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Sunday, 7 April 2013

The Nikon 1 system - Some humble pie I think - Part 3


An afternoon walking around with the Nikon 1 V1 and 10-30mm and 30-110mm lenses produced an excellent series of images and to be honest I couldn't stop shooting with the combination. This is such a good feeling camera to use with the grip attached and though its small it sits very well in my hand. AF is reasonably quick, and I am a great fan of electronic shutters and this one is positive and has no delay. I enjoyed myself using it and was shooting pictures with a smile on my face. I also took the opportunity to work with the massive depth of field that the small sensor allows.




As you can see from the picture above this extensive DOF even extends to the telephoto zoom. 



The camera also produces images with warm saturated colour which I like. The default colour is quite neutral and cool but I've wound that up a bit to suit what I do. 

Now I'm keen not to imply that the V1 is somehow a 'better' camera than other mirrorless I've used, but it seems to suit me more. There is more I like with it than any other small camera I've used. This of course is very much down to my quirky tastes and I will admit it took a while to get it set up how I wanted it. But when I did I had a great time with it. 

Now I believe that when it comes to sheer useability and photographer friendly design, then Nikon take some beating. True there are viewfinderless little rectangular boxes in this range, the J1 J2 J3 and S1, that are similar to cameras like the EOS-M and the current Panasonic GF series, but given the choice I'll use a camera with a built-in viewfinder any day and this one works very well.

The camera files, when processed from raw and viewed on my screen, confirmed what I thought when I took some test shots. At low ISO's the results are very similar to larger sensor cameras, with excellent sharpness and dynamic range. Small sensor cameras often produce quite nasty looking images with a very digital thin 'processed' look but the V1 produces very pleasing results with depth and a richness that I wouldn't have expected. I like the pictures from this camera much more than what I got with a Sony RX100 for example, which I thought struggled with burnt-out highlights, luminance noise and a somewhat 'flat' look. I'm sure the pixel count of the V1 which is half what the Sony has helps with this. 

All in all very impressive and a very enjoyable experience. So much so that I wanted to go on shooting with the camera even though I'd took out the Nikon D7100 that arrived yesterday morning as well. I had to force myself to try out that camera rather than keep going with the V1, which shows just how much I liked using it.



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