit the digital camera to monitor that subject because it moves around, provided that it doesn’t leave the frame certainly.

The Nikon 1 J1 comes with a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection likewise because Fujifilm F300EXR did. This will give the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even using a moving subject. The company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines on the globe, and also this matches our experience - as 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 you wish one other method. It is usually the camera that decides which AF technique to use - an individual doesn’t have any affect on this.

Generally speaking, the J1 in most cases only head for contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had been able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly isn’t going to disappoint here. Manual focusing can also be possible, even though the Nikon 1 lenses will not have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you first ought to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and utilize the scroll wheel to regulate focus. To help you with this particular, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central section of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along the right side with the frame - but those would be the only focusing aids you get. There is not any peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with a electronic shutter (the V1 has a mechanical shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the attention confirmation beep may be disabled from your menu) and allows using shutter speeds as fast as 1/16,000th of a second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, helps you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that although it is a major achievement, it’s limited by a buffer that may only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, using this mode precludes AF tracking - you have to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you’d like that -, as well as the viewfinder goes blank even though the pictures are being taken. The linksys e2000 application we are able to visualize where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. With this rate, a few 5 bracketed shots may be consumed in below 0.1 second, rendering small movements that can otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown in the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 won’t offer a real feature - in reality it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.

Getting to the recording mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First and foremost, the digital camera may be set to shoot Full HD footage, and you also even get to choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, depending on whether you would like to work with progressive or interlaced video. If you do not need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth but still counts as hd. Secondly, you receive full manual control of exposure in video mode. This is an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode however you can if that is what you require. Thirdly, you will get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, specially in good light. Movies are compressed while using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - in addition to the massive processing power from the Nikon J1 - you are able to take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works the opposite too - you are able to capture a movie clip regardless of whether the mode dial is incorporated in the Still Image position, by simply pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in such cases you will invariably record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.

And also 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 gloomier plus the aspect ratio is surely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, though the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and stuff like that. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which can be greater than 13x slower compared to capture speed of 400fps, allowing you to get creative and display to the world several interesting phenomena that happen too rapidly to see or watch instantly. The Nikon J1 goes even further by offering a 1200fps video mode, even so the resolution and overall quality is just too poor for your to get genuinely useful.

The third icon for the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture at the least 20 photos with a single press of the shutter release, including some that had been taken before fully depressing the button. The digital camera analyses the consumer pictures in the series and discards 15 ones, keeping only the five who’s thinks might be best in terms of sharpness and composition. This feature can be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there exists a so-called Motion Snapshot mode the location where the camera records a shorter high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press in the shutter release, so again includes events which have happened before the button was fully depressed - and as well has a still photograph. The film plus 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 not able to really envision people applying this shooting mode on a regular basis. (Should you view the video over a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is very only interesting in the event you observe the clip in-camera or hook you as much as an HDTV with an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera is run on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to its V1 larger, which is consequently capable of producing much less shots on one charge, managing around 230, while it helps to generate the digital camera body small. The camera’s tripod socket consists of metal and is also in line together with the lens’ optical axis. And also this means that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely even though the J1 is placed on a tripod, because hinges from the battery/card compartment door are extremely towards the tripod mount.

So, how did we like with all the Nikon 1 J1? On one hand, we liked it a good deal. In good light, its auto-focus technique is indeed faster than basically anything we’ve used until now, being able to track and lock consentrate on a selection of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have not 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 the reason is modest guide number might suggest, using the clever design minimising red-eye.

In contrast, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with the person interface that can make you dive in the menu to gain access to functions as easy as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to your finished product, they may at the very least have the “F” button customisable with a firmware update. Also, as there is a separate button for exposure compensation - a positive thing - I did not are able to activate an active histogram, even though it would’ve made exposure compensation a lot more useful and make use of. Again, this will apt to be fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specially in bright light or with all the telephoto lens which does not lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 only has a glass dust shield as it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that the V1 offers, and the smaller battery ensures that you will need to buy an added someone to get to the day’s heavy shooting. The possible lack of an accessory port shows that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are appropriate for the J1, including the external flash and GPS unit.

Something else we wouldn’t like was that the camera would always show the picture just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, therefore we wouldn’t find a way to turn this instant postview function completely off (even if you can at any rate cancel it by way of a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is mostly fast and responsive, the digital camera takes far too long to awaken from sleep mode gets hotter is idle for some time, leading to numerous missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a smaller than average and compact, high-performance system camera that they like its larger can use a number of tweaks to its user interface to improve suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended target market of casual users should it for the sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and also the fun features it offers. Let’s now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.