Nikon 1 V1 Preview
Published on Oct 25, 2011 Filed under: News Tags: 10-30mm, 400fps, iso 3200, motion, nikon 1, slow, v1
(for Romanian click here)
Long time no see,
In case you didn`t know, it`s now possible to buy the Nikon 1 in Romania. It`s on the market and through the guys at F64 I managed to get my hands on a V1 kit (the one with the viewfinder and a 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 to go with it). I had it for the weekend but the weather disapproved. It was dark and cloudy most of the time. All in all I managed to get a feel for the camera and write a somehow objective opinion about it. I say “somehow” because I shoot Nikon cameras every day and I might get sidetracked here and there, but for the better part I tried to take into consideration the sales department`s target audience for the concept.
For those who landed on this page thinking this preview will be full of ISO 100-6400 pictures … you`ll be slightly disappointed. I healed the pixel peeping illness about 2 years ago by shooting one Leica, one lens and 1 type of film for the entire year so this article is about the overall experience I had with the camera.
I split this one in 5 chapters … so if you`re in a hurry, you`ll have time for at least the last one. That one covers the things Nikon could improve on future V2 / V3 etc.
I AM | FAST
I AM | BEAUTIFUL
I AM | EASY TO USE
I AM | GONNA MAKE SOME PEOPLE HAPPY
I AM | ALMOST THERE
I AM | FAST
Given the fact that the market is oversaturated with mirror-less cameras, Nikon kind`a stuck it`s tail where it doesn`t belong. So the camera they put out had to have something that other manufacturers don`t offer at the moment.
And it has:
It`s a damn fast camera compared to the competition. Now, the ones that shoot dSLRs and grab this camera will tell you it`s no big deal, but those how only used compact cameras or bridges (and want something with some more balls) will be impressed by the Nikon 1.
I got the camera around 4PM and by 6PM I was already on the playground (sunset was at 6:24PM) trying to get some pictures of skaters. The sun was already too low to even think of ISO. Didn`t have time to read the manual … and “men don`t read manuals” + “I`m a Nikon shooter, how hard can it be?” so I sat on a bench, went quickly through the menus to disable all the unimportant stuff like “noise reduction” (I`m not a big fan of “stained glass” if you know what I mean) and “lamp AF assist” etc. Put the camera in FULL AF to test if the camera performs as advertised. I felt like a beginner trying to shoot my kids at the sea-side, building sandcastles.
My subjects for the evening were the skaters in contre-jour. They were moving faster than I would have wanted so “F8 and be there” shifted towards “1/500s and fingers crossed”. 3 pictures later I was impressed by the AF speed. The shutter lag was practically inexistent. It`s probably the only camera (at the time this article was wrote) that can emphasize on Bresson`s “The decisive moment”.
All the pictures were taken in “available-darkness” … so if you consider these good enough, imagine what a good light can do to your pictures.
I find this camera the (almost) perfect companion for street-photography. (I say “almost” because I still have to review the Fuji X10 so I leave some wiggle-room) The V1 doesn`t stand out and lets you capture unrepeatable moments. With the 10mm f/2.8 pancake it fits most jeans pockets. (EMO skinny jeans excluded).
I AM | BEAUTIFUL
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the architect in me smiles when a beautiful camera reaches the market. The Nikon 1 design has a little bit of Bauhaus in it. Straight lines, no useless mumbo-jumbo, ergonomic buttons, simplicity and all that in a small form-factor. For me = WIN!
I AM | EASY TO USE
Although many functions that I would have wanted at my fingertips were burrowed in the menus, the camera is not hard to use. It tries to give you the bare necessities so you`ll think more about the frame than “how to set-up the camera”.
This chapter will tell you a few things about the 4 modes of image capture present on the main dial. Two of them seemed interesting at the time of the international launch but turned out to be of lesser interest to me.
1. Motion Snapshot
The camera shoots at 60fps for half a second and outputs a .mov video file.
2. Smart Photo Selector
The Nikon 1 shoots continuous and when you release the shutter, the camera will choose what she things are “good pictures”, and save them on the SD card. Sound good in theory, if you shoot bees on flowers and kids at the seaside, but for the “single frame” shooter, this mode is just a wasted space on the dial.
3. Still Image
The shooting mode we are accustomed to. (The one that lets you pick between P/A/S/M.) The shutter-speed and the Aperture can be modified using buttons on the back of the camera, for the ISO you need to dig the Menu. But I bet 90% of the users will take advantage of AUTO ISO 100-3200. The kit lens is designed without a focus ring, and so the manual focus can be done only form some menus. I found it buggy and unintuitive. I hope the next lenses for Nikon 1 will come with focus rings … it`s a no-brainer.
4. Video
As it says on the main Nikon website, the camera can shoot full HD @ 60 fps interpolated. I liked the video quality but it wasn`t something I haven`t seen before. The audio recording was better than the average camera.
Alongside the regular HD video, the camera can shoot “Slow Motion” at 400fps and 1200fps, but the resolution is downsized to 640×240 @ 400fps and 320×240 @ 1200fps. My phone has 4x more pixels than that so I find the latter useless.
The 400fps slow motion was a head turner. I`ve made kids push each other to get a glimpse of “that last air, or 50-50 or Ollie”; I`ve made girls lough out loud seeing themselves in slow-motion, and I`ve made myself happy by accomplishing all that.
So, from my point of view, no matter how weird the resolution @ 400fps might be, it still something really cool.
And on top of all that, during HD video, you can take full-rez pictures without stopping the recording. You`re not losing the video, and you`re not losing the frames witch will eventually win international prizes.
I AM | GONNA MAKE SOME PEOPLE HAPPY
Taking the present price into consideration, I think Nikon should reconsider the future of Nikon 1. In the same price range one can get the Sony Nex 5n. That camera kind`a trumps the V1 at ISO quality and bokeh (and for the same money, it comes with yet ANOTHER lens). The larger sensor will yield better results.
Nikon 1 will have an adapter for Nikkor lenses, and that will make the system attractive to those that (buy without checking the price-tag) already have a Nikkor lenses based camera bag, and think the D3x is too much of a hassle for a 1 week trip out of the country.
The future customers of J1 or V1, that had a compact camera before of the Nikon, will be thrilled by the new acquisition. The ISO is decent and for Facebook use … even 6400 looks ok.
And, of course, when the ISO becomes a pain, you can strap that small 1 series flash (SB-N5) on the camera. I never thought the burst of light will be that powerful from that “matchbox” but it handles whatever you throw at it. First impulse was to put batteries in it, but there`s no room; it sucks out the power straight from the camera`s battery. The small flash doesn`t have buttons (there isn`t enough room to be honest) and all the settings have to be made from the camera body`s menu. I used the 5N as an optic trigger.
The battery has 1900MAh. That gives enough juice for 2 days of a normal trip. With the VR set on ACTIVE you might get 600-800 frames out of it. I didn`t shoot that much so it`s a “guesstimation”.
And as I said at the beginning of the article, it`s damn fast, and this will make allot of soccer-moms really happy.
I AM | ALMOST THERE
And now for the part everyone is waiting for: what I would have wanted it to do and it does not. (I have been using dSLRs and rangefinders for the past 4 years so I might ask for too much)
- The kit lens has a “lock” mode that retracts the frontal element closer to the body. It is impossible to take pictures this way so if you keep it locked; you have to turn the switch on before even thinking of pressing the shutter.
- Two modes I don`t care for. The spots on the dial would have been better used for A and S modes.
- The kit lens does not have a manual focus override ring. I get that they have the most amazing AF in the whole universe but what about video, what about selective focusing, what about creativity?
- The viewfinder is ok on the V1 but it has a lag `till it turns itself ON. Good thing the focus and shutter release work during that time `cause if you know what you`re trying to accomplish, you just shoot and move on.
- The standard hot-shoe did not fit such a small camera so they invented one of their own. Nothing bad about that but that small stupid flash cap on the body is really easy to be lost.
- The factory firmware doesn`t leave any room for customization. No customizable buttons, no nothing. What you see is what you get. I would have loved an ISO button, and the manual selection of the focus point is just cumbersome.
- The menus are simple but they are packed with all the settings I need to change all the time. I need buttons for Exposure Mode, Metering, White Balance, ISO and AF-area Mode. All of them are in the menu. Seriously? Come on! The first function I deactivated was “face-detection”!
- Sensor size will affect sales because bokeh comes first no matter what. The most common question I get is “how did you blur the background? is it Photoshop?”
There are more things to say (good and bad) but a web-study shows that a 2000 words article is way too big for the average attention span.
So, for more info, I`ll gladly answer your questions via the comment system.
`Till next time,
Shoot every day!
