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The Nikon 1 J1 is really a stylish compact system camera having 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 along with a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 even offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, along with Metered Manual. Also fully briefed is usually a built-in pop-up flash using a guide number of 5, a 3 inch rear display with an electronic shutter. Pricing $649.95 / 549.99 that has a 10-30mm the len’s, $699.95 / 599.99 that has a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 within a double-lens kit together with the 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 mostly made from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than you would think based on its size alone, weighing 234g for the body only. Furthermore, it feels better made versus the official product shots maybe have you believe. Having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is extremely much a two-handed affair that really needs you to definitely contain the camera’s weight inside the left-hand, clutching the lens, and make use of your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is actually a very important thing because it pushes you to take note of holding you properly, which experts claim goes a long way 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. As an alternative to as a scaled-down version on the traditional F mount, it’s a brand spanking new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between your attached lens and also the camera body, due to 12 contacts. Exactly like about the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there’s a white dot for quick lens alignment, though it has moved on the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top level on the mount. The lenses themselves have a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which needs to be in alignment with said dot to ensure that you to be able to attach the lens for the camera. Although this may require a little becoming familiar with, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and simpler.

With no lens attached, you can observe 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 double the amount area of the biggest imagers utilised in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only most of the location of the standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip carries a 1.36x longer diagonal as opposed to Nikon CX imager. Provided that Four Thirds features a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” calculates to about 2.72, which means a 10mm lens has approximately exactly the same angle of view like a 27.2mm lens on an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus equivalent 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 nearly empty, featuring only the lens release, a receiver with the optional ML-L3 infrared remote control, two narrow slits for the microphone each side from the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip by any means about the front of the Nikon 1 J1.

There are 2 ways of powering around the Nikon1 J1. You may utilize the 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 about the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that triggers you to interchange on automatically. It is really 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 nonetheless decent and entirely adequate.

You can frame your shots utilizing the rear screen - there isn’t any electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, an important distinction between both the. The LCD screen is often 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 both bright sunlit conditions or aided by the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the digital camera nearly eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and get away from trembling camera.

The control layout is rather peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 includes a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks almost all of the shooting modes which might be usually entirely on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - even though it has enough room to allow for them. These modes can be obtained about the J1 however, you have to dive in the rather long-winded instead of 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 has four functions mapped onto its Up, Right, Down and Left buttons; including AE/AF-Lock, exposure compensation, flash mode and self-timer, respectively. Even if this isn’t a bad collection of functions, the fact that there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly create a great deal of photographers interested in purchasing the Nikon J1 for being unhappy.

There is a button within the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly choose between the continuous shooting modes, while in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. The two main more valuable controls on the back from the camera, including a scroll wheel about the four-way pad and also a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized setting the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you have found them inside the menu, that’s), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. The key reason why it provides a loupe icon beside it truly is until this control is utilized to focus on an image to evaluate for critical concentrate Playback mode. Last of all, you can find four small buttons around the navigation pad, flush resistant to the rear panel of the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what are shooting modes for the mode dial about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked having a green camera icon, is to try and will need to be most likely. While using mode dial set to the position, you are able to pick your required exposure mode on the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode where the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens and picks what it thinks is the right way of that exact scene. You can even make a choice on the conventional PASM modes, which supply you with full menu access as well as the chance to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift can be found in P mode). ISO and white balance will also be manually selected, but only on the menu, as stated earlier.

Certainly there’s AWB and auto ISO too, while using latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) helping you to specify how high you desire your camera to go in the event the light gets low. You can even select from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the location where the camera takes management of exactly what it focusses on (this is simply not a terrific mode to have as your default since the camera obviously can’t read the mind and may target something else entirely than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can select among 135 AF points first by hitting OK and moving the active AF point throughout the frame with all the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in places you pick your subject, press OK and let your camera to monitor that subject as it moves around, given that it does not leave the frame of course.

The Nikon 1 J1 has a intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion since the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to target 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 planet, this also matches our experience - so 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 the other method. It is your camera that decides which AF method to use - anyone doesn’t have a affect this.

In most cases, the J1 will often only use contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, we had arrived able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, although Nikon 1 lenses don’t have focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you initially should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that make use of the scroll wheel to adjust focus. To help you out on this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central area of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale on the right side with the frame - but those will be the only focusing aids you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 has a electronic shutter (the V1 boasts an analog shutter). It is absolutely silent (the main objective confirmation beep may be disabled in the menu) and allows using shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of the second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, permits you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while that is a major achievement, it’s restricted to a buffer that could only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you will need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you need that -, and the viewfinder goes blank even though the pictures are being taken. The only application we can easily think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really be useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. When it reaches this rate, some 5 bracketed shots may very well be drawn in under 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 isn’t going to offer such a feature - in reality no offer autoexposure bracketing at all.

Trying the playback quality mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First and foremost, the camera is usually set to shoot Full HD footage, and you also even reach choose from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, dependant upon whether you’d rather use progressive or interlaced video. Unless you need Full HD, in addition there are 720p @ 60fps, and that is really smooth and still counts as hi-def. Secondly, you receive full manual treating exposure in video mode. It is really an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode nevertheless, 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, specially 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 - along with the massive processing power in the Nikon J1 - it is possible to take multiple full-resolution stills while recording HD video. This works the other way round too - you can capture your favorite shows clip even when the mode dial is in the Still Image position, simply by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in such cases the digital camera will usually record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.

As well as being effective 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 also the aspect ratio can be an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, nevertheless the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and the like. These videos are replayed at 30fps, that’s a lot more than 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, letting you get creative and show the world an array of interesting phenomena which happen straight away to see or 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 your to be genuinely useful.

The third icon within the mode dial symbolizes Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture at the very least 20 photos in a single press from the shutter release, including some that have been taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the average person pictures from the series and discards 15 ones, keeping the five so it thinks are best regarding sharpness and composition. This feature is usually 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 with a half-press of the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened before the button was fully depressed - plus has a still photograph. The movie as well as the still image are held in separate files but 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 using this shooting mode often. (Should you look at the video on the computer, it can play back at normal speed, without sound, which means you mode is very only interesting in the event you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook your camera around 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 operates on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to its V1 your government, and is particularly consequently able to produce much less shots using one charge, managing around 230, even though it helps to create you body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal and is situated line using the lens’ optical axis. And also this ensures that changing batteries or cards is not possible even though the J1 is attached with a tripod, since the hinges with the battery/card compartment door are way too near to the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to while using the Nikon 1 J1? Similarly, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus technique is indeed faster than virtually anything we’ve used to date, the ability to track and lock give attention to a variety of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding many sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have not been very good. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed after we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful the reason is modest guide number might suggest, together with the clever design minimising red-eye.

Conversely, the Nikon J1 have their own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies beginning from anyone interface that forces you to dive into the menu to reach functions as easy as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons with a finished product, they can no less than increase the risk for “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, while there is a separate button for exposure compensation - which is a a valuable thing - I didnrrrt try to activate a live histogram, eventhough it can have made exposure compensation much more useful and to make use of. Again, this will oftimes be fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specially in bright light or when using the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 only has a glass dust shield because it is defense against unwanted debris, as opposed to the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, and the smaller battery ensures that you will have to buy a supplementary someone to go through the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port shows that almost none of the Nikon 1 accessories are that will work with the J1, for example the external flash and GPS unit.

Yet another thing we wouldn’t like could be that the camera would always show the photo just taken for a couple seconds onscreen, and now we did not try to turn this instant postview function completely off (while you can at least cancel it via a half-press on the shutter release). Finally, as you move the camera is mostly fast and responsive, the digital camera takes far too long to awaken from sleep mode in the event it continues to be idle for a short time, producing several missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 can be a small, and compact, high-performance system camera they enjoy its your government are able to use a number of tweaks to its interface to better suit the requirements of serious amateurs. The intended marketplace of casual users will cherish it due to its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and the fun features it includes. Let’s now see how the Nikon 1 J1 fared from the image quality department.