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The Nikon 1 J1 is a stylish compact system camera featuring a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor along with 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 plus a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, along with Metered Manual. Also fully briefed is often a built-in pop-up flash with a guide amount of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Coming in at $649.95 / 549.99 which has a 10-30mm contact, $699.95 / 599.99 having a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 in the double-lens kit using the 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 mostly made out of aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than what you know already determined by its size alone, weighing in at 234g for the body only. Furthermore, it feels higher quality compared to the official product shots maybe have you believe. With an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 can be quite much a two-handed affair that will need someone to contain the camera’s weight in the left-hand, clutching the lens, and utilize your right hand for balance and operating the controls. A great a very important thing the way it forces you to take note of holding your camera properly, which experts claim goes quite a distance towards avoiding shake-induced blur within your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. As opposed to to be a scaled-down version on the good old F mount, it’s a brand spanking new design that gives 100% electronic communication between attached lens and the camera body, courtesy of several contacts. Much like about the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for easy lens alignment, though it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the peak in the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge for the lens barrel, which should be in alignment with said dot to enable you to be able to attach the lens on the camera. Even though this might require a bit of becoming familiar with, this process makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

Without lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting directly behind the plane of the bayonet mount. Such as mount itself, the sensor is new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the surface of the biggest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras such as Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, only most the area of the standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip incorporates a 1.36x longer diagonal compared to Nikon CX imager. Considering the fact that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to around 2.72, which means that a 10mm lens has approximately a similar angle of view as being a 27.2mm lens on 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 exactly the lens release, a receiver to the optional ML-L3 infrared handy remote control, two narrow slits for that microphone spare on both from the lens, and an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is no grip at all around the front with the Nikon 1 J1.

There are two strategies to powering within the Nikon 1 J1. You may use the on/off button sitting next to the shutter release or, should you have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, just press the unlocking button about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an action that creates the digital camera to exchange on automatically. It becomes an ingenious solution since you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes about a 2nd - nothing to write home about but still decent and entirely adequate.

You can frame your shots while using the rear screen - there is no electronic viewfinder as within the V1 model, a key difference between the 2 main. The LCD screen can be 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 while using the J1 alongside the V1, in either bright sunlit conditions or when using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera up to eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and avoid camera shake.

The control layout is quite peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 has a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks the majority of the shooting modes which are usually available on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - though it has enough room to allow for them. These modes are available around the J1 but you ought to dive in the rather long-winded but not entirely logical menu to find them. The J1’s mode dial has only 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. Of course this is not a bad collection of functions, the reality that there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly result in a wide range of photographers enthusiastic about purchasing Nikon J1 for being unhappy.

There exists a button within the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables 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 2 more essential controls around the back in the camera, together with a scroll wheel around the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked having a loupe icon. The scroll wheel can be used to put the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (after you have found them inside menu, that’s), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. Precisely why it’s a loupe icon beside it really is until this control is utilized to zoom in on an image to check for critical focus in Playback mode. Finally, there are four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel of the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what on earth are those shooting modes for the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is the place you may wish to be quite often. Using the mode dial set to this particular position, it is possible to pick your desired exposure mode on the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart automatic mode the place that the camera analyses the scene facing its lens and picks exactly what it thinks is the right way of that exact scene. It’s also possible to find out in the conventional PASM modes, which give you full menu access plus the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift can be found in P mode). ISO and white balance may also be manually selected, but only from your menu, as already mentioned.

Needless to say there’s AWB and auto ISO likewise, together with the latter arriving three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) letting you specify how high you need your camera to travel if the light gets low. You may also pick from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, in which the camera takes charge of what it really focusses on (it’s not a fantastic mode to get since your default as the camera obviously can’t read your brain and might consentrate on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, the place you can come up one among 135 AF points starting with hitting OK and moving the active AF point round the frame while using four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, where you pick your subject, press OK and invite the digital camera in order to that subject since it moves around, provided that this doesn’t happen leave the frame obviously.

The Nikon 1 J1 has a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion as the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This enables the Nikon 1 J1 to focus extremely quickly in good light, even on the moving subject. The company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines in the world, this also matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the digital camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster compared to most cameras, isn’t nearly as fast as the other method. It is the camera that decides which AF strategy to use - the person has no affect on this.

Usually, the J1 will usually only head for contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, there we were able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly won’t disappoint here. Manual focusing is also possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses will not have focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you firstly should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK after which utilize scroll wheel to adjust focus. To help you with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central portion of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale over 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 even offers an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the main focus confirmation beep could be disabled through the menu) and allows the use of shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of your second and, with all the Electronic Hi setting selected, lets you shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that while that is a major achievement, it’s on a a buffer that could only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, using this mode precludes AF tracking - you must lower the frame rate to 10fps if you’d like that -, and also the viewfinder goes blank while the pictures are being taken. The only application we can think of where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really prove useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. When it reaches this rate, several 5 bracketed shots might 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 will not offer a real feature - the truth is it does not offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.

Selling it to film mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First of all, your camera may be set to shoot Full HD footage, so you even get to choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, according to whether you’d like to help progressive or interlaced video. If you do not need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, which is really smooth but still counts as high definition. Secondly, you will get full manual control of exposure in video mode. It becomes an option; you don’t need to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can in the event that’s what you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and it works well, particularly good light. Movies are compressed utilizing the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You’ll find separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and because of this - along with the massive processing power on the Nikon J1 - you can take multiple full-resolution stills even while recording HD video. This works the opposite too - you can capture a show clip regardless of whether the mode dial is with the Still Image position, merely by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found out that in cases like this the digital camera will record the video at 720p/60fps.

And also being effective at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 may shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is gloomier and the aspect ratio is undoubtedly an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo etc. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that’s in excess of 13x slower than the capture speed of 400fps, permitting you to get creative and prove to the world several interesting phenomena that happen straight away to see instantly. The Nikon J1 goes a step forward through providing a 1200fps video mode, nevertheless the resolution and overall quality is just too big poor for your to become genuinely useful.

Your third icon about the mode dial represents Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows the camera to capture no less than 20 photos at a single press from the shutter release, including some which were taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the consumer pictures inside the series and discards 15 ones, keeping the five that it thinks might be best with regards to sharpness and composition. This feature could be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there’s a so-called Motion Snapshot mode in which the camera records a shorter high-definition movie - whose buffering starts with a half-press with the shutter release, so again includes events which in fact had happened before the button was fully depressed - and in addition takes a still photograph. The film along with the still image are stored in separate files nevertheless the camera can combine them in a single slow-motion clip with background music. It’s fun but we’re not able to really envision people by using this shooting mode frequently. (In case you view the video over a computer, it’ll play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is really only interesting in case you observe the clip in-camera or hook the camera up to an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera operates on a compact EN-EL20 battery to the V1 our government, and is consequently capable of producing even less shots on one charge, managing around 230, even though it does help to create you body small. The camera’s tripod socket is made of metal and is particularly situated line while using lens’ optical axis. This also shows that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely whilst the J1 is mounted on a tripod, as the hinges with the battery/card compartment door are way too nearby the tripod mount.

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

Conversely, the Nikon J1 does have it’s share of frustrating idiosyncrasies starting with the consumer interface that pushes you to 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 no less than have the “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, to find out a separate button for exposure compensation - which is a good thing - I didn’t find a way to activate an active histogram, although it could have made exposure compensation considerably more useful and easy to work with. Again, this might oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly in bright light or with the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 only has a glass dust shield since it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit that the V1 offers, plus the smaller battery shows that you’ll need to buy another one to arrive at the day’s heavy shooting. Having less an accessory port ensures that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.

Something else we wouldn’t like was that the camera would always show the picture just taken for a few seconds onscreen, so we wouldn’t find a way to turn this instant postview function completely off (even if you can at least cancel it via a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, as you move the camera is usually fast and responsive, you takes much too long to wake up from sleep mode when it continues to be idle for a time, resulting in several missed shots.

In fact, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small and compact, high-performance system camera that they like its larger would use a number of tweaks to the user interface to raised suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended audience of casual users will like it for its sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight plus the fun features it gives you. We will now discover how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.