Article Directory Yellow PageolArticle Directory - Find, Search, Reprint & Submit Articles for Free

The Nikon 1 J1 is 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 all the way to 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 now offers more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, as well as Metered Manual. Also up to speed is often a built-in pop-up flash that has a guide volume of 5, a 3 inch rear display and an electronic shutter. Priced at $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm contact, $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 certainly caused by constructed from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and it is therefore heavier than what you know already dependant on its size alone, coming in at 234g for your body only. Additionally, it feels higher quality as opposed to official product shots maybe have you believe. By having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that will need someone to hold the camera’s weight from the left-hand, clutching the lens, and rehearse your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is a good thing as it pushes you to pay attention to holding the camera properly, which goes a considerable ways 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 being a scaled-down version on the good old F mount, it is just a brand spanking new design that delivers 100% electronic communication between the attached lens and the camera body, from a dozen contacts. Much like on the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, we have a white dot for straightforward lens alignment, though it has moved through the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the top from the mount. The lenses themselves feature a short silver ridge around the lens barrel, which must be in alignment with said dot to ensure you to definitely have the ability to attach the lens towards the camera. Even though this may require a little acclamating yourself with, it actually makes changing lenses quicker and much easier.

Without any lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting right behind the plane from the bayonet mount. Like the mount itself, the sensor is fresh. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the surface of the biggest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about 50 % of the spot of an standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip includes a 1.36x longer diagonal compared to the Nikon CX imager. Considering the fact that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, and thus a 10mm lens has approximately precisely the same angle of view like a 27.2mm lens with an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus comparable to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens with regards to its angle-of-view range.

The remainder of the Nikon J1’s faceplate is actually empty, featuring exactly the lens release, a receiver with the optional ML-L3 infrared remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone each side on the lens, as well as an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There isn’t any grip at all for the front in the Nikon 1 J1.

There are two means of powering about the Nikon1 J1. You can either use the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, in case you have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can simply press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that triggers the digital camera to modify on automatically. It is really an ingenious solution as you have to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes about a second - nothing to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.

You can frame your shots with all the rear screen - there is absolutely no electronic viewfinder as for the V1 model, a key distinction between the 2 main. The LCD screen is a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that features wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours but only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF when using the J1 alongside the V1, in either bright sunlit conditions or aided by the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding you up to eye-level helped to stabilise the lens avoiding camera shake.

The control layout is reasonably peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 features a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks many of the shooting modes that are usually seen on similar dials - particularly P, A, S and M - eventhough it has enough room to accommodate them. These modes can be obtained within the J1 however, you have to dive into the rather long-winded rather than entirely logical menu to get them. The J1’s mode dial only has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller also has 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 isn’t a bad range of functions, the fact there is absolutely no ISO button will doubtlessly produce a lot of photographers interested in getting the Nikon J1 to become unhappy.

We have a button within the rear labelled “F” but alas, it’s not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it allows you to quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, while in Video mode it enables you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There’s two more valuable controls within the back in the camera, including a scroll wheel around the four-way pad and a rocker switch marked which has a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is needed setting the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (after you have found them in the menu, that may be), as the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason why it’s got a loupe icon beside it really is that control is used to zoom in by using an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. Finally, you will discover four small buttons across the navigation pad, flush contrary to the rear panel in the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

So what are the types shooting modes about the mode dial information on? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked having a green camera icon, is to try and should be usually. With all the mode dial set to this position, it is possible to pick your required exposure mode from the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a smart auto mode when the camera analyses the scene when in front of its lens and picks exactly what thinks is the right mode for that particular scene. You can also select one in the conventional PASM modes, which offer you full menu access and also the capacity to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance may also be manually selected, but only from your menu, as mentioned above.

Of course there’s AWB and auto ISO also, with the latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) enabling you to specify how high you desire your camera to search in the event the light gets low. Also you can choose from three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, where the camera takes control of what it focusses on (it’s not an incredible mode to get as the default because camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and may even concentrate on something else than your actual subject); Single Point, that you can pick one among 135 AF points first by hitting OK and moving the active AF point throughout the frame utilizing the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, the place you pick your subject, press OK and allow the camera in order to that subject since it moves around, providing it does not leave the frame naturally.

The Nikon 1 J1 has an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection likewise because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This gives the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even over a moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras will be the fastest-focusing machines on the globe, which matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t as quickly as the other method. It is you that decides which AF approach to use - anyone does not have any affect this.

In most cases, the J1 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 doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing is also possible, however the Nikon 1 lenses do not possess focus rings. If you would like focus manually, you firstly have to hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and after that make use of the scroll wheel to modify focus. To help you out with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central part of the image and displays a rudimentary focus scale down the right side with the frame - but those would be the only focusing aids you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 posseses an electronic shutter (the V1 boasts a mechanical shutter). It’s totally silent (the target confirmation beep may be disabled on the menu) and allows using shutter speeds as fast as 1/16,000th of any second and, using the Electronic Hi setting selected, enables you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 fps. Note however that although this is the major achievement, it’s restricted by a buffer that can only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the application of this mode precludes AF tracking - you need to lower the frame rate to 10fps if you wish that -, and the viewfinder goes blank as the pictures are increasingly being taken. One application we could think about where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really prove useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. With this rate, a few 5 bracketed shots may be taken in under 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown inside wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 does not offer such a feature - in truth it won’t offer autoexposure bracketing whatsoever.

Getting to film mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Most notably, your camera is usually set to shoot Full HD footage, and you even be able to select 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, according to whether you’d rather assist progressive or interlaced video. Unless you need Full HD, additionally, there is 720p @ 60fps, which can be really smooth but still counts as hi-def. Secondly, you get full manual treating exposure in video mode. It becomes an option; you don’t have to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can if that is what you need. Thirdly, you have fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, specially in good light. Movies are compressed using the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. There are separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and thanks to this - as well as the massive processing power with 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 even if the mode dial is with the Still Image position, simply by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in cases like this your camera will record the video at 720p/60fps.

Not only is it 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 less along with the aspect ratio can be an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, even so the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which can be over 13x slower compared to the capture speed of 400fps, helping you to get creative and show the world numerous interesting phenomena which happen too rapidly to watch in real time. The Nikon J1 goes even further by giving a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is way too poor with the for being genuinely useful.

The next icon about the mode dial stands for Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows you to capture at the very least 20 photos at the single press from the shutter release, including some that were taken before fully depressing the button. The digital camera analyses the individual pictures inside series and discards 15 of these, keeping merely the five it thinks might be best regarding 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 when the camera records a short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts at a half-press from the shutter release, so again includes events that had happened before the button was fully depressed - as well as needs a still photograph. The movie plus the still image are saved in separate files even so the camera can combine them right into a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we simply cannot really envision people by using this shooting mode often. (Should you look at the video over a computer, it will play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is really only interesting should you observe the clip in-camera or hook the camera around an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and sports ths fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera operates on a smaller EN-EL20 battery to its V1 our government, which is consequently capable of producing much less shots about the same charge, managing around 230, though it helps for making you body scaled-down. The camera’s tripod socket is made from metal and it is situated line together with the lens’ optical axis. This implies that changing batteries or cards isn’t likely as the J1 is placed on a tripod, as the hinges on the battery/card compartment door are far too near the tripod mount.

So, how did we like using the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than just about anything we’ve used to date, having the ability to track and lock focus on a range of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a lot of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates never been high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed whenever 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.

Conversely, the Nikon J1 has its own share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying anyone interface that forces you to dive in the menu to get into functions as basic 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, while there is a passionate button for exposure compensation - a good thing - I didn’t try to activate an active histogram, eventhough it could have made exposure compensation far more useful and straightforward make use of. Again, this can more likely fixed in firmware.

We 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 merely has a glass dust shield since it is defense against unwanted debris, instead of the more proactive sensor cleaning unit how the V1 offers, and the smaller battery signifies that you will have to buy a supplementary someone to get to 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, like the external flash and GPS unit.

Yet another thing we wouldn’t like was that the camera would always show the image just taken for some seconds onscreen, and we did not be capable of turn this instant postview function completely off (although you can at any rate cancel it using a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, whilst the camera is often fast and responsive, you takes much too long to wake from sleep mode if this may be idle for a time, producing a number of missed shots.

That being said, the Nikon 1 J1 is usually a smaller than average compact, high-performance system camera that like its government could use a number of tweaks to its graphical user interface to better suit the needs of serious amateurs. The intended market you work in of casual users will enjoy it for its sheer speed, built-in flash, lightweight and the fun features it gives you. We will now see how the Nikon 1 J1 fared within the image quality department.