Nikon J1

Review Summary: Enthusiasts expecting every bell and whistle may want to look elsewhere, but for those who can manage the occasional sacrifice for a camera and lenses that won’t weigh you down, the Nikon J1 is worthy of serious consideration.

Pros: Very small body, with solid feel; Fast AF; No-nonsense interface. Excellent video capture, Good picture quality.

Cons: Body could be smaller for sensor size; High ISO isn’t as good as other compact system cameras; Battery life below average; Weak flash; Confusing controls.

Nikon officially stepped into the ring to offer up its first compact system cameras, leaving long-time rival Canon as the only major, current maker of interchangeable-lens cameras not to offer a mirrorless model. The simultaneously-announced Nikon J1 and V1 system cameras–which comprise the initial entries in what the company is calling the Nikon 1 System–together debut a brand-new lens mount, a new sensor and hybrid autofocus system, and another generation of the company’s EXPEED image processing engine.

With its entry into the compact system camera market, Nikon has assumed the middle-ground between its rivals in the mirrorless space. The Nikon 1 System cameras aren’t quite as small as the tiny Pentax Q, but compared to that camera they offer a significant step upwards in sensor size and shooting performance. Nikon’s other main system camera competitors fall into two camps, with Olympus and Panasonic together offering a variety of Micro Four Thirds cameras, while Samsung and Sony each have mirrorless models based on the same APS-C sensor size that dominates the digital SLR market. Compared to these cameras, Nikon’s new offerings have a rather more modest sensor size, but they’re also just a little smaller.

Of course, as well as providing a possible benefit to the customer in terms of camera and lens size and weight, the choice of a smaller sensor than many of its rivals likely gives Nikon an edge in terms of cost, and also helps the company avoid cannibalizing lucrative sales of its SLR cameras.

Of the two Nikon 1 System cameras, the Nikon J1 is the more compact and affordable model, forgoing features such as an electronic viewfinder, mechanical shutter, stereo microphone jack, or accessory port, and featuring a lower-resolution LCD panel. In a tip of the hat to a consumer audience, the J1 includes one feature absent from its enthusiast sibling, however: a built-in popup flash strobe. It’s this camera which we’ll be discussing in this review; information on its higher-end sibling can be found in our Nikon V1 preview.

Look and feel. Quite minimalist in its design, the Nikon J1 looks very much like a point and shoot pocket camera with a larger lens mounted. Its thickness appears to be less than it is, thanks to the black plastic used on the back of the body. On the sample I have the white portion makes the camera seem very slim indeed. This is employed by many camera makers of late, using tapers or body colors to change the apparent size of a camera. I think it’s well executed in the Nikon J1.

Stereo microphones grace the left and right of the lens mount, and an AF-assist lamp and infrared remote port appear above and below the lens release button.

Another button that could be called a lens release button pops out from the side of the 10-30mm kit lens. You have to press this button and turn the barrel to the right to release the lens’s pop-out mechanism before you can take a picture. This also powers on the camera (retracting it does not power the camera off, however). It works differently from Samsung and Olympus’ retractable lenses: both of these lock in the usable position, but easily activate with a quick turn from their retracted position. The Nikon 10-30 locks closed and open, requiring a press for both actions.

From the top you can see the focal plane indicator, the rectangle that outlines the pop-up flash, the hole for a speaker, an LED status lamp, the rectangular power button, and the Shutter release and Record buttons. The design team also chose wide metal strap lugs, rather than D-rings, much to my satisfaction.

On the back there’s a big 3-inch LCD with 460K-dots. It’s nice enough that it seems like more. Above that is the flash pop-up slider, which releases the inverted-L shaped flash pop up rather comically. Right of that is the Feature button, marked with an F. It’s not a programmable function button, unfortunately, but allows you to change just a few select features depending on the mode. Right of that is the Zoom toggle, which also serves to adjust shutter speed in Manual and Shutter priority modes, then shifts to controlling aperture in Aperture priority mode.

The Mode dial includes only four modes, including Movie, Still image, Smart Photo Selector, and Motion Snapshot. Display, Playback, Menu and Delete buttons surround the Multi-selector, which includes a rotating dial as well as four-way navigation buttons.

A textured thumbgrip rises toward the Mode dial, reducing the likelihood of accidental activation. HDMI and USB ports are found behind a tab-hinged plastic door on the right of the Nikon J1.

Optics. Nikon’s new 1 System cameras debut a new mount dubbed the 1-mount, designed to accommodate a CX-format image sensor and the reduced backfocus distance of a mirrorless design. As noted, the Nikon J1 ships in three kits, all of which include a 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 stabilized zoom lens. This lens will yield 35mm-equivalent focal lengths ranging from 27 to 81mm.

Three other 1-mount lenses were announced alongside the Nikon J1: two stabilized zooms, and a pancake prime, all of which are already available. Starting with the prime, the NIKKOR 10mm f/2.8 pancake lens–which is available in a twin-lens kit along with the 10-30mm lens–offers a 27mm equivalent focal length, at a price of approximately US$250. For the zooms, the NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 lens–also available alongside the 10-30mm lens as a twin-lens kit–provides focal lengths from 81-297mm equivalents, and carries a pricetag of approximately US$250. (Both twin-lens kits are priced at around US$900, so there’s effectively no savings over buying the lenses separately, at least in terms of list price.)

Finally, the second stabilized zoom is the NIKKOR VR 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 lens offers an even wider 27-270mm equivalent range, at a price of around US$750. This is Nikon’s first power-zoom lens model, something that’s come back into fashion of late, thanks to the rise of video capture in interchangeable-lens cameras. Mechanical zooms make it harder to adjust the focal length without shaking the camera during video capture, where a power zoom can make it relatively easier to do so.

Pentax pioneered interchangeable power zoom lenses in the film days, but they never caught on, perhaps due to a lack of a clear need or advantage for the technology in cameras devoted solely to still imaging. Shortly before Nikon revealed the 1-series product line, Panasonic announced a selection of power zoom lenses for its mirrorless cameras, and Nikon has become the second system camera manufacturer to identify (and answer) videographers’ needs in this area.

In addition to the dedicated 1-mount optics, a Nikon FT-1 F-mount adaptor is to be offered for the J1, allowing the camera to accept F-mount lenses. The FT-1 adaptor features a tripod mount on its base, protecting the 1-mount from supporting the weight of heavier F-mount lenses, and includes support for autofocus when using AF-S or AF-I NIKKOR lenses. Pricing and availability for this item have yet to be disclosed.

Sensor. The Nikon J1 is based around a new CX-format image sensor with an effective resolution of 10.1 megapixels, the same chip that’s also featured in the higher-end Nikon V1 model. Nikon says that it developed the sensor in-house, while a teardown of the Nikon V1 by reverse-engineering firm Chipworks suggests that fabrication is handled by Aptina Imaging. The sensor has a 2.7x focal length crop, for a diagonal of approximately 16mm. That equates to what’s known as a 1″-type chip, using the arcane video camera tube size system typically referred to in compact camera spec sheets, although it actually has somewhere in the region of a 0.62-inch diagonal.

It’s quite a lot larger than the 1/2.3″-type chip selected for Pentax’s Q mount, which has a diagonal of just 7.7mm (0.3 inches), and a 5.6x focal length crop. By contrast, though, the Micro Four Thirds and APS-C compact system cameras from competitors such as Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung all have significantly larger sensors. Micro Four Thirds chips have a 21.6mm (0.85 inch) diagonal and a 2.0x crop, while APS-C models have a diagonal of slightly over 28mm (1.1 inches), and a crop in the region of 1.5x.

Unlike the Nikon V1, which vibrates its sensor’s low-pass filter to remove dust each time the camera is turned on or off, the J1 has no active dust reduction system, relying instead on a fixed glass dust shield in front of the sensor.

Processor. Nikon couples its new CX-format imager with a new generation of its EXPEED image processing engine. The Nikon J1 features a dual-core EXPEED 3 processor, which is said to have been optimized for noise performance, speed (in terms of general operation, burst rate, and focusing), as well as battery life.

Sensitivity. The standard ISO-equivalent sensitivity range for the Nikon J1 is ISO 100 to 3,200, and a Hi-1 position allows this to be extended to a maximum of ISO 6,400 equivalent.

Performance. Burst shooting is possible at a full ten frames per second with autofocus enabled, extremely swift by compact system camera standards. While Sony’s NEX-7 can manage the same rate, it does so only with the focus and exposure locked from the first frame. By contrast, if focus is locked from the first frame in the Nikon J1, it’s capable of a whopping 60 frames per second. At maximum resolution, buffer depth is rated at 19 frames in raw+JPEG Fine mode or raw mode, and 28 frames in JPEG fine mode.

Autofocus. As you can tell from the burst shooting speed possible with autofocus active, the Nikon J1′s AF system is swift indeed. The speed of the AF system comes thanks to the fact that, unlike competing mirrorless cameras which rely solely on contrast detection to determine focus, the Nikon J1 has a hybrid system that combines both phase-detection and contrast-detection capability. The operating mode is chosen automatically as appropriate to the shooting conditions, and a generous array of 73 phase detection AF points are available.

Since there’s no way to hook a separate autofocus sensor into the optical path in a mirrorless camera, Nikon has adopted a similar strategy to that used by Fujifilm in certain of its compact camera models last year. The phase detection autofocus points are placed on the image sensor itself, although it isn’t currently clear how the focus points are spaced with regards to the surrounding photodiodes.

To help with focusing on nearby subjects in low ambient lighting conditions, the J1 includes an AF assist lamp.

LCD. One of the main differentiators between the Nikon J1 and its more-expensive sibling is the former’s lack of an electronic viewfinder. Instead, the Nikon J1 offers only one choice on which to frame and review your photos and movies: a three-inch LCD panel. Total resolution of the J1′s LCD is approximately 153,000 pixels, or 460,000 dots, with separate red, green and blue dots at each pixel location. (That’s approximately half the total resolution of the V1′s LCD panel, although still higher than that of many consumer cameras.)

Exposure. The Nikon J1 also lacks its sibling’s mechanical shutter, instead relying solely on an electronic shutter. The fastest shutter speed available with the J1′s electronic shutter is a swift 1/16,000 second. The biggest downside of the electronic-only shutter is to be found in its flash sync speed, which we’ll come to in a moment.

Three metering modes are available in the J1: either matrix, center-weighted (4.5mm circle at the center of the frame), or spot (2mm circle at the selected focus area). A useful +/- 3.0 EV of exposure compensation is available, in 1/3 EV steps.

Flash. Another significant difference between the Nikon J1 and its enthusiast-friendly sibling is to be found in their provision for flash. Perhaps surprisingly, given that it’s the smaller of the pair, the J1 includes a built-in flash strobe, something absent from the V1. (With that said, Nikon is targeting the J1 at consumer, who tend to be more forgiving of popup flash strobes’ shortcomings in terms of output power, so the addition is maybe not so surprising as it might first seem.)

The Nikon J1′s internal flash strobe has a guide number of 5 meters (16 feet) at ISO 100, making it around 43% less powerful than the external flash offered for its sibling. Thanks to the lack of a physical shutter assembly, X-sync is only 1/60 second. (The V1, by contrast, is capable of 1/250th second X-sync, when using its physical shutter mechanism.) Flash exposures use i-TTL metering, and unlike in the V1, manual exposure control is not possible. There is a flash exposure compensation range of -3 to +1 EV, set independently from the overall exposure, however.

The Nikon J1 lacks any provision for external or bounce flash.

Accessories. Since it lacks the Multi-Accessory Port found on its sibling, the Nikon J1 can’t accept any accessories which use this feature. As well as being unable to accept the SB-N5 external strobe, this means the J1 also can’t use the V1′s optional GP-N100 GPS unit.

The Nikon J1 is, however, still compatible with Nikon’s optional ML-L3 infrared remote control unit, several different AC adapter models, and the TA-N100 tripod adapter (which increases separation between the lens mount and tripod plate).

Movies. As well as still imaging, the Nikon J1 also offers high-definition Full HD movie capture capability. The J1 can record at up to 1080p resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels), with a rate of either 30 progressive-scan frames per second or 60 interlaced fields per second, derived from 60 frames-per-second sensor output. MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC compression is used, and the J1 can also shoot 720p (1,280 x 720 pixel) clips at 60 frames per second. Autofocus is possible during video capture, and is pretty-much silent with all three kit lenses. That’s great news, because unlike its more-expensive sibling, the Nikon J1 cannot accept an external microphone; instead audio is captured solely with its internal stereo mic. Surprisingly, though, it does offer manual audio levels control. It also offers the ability to shoot high-res 8.3 megapixel, 16:9 aspect stills during video capture, without any interruption to the video feed.

Unlike some competitors, the Nikon J1 doesn’t offer standard-definition movie capture at typical shooting rates. However, if the resolution is dropped to 640 x 240 pixels, the recording rate can be increased to 400 frames per second, which plays back at 30 frames per second to slow the action down by a little over 13x. At 320 x 120 pixel resolution, the recording rate increases still further to 1,200 frames per second, for a 40x slo-mo. The maximum capture length in either slow-motion mode is five seconds, for a maximum clip length of 66 seconds at 640 x 240 resolution, or 200 seconds at 320 x 120.