Article Directory Fuma usaThis free article directory site has the potential to be hugh someday so take this opportunity to participate by submitting articles now.

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

The Nikon 1 J1 is mainly crafted from aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is therefore heavier than what you know already based on its size alone, weighing in at 234g to the body only. In addition, it feels better made compared to the official product shots would have you believe. By having an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is extremely much a two-handed affair that will need that you hold the camera’s weight from the left hand, clutching the lens, and make use of your right hand for balance and operating the controls. This is certainly the good thing since it pushes you to take note of holding the digital camera properly, which goes a considerable ways towards avoiding shake-induced blur as part of your photos.

The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Instead of being a scaled-down version on the good old F mount, it’s actually a fresh design that provides 100% electronic communication between attached lens and also the camera body, from endless weeks of frustration contacts. Just like for the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, you will find there’s white dot for straightforward lens alignment, although it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the peak of the mount. The lenses themselves have a short silver ridge within the lens barrel, which has to be in alignment with said dot for you to manage to attach the lens to the camera. Although this might require a bit of acclamating yourself with, this task makes changing lenses quicker and easier.

Without lens attached, you will notice the sensor sitting right behind the plane with the bayonet mount. Just like the mount itself, the sensor is brand new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has twice the expanse of the biggest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras just like the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, 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. Since Four Thirds includes a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to about 2.72, meaning that a 10mm lens has approximately exactly the same angle of view being a 27.2mm lens with 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.

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

There are 2 options for powering within the Nikon J1. You can either utilize the on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, when you have a collapsible-barrel contact attached, you can simply press the unlocking button within the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that causes the digital camera to exchange on automatically. It becomes an ingenious solution because you require to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over an extra - nothing to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.

You may frame your shots while using rear screen - there is absolutely no electronic viewfinder as for the V1 model, a vital distinction between the 2 main. The LCD screen can be 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 aided by the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or with the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera approximately eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and avoid camera shake.

The control layout is pretty peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 has a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks a lot of the shooting modes that happen to be usually found on similar dials - such as P, A, S and M - even though it has enough room to fit them. These modes are offered about the J1 nevertheless, you need to dive into the rather long-winded and not entirely logical menu to locate them. The J1’s mode dial just 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. Even though this is not a bad range of functions, the belief that there’s no ISO button will doubtlessly create a lots of photographers considering purchasing Nikon J1 to get 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 lets you quickly make a choice from the continuous shooting modes, whilst in Video mode it helps you to toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are two more vital controls for the back with the camera, including a scroll wheel around the four-way pad plus a rocker switch marked using a loupe icon. The scroll wheel is utilized to set the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (once you have found them from the menu, that may be), as you move the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason it’s got a loupe icon close to it’s that this control is needed to zoom in upon an image to test for critical concentrate Playback mode. As a final point, you’ll find four small buttons about the navigation pad, flush from the rear panel with the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.

Just what exactly are those shooting modes for the mode dial exactly about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked using a green camera icon, is to will need to be most of the time. With all the mode dial set to the position, you may pick your required exposure mode through the menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great automatic mode when the camera analyses the scene looking at its lens and picks exactly what thinks may be the right mode for any particular one scene. You may also find out from the conventional PASM modes, which present you with full menu access along with the capacity to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift can be purchased in P mode). ISO and white balance may also be manually selected, only through the menu, as mentioned previously.

Naturally there’s AWB and auto ISO as well, together with the latter being released three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) letting you specify how high you would like you to search once the light gets low. It’s also possible to choose between three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the place that the camera takes power over exactly what it focusses on (it is not an incredible mode to get as the default as being the camera obviously can’t read your head and will concentrate on something different than your actual subject); Single Point, where you can make one of 135 AF points by first hitting OK then moving the active AF point about the frame while using the four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and allow the camera to monitor that subject as it moves around, provided that it won’t leave the frame needless to say.

The Nikon 1 J1 comes with an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that mixes contrast- and phase-difference detection in a similar fashion as being the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This allows the Nikon 1 J1 to concentrate extremely quickly in good light, even over a moving subject. The business claims the Nikon 1 system cameras include the fastest-focusing machines in the world, and this matches our experience - providing there’s enough light. When light levels drop, the digital camera switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than you are on most cameras, isn’t nearly as fast as additional method. It is the digital camera that decides which AF technique to use - an individual doesn’t have any influence on this.

Generally speaking, the J1 will usually only resort to 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 does not disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, although the Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. If you want to focus manually, you first must hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK and then use the scroll wheel to modify focus. To assist you with this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale on the right side on the frame - but those will be the only focusing helps you get. There is absolutely no peaking function available as on some rival models.

The J1 comes with an electronic shutter (the V1 boasts a mechanical shutter). It’s completely silent (the attention confirmation beep is usually disabled from the menu) and allows using shutter speeds you wish 1/16,000th of your second and, with the Electronic Hi setting selected, lets you shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that although that is a major achievement, it’s on a 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 need that -, plus the viewfinder goes blank even though the pictures are increasingly being taken. Single thing that it application we are able to imagine where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really prove useful is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. With this rate, a series of 5 bracketed shots may very well be consumed in less than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that may otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown in the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 isn’t going to offer such a feature - in fact it does not offer autoexposure bracketing in any respect.

Selling it to film mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. Above all, your camera can be set to shoot Full HD footage, so you even arrive at choose between 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, based on whether you want to use progressive or interlaced video. Should you not need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, that is really smooth and still counts as hi-d. Secondly, you obtain full manual treatments for exposure in video mode. This is an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode nevertheless, you can if that’s the thing you need. Thirdly, you will get fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay well, especially in good light. Movies are compressed with all the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will discover 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 way round too - you may capture a film clip even when the mode dial is with the Still Image position, simply by pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve learned that in this case you will invariably record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.

And also competent at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 also can shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is leaner plus the aspect ratio can be an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, however the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are played back at 30fps, which is more than 13x slower versus the capture speed of 400fps, letting you get creative and prove to the world an array of interesting phenomena which happen too soon to watch in real time. The Nikon J1 goes even further by offering a 1200fps video mode, however the resolution and overall quality is too poor with the to become genuinely useful.

The third icon around the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows your camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos with a single press on the shutter release, including some that had been taken before fully depressing the button. Your camera analyses the individual pictures in the series and discards 15 of them, keeping the five who’s thinks should be with regard to sharpness and composition. This feature might be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.

Finally, there is a so-called Motion Snapshot mode in which the camera records a short high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press on the shutter release, so again includes events which in fact had happened prior to a button was fully depressed - and as well uses a still photograph. The film as well as the still image are trapped in separate files however the camera can combine them in to a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we simply cannot really envision people using this shooting mode often. (In case you look at the video with a computer, it is going to play back at normal speed, without sound, which means this mode is really only interesting in the event you comprehend the clip in-camera or hook your camera as much as an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)

The Nikon J1 stores photos and videos on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up fastest UHS-I speed class. Your camera operates on a reduced EN-EL20 battery to its V1 our government, and is consequently able to produce even less shots on one charge, managing around 230, although it helps to make the digital camera body small. The camera’s tripod socket is made from metal and is in line while using lens’ optical axis. This implies that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible as the J1 is placed on a tripod, since the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are too towards the tripod mount.

So, how did we love to using the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it a great deal. In good light, its auto-focus system is indeed faster than just about anything we’ve used to date, having the ability to track and lock give attention to a range of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding a lot of 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 when we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful that it is modest guide number might suggest, with all the clever design minimising red-eye.

Conversely, the Nikon J1 does have it’s share of frustrating idiosyncrasies applying an individual interface that can make you dive in the menu to gain access to functions as common as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons to a finished product, they are able to no less than increase the risk for “F” button customisable using a firmware update. Also, nevertheless there is a separate button for exposure compensation - which is a a valuable thing - Some be capable of activate a live histogram, even though it can have made exposure compensation a lot more useful and easy to work with. Again, this might more likely fixed in firmware.

We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, specifically in bright light or aided by 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 the more proactive sensor cleaning unit that this V1 offers, along with the smaller battery implies that you should buy an extra someone to get to the day’s heavy shooting. The lack of an accessory port shows that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are suitable for the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.

Something else we did not like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken a couple of seconds onscreen, so we did not find a way to turn this instant postview function completely off (even if you can at any rate cancel it using a half-press from the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is usually fast and responsive, you takes far too long to awaken from sleep mode if this may be idle for a while, resulting in a number of missed shots.

With that said, the Nikon 1 J1 is really a smaller than average compact, high-performance system camera they enjoy its big brother are able to use a few tweaks to the graphical user interface to higher suit the needs of serious amateurs. The intended market you work in of casual users will like it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size as well as the fun features it gives you. We will now find out how the Nikon 1 J1 fared in the image quality department.