Easing the Burden! First Thoughts on the Nikon 1

Like a lot of travelers or “adventurers” who are getting a tad older, I’m looking increasingly for a way of easing the load of camera gear I carry on trips.  That’s particularly true for travel where I know there will be some hiking or watercraft involved, or for trips (like Africa) where you just know you’re going to have to take everything.

My recent consideration of this problem came as a result of planning for an Africa trip that’s likely to involve both a bunch of gear and some activity.  My specific concern was my 500mm Sigma EX, which as you can guess is no small lens.  That sort of lens, particularly with a teleconverter, is great for birds and distant critters but it’s useless for quick shots.  That means another back just for that lens in addition to the two I already carry (one for the 80-400 walk-around zoom and one for a 17-55 wide-angle).  So I had a brainstorm; try the Nikon 1 system.  With the Nikon 1 you have a 2.7 focal multiplier so a 100mm lens becomes a 270mm, and so forth.  This works not only with the (few) lenses offered for the camera but also for the whole range of F-mount lenses, because Nikon thoughtfully provides an FT-1 adapter that lets you mount pretty much any of the D or G AF and AF-S lenses on the little guy.  How good can it get?  Well, we have to see.

Nikon 1 is one of those hybrid things that it’s hard to love or hate at first sight.  It looks like a point-and-shoot camera, and truth is it’s close to that in features and operation.  But it has interchangeable lenses and solid optics and electronics.  It shoots in RAW mode, and the test images I could download looked very good.  Add to this the fact that my wife was looking to get a combo camera for better photos and video, and thought the Nikon 1 J1 model (in pink, of course) would be perfect, and it spells DECISION!  So I got one (not pink, white; not a J1 but the V1 model).

When you get the Nikon 1 the first thing you notice is that compared with a DSLR (even the D3000-series from Nikon) this is LITTLE.  It’s not as small as one of the SX-family Canon point-and-shoots that Linda was using but it’s definitely smaller than her older S5IS, even with the 10-30mm lens mounted and extended.  It’s surprisingly heavy for its size, particularly with a 30-110mm lens attached, but not objectionably so.  It feels nice, if a little small, to somebody like me who’s used to D2X or D200 or D7000 backs.

In terms of features, the Nikon 1 seems to fall between the point-and-shoot and DSLR lines just as most say it does.  You can set the camera in all of the usual operating modes (P, S, A, M, and “scene mode”) but the process is done via the menu system rather than a convenient dial.  The newest model, the V2, does have a nice dial for setting these modes but it’s not available until late November and the price is about 50% higher than that of the V1 or J1.  The J2 doesn’t have that feature; it seems to be a kind of simplified J1 designed more for the PandS crowd.  We stayed with the V1/J1 combination so the two cameras would work the same, simplifying spousal support!

My normal shooting mode in the D7000 is to set auto-ISO and manual mode and then set both shutter speed and lens opening, allowing the camera to set ISO to match.  It works fine, partly because the D7000 will show you the ISO it’s selecting in the viewfinder when you partially depress the shutter or fire a shot.  I can say honestly that the only thing that’s truly disappointing to me about the Nikon 1 is that it doesn’t do that.  You will see all the settings selected when you review the image, but not while shooting.

In scene mode, the camera does a great job with video and a pretty decent job with photos using the 10-30 lens.  When you mount the 39-110 lens, I found that scene mode (and P mode, as it turned out) tend to present a bit lower shutter speed than I’d like.  In most cases it was acceptable, but in instances where there’s still a lot of ISO headroom I might have picked a faster shutter.  You’re supposed to be able to change the balance of shutter speed and lens opening in P mode but I didn’t find it easy to do that.  More fiddling might be indicated here.

In P, S, or A model the camera seems to do what you would expect of it.  Any time you set auto-ISO (which I do) the way any of these modes work is a bit quirky because the camera has two variables (in S mode, for example, it has aperture and ISO) to play with.  It’s easy to second-guess it, fruitless to gripe.  If you don’t like these modes then shoot in M, which is what I do.

If you mount the FT-1 adapter you can mount a LOT of the Nikon lenses, starting back ten or more years.  I have two Nikon lenses (17-55 and 80-400) and three Sigma lenses (180 macro, 70-200, and 500 prime) and all of them work on the Nikon 1 with the adapter mounted.  The appearance of the combination is sometimes startling; the 500 is so big that the Nikon 1 would fit inside its lens hood!  One obvious problem is that you dare not hang the camera by the strap around your neck or wrist with one of these big mamas attached; even my smallest lens is heavier than the recommendation for camera-dependent support.  You have to hold the lens.  That means you should probably either have a strap that attaches to the tripod mount on the FT-1 adapter (for light lenses with no tripod collar) or mount a strap on the tripod collar.  I got a Black Rapid strap with some of their little adapters to clip to.  Getting them all onto lenses in some way is a chore but it’s possible and I won’t bore you with the details (send me an email if you need recommendations).

Multiply practically any focal length by 2.7 and you spell trouble in camera shake.  The 17-55 becomes (roughly) an 80-150 in 35mm terms (the same lens is a 25-82 on the D7000) and that’s a fine walk-around and handhold lens at any focal length.  The 70-200 Sigma becomes a 190-540mm, which stresses the old hand-holding.  However, setting the shutter at 1/640 and the aperture at f8 generates sharp images and a test video at 85mm also worked OK when hand-held.  I did notice that autofocus is more difficult at full zoom with this lens; sometimes you have to use the manual focus ring (possible with the Sigma HSM lenses) to tune things before you get a lock.  I’ve had this problem even on the D7000 with the Nikon 80-400  when image contrast is low and the lens is seriously out of focus; it gives up!

The Sigma 180 macro seems to work beautifully but I’ll need to mount a monopod to verify it because the effective focal length of the lens is now 486mm, which makes handholding a macro shot a bit challenging.  Depth of field is very short unless you open the lens up, and since you’ll also need a high shutter speed you’ll need to shoot in Manual AND have decent light.  Still more testing here, I can see.

My initial impression of the Nikon 1 with the FT-1 is VERY favorable.  Yes, OK, I know it’s not a DSLR and so there are things that you can’t do, or things that maybe you can do accidentally all too easily.  My goal was to create a handier walkaround and wide-angle extra body, and also to have something light I can mount on the 500mm when I decide I need to use it for the extra range.  So far, the Nikon 1 seems to meet those goals, and besides offer an option for good-quality 1080I/P video that I didn’t really have with the D7000.

 

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