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The Nikon 1 J1 is really a stylish compact system camera featuring a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor as well as the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds as much as 60 frames per second at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector and a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, together with Metered Manual. Also up to speed is a built-in pop-up flash which has a guide variety of 5, a 3 inch rear display as well as an electronic shutter. Charging $649.95 / 549.99 with a 10-30mm zoom lens, $699.95 / 599.99 which has a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in a double-lens kit while using 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to go on sale later this month.

The Nikon 1 J1 is usually created from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than what you know already dependant on its size alone, weighing 234g with the body only. It also feels better made versus the official product shots maybe have you believe. With an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that will need 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. This is actually the best thing since it pushes you to be aware of holding you properly, which goes quite a distance towards avoiding shake-induced blur in your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is dominated by the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Instead of as a scaled-down version from the classic F mount, it is a completely new design that provides 100% electronic communication between your attached lens plus the camera body, from several contacts. Just like on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there exists a white dot for quick lens alignment, even though it has moved from the 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 ought to be in alignment with said dot for one to have the capacity to attach the lens to your camera. Even if this may require a little bit of getting used to, this process makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.

Without any lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting right behind the plane with the bayonet mount. Such as mount itself, the sensor is fresh. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the amount surface area of the biggest imagers utilized in compact and bridge cameras such as the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most the region of your standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates 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” calculates to about 2.72, and therefore a 10mm lens has approximately exactly 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 in terms of its angle-of-view range.

The other Nikon J1’s faceplate is actually empty, featuring merely the lens release, a receiver for your optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits for your microphone spare on both with the lens, with an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is absolutely no grip in any respect on the front on the Nikon 1 J1.

The two main strategies to powering within the Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1. You can either makes use of the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can simply press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that triggers your camera to interchange on automatically. This is an ingenious solution that you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes about an extra - nothing to write home about but still decent and entirely adequate.

You’ll be able to frame your shots using the rear screen - there is not any electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, an essential distinction between both. The LCD screen is usually 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 the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or when using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding you approximately eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and steer clear of trembling camera.

The control layout is quite peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 incorporates a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes that happen to be usually available on similar dials - such as P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to allow for them. These modes can be purchased within the J1 however you ought to dive to the rather long-winded and not entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial just 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. Of course this is not a bad selection of functions, the fact that there’s no ISO button will doubtlessly produce a large amount of photographers interested in purchasing the Nikon J1 to be unhappy.

You will find there’s button within the rear labelled “F” but alas, it’s not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly pick from the continuous shooting modes, during Video mode it lets you toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. The two main more significant controls about the back with the camera, together with a scroll wheel round the four-way pad and also a rocker switch marked using a loupe icon. The scroll wheel can be used to line the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you have found them within the menu, that’s), while the rocker switch controls the aperture. Exactly why it’s got a loupe icon next to it’s that control is utilized to focus while on an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Lastly, you’ll find four small buttons throughout the navigation pad, flush against the rear panel with the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what are shooting modes around the mode dial exactly about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked which has a green camera icon, is to try and may wish to be most of the time. While using mode dial set for this position, you are able to pick your required exposure mode in the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great automatic mode the place that the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks just what it thinks may be the right mode for that exact scene. You may also make a choice on the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access and the power to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, but only in the menu, as stated earlier.

Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO as well, while using latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) allowing you to specify how high you would like your camera to travel once the light gets low. You can even choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, in which the camera takes power over what it focusses on (it is not a fantastic mode to get as your default since the camera obviously can’t read your mind and could focus on another thing than your actual subject); Single Point, in places you can come up considered one of 135 AF points beginning with hitting OK and moving the active AF point around the frame while using four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and permit the digital camera to trace that subject because it moves around, providing it doesn’t leave the frame obviously.

The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar way since the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even using a moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, and also this matches our experience - given that there’s enough light. When light levels drop, you switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than you are on most cameras, isn’t nearly as fast as the opposite method. It certainly is your camera that decides which AF approach to use - anyone does not have any influence on this.

Most of the time, the J1 will usually only make use of contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, there we were capable of taking sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly will not disappoint here. Manual focusing is also possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses will not have focus rings. If you wish to focus manually, you first must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and use the scroll wheel to adjust focus. To help you out using this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central portion of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale along the right side on the frame - but those will be the only focusing aids you get. There is absolutely no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has an electronic shutter (the V1 has an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the main focus confirmation beep could be disabled on the menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of a second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, allows you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that although that is a major achievement, it’s tied to a buffer that will only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, using this mode precludes AF tracking - you should lower the frame rate to 10fps if you wish that -, and the viewfinder goes blank whilst the pictures are now being taken. About the only application we can think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. With this rate, some 5 bracketed shots could be consumed less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown in the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 isn’t going to offer this sort of feature - in reality this doesn’t offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.

Trying film mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, you can be set to shoot Full HD footage, so you even are able to select 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you’d like to help progressive or interlaced video. Unless you need Full HD, in addition there are 720p @ 60fps, that’s really smooth nevertheless counts as high-definition. Secondly, you obtain full manual treating exposure in video mode. It is really an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode and you can in the event that’s what exactly you need. Thirdly, you get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and it works well, especially in good light. Movies are compressed with all the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and due to this - plus the massive processing power of the Nikon J1 - you can take multiple full-resolution stills whilst recording HD video. This works the other way round too - it is possible to capture your favorite shows clip regardless of whether the mode dial influences Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in this instance your camera will record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.

Not only is it effective at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 also can shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is gloomier as well as the aspect ratio is surely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, though the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so on. These videos are replayed at 30fps, and that is more than 13x slower as opposed to capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and display to the world several interesting phenomena that happen too soon to watch instantly. The Nikon J1 goes even further by offering a 1200fps video mode, though the resolution and overall quality is just too poor for the being genuinely useful.

Your third icon for the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the digital camera to capture at least 20 photos at the single press in the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the person pictures in the series and discards 15 of those, keeping the five which it thinks might be best 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 the place that the camera records a shorter high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press in the shutter release, so again includes events that have happened prior to a button was fully depressed - plus needs a still photograph. The film and the still image are stored in separate files even so the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we not able to really envision people applying this shooting mode all the time. (In case you look at the video over a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is really only interesting when you view the clip in-camera or hook your camera as much as an HDTV via an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and supports the fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera runs using a smaller EN-EL20 battery to the V1 our government, which is consequently capable of producing considerably less shots about the same charge, managing around 230, although it helps to generate the digital camera body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket consists of metal and is situated in line while using lens’ optical axis. And also this shows that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely as the J1 is attached to a tripod, as the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are way too near to the tripod mount.

So, how did we like utilizing the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used until now, having the capacity to track and lock consentrate on a variety of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a great deal of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates haven’t 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 the modest guide number might suggest, using the clever design minimising red-eye.

In contrast, the Nikon J1 does have it’s share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning with the person interface that forces you to dive to the menu to get into functions as easy as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to some finished product, they are able to at the very least result in the “F” button customisable using a firmware update. Also, nevertheless there is a dedicated button for exposure compensation - which is a positive thing - I didnrrrt find a way to activate a live histogram, even though it could have made exposure compensation additional useful and easy to utilize. Again, this may oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specially in bright light or while 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 because it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that the V1 offers, and the smaller battery implies that you will need to buy an added that you arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port means that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are appropriate for the J1, including the external flash and GPS unit.

Yet another thing we did not like could be that the camera would always show the photo just taken for some seconds onscreen, and that we did not find a way to turn this instant postview function completely off (even if you can at any rate cancel it with a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, whilst the camera is usually fast and responsive, the camera takes way too long to wake up from sleep mode if it has become idle for a time, resulting in quite a few missed shots.

In fact, the Nikon 1 J1 is often a small, and compact, high-performance system camera that like its your government would use a couple of tweaks to its program to raised suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended audience of casual users will require to it for the sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight along with the fun features it includes. Let us now see how the Nikon 1 J1 fared inside image quality department.