Nikon 1 V1 a Bargain?

fig 1. Nikon 1 V1

I have been looking for a lighter alternative to my DSLR for day trips and candid street photography. I normally use my D700 with the fantastic 24-70mm f/2.8 lens but they have a combined weight of a whopping 4kg, ouch!  Whatever lightweight camera I get I also want the ability to use my family of Nikon lenses which as any photographer knows is a considerable investment.  Now in my deliberations I have had to consider what is more important optical or pixel quality?  In the end I think it boils down to optical quality more than absolute pixel quality.  So this is where the Nikon 1 comes in at an amazing 1.4kg with its 10-30mm 3.5-5.6 lens and it ability with an adaptor to use my lenses and is probably about a 1/4 of the size of my DLSR which means it will fit perfectly in my pocket or man bag. I have been closely watching the evolution of the Nikon 1 family and eventually decided on getting the new V2 which is the second generation model.  But that was before Nikon dropped the price of the V1 to an amazing £250. This then caused me to evaluate the two models and consider the all important price performance ratio.

fig 2. Nikon 1 V2

Before we get into that though the Nikon 1 has had a bit of a grilling over the sensor used in the Camera.  The Nikon 1 is a micro four thirds system but unlike its competitors it uses a physically smaller sensor called CX. This has the advantage of smaller lenses because the glass has to cover the reduced area of the sensor itself.  While that sounds very useful there is a trade off in its ability to capture light. In a nutshell the smaller the sensor is the smaller the cells that are used to capture the light photons from the scene being record.  This means the camera will have a reduced light sensitivity and as a consequence a lower ISO capability over its larger counterparts.

So there is a question mark over the theoretical performance of the sensors of the Nikon 1 V1 and V2.  Thankfully if you value the ability to quantify this you need go no further than DXO Mark website.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Camera-Sensor-Database/Nikon/1-V1
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Camera-Sensor-Database/Nikon/1-V2

According to the results the sensor is inferior to its competitors such as the Olympus OM-D-EM-5 and Panasonic G5.  I think the most important measure is the minimum usable ISO setting which is 403 for the V2, 346 for the V1 and a whopping 889 for the Olympus.  On the face of it I thought how can I justify that performance for £800. Well that was true until the V1 as I said earlier was reduced to £250.  So I wondered how my D700 and D2x compared to the V1 and there was no surprise with the D700 ISO coming in at an impressive 2303 (I regularly take it to 2000 on shoots) but it was the D2x that surprised me at 476. The D2x was an excellent camera and I still use it for natural history and sports photography but not in low light situations.  This camera is now 6 years old and cost £2500 back then and has a similar ISO performance to the V1 today which is 10% of that cost. So what this means is that the V1 can function well and render good images at ISO 400 or below.  That makes it potentially a good camera for sports, natural history and street photography as long as it is in good light.

So far I have focused on ISO performance as the greatest area of concern but what I have not touched on yet is the outstanding potential of the camera for capturing natural history given the crop factor that is inherent in the small CX sensor.  What this basically means is that it will  magnify the image by a factor of 2.7 times.  So if I was able to mount my Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 on this camera I would have an effective telephoto range between 189-540mm at f/2.8.  The equivalent lens would be the Nikon 600mm f/4 which costs £7000.  If I could do that it would be great and thankfully you can with the FT-1 mount adaptor.  So with the V1 at £250, £170 for the FT-1 lens adaptor and of course the £1000 for the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR1 my outlay would be £1420 as opposed to the D800 and 600mm combo that would cost £9000. While you can't compare relative performance of the two systems as the latter is formidable what you do get is a budget capability for capturing decent images   This of course is dependent on accepting the performance limitations of the V1 both in terms of its ISO capability and the fact that the FT-1 adaptor only lets you have centre focus.  Continuous focus sadly does not work either. Follow this link for an in depth review of this configuration:

http://www.naturalart.ca/artist/fieldtests/fieldtest_NikonV1.html

fig 3. Nikon 1 FT-1 Lens Adaptor

So is the V1 worth buying over the V2? While I value the additional 4MP I would have hoped the quality of the sensor would have been very much better than the V1 but sadly this is not the case. There are other improvements over the V1 including a redesigned body with an effective bulky grip as well as a built in flash.  However after reading a few reviews it transpires that the V2 is a minor upgrade over the V1 and is not a revolutionary change.  In essence as I compare the two I am paying £500 for the extra pixels.  I don't think the price performance ratio justifies buying the V2. Right now you can buy the V1 for £250 which is a huge price drop from the £830 since its release 12 months ago, that is a drop of 70%. So in conclusion I have gone for the V1 but of course this will not last long as it will be sold out fairly quickly as it is still in my opinion a great little camera. While there are superior cameras out there like the Olympus OM-D-EM-5 and Panasonic G5 for £250 there is no argument from me.

Update 1 :

Here are some images taken with V1. I have divided the images into the lens types that were used to capture them. I have only done minor RAW processing, setting exposure levels, some contrast adjustments and a little noise reduction when needed. I have included some information with the images which includes focal length in full frame 35mm equivalent, aperture, crop factor (50% = 100% zoom) and ISO:

a) Kit Lens 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6

Thoughts: the kit lens is rather good. The contrast is good and while there is some distortion and chromatic aberration it can be managed easily in photoshop. I am rather impressed with the kit lens.

b) Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

I have some mixed feelings about this lens as I expected the very best optical quality.  It seems a little soft below f/4 which is disappointing as this lens is one of the best nikon has to offer. I have contacted Nikon UK and await some feedback from them. I will continue to use this lens and try to understand if it is me or the lens. Having said that the images are still exceptionally good at f/4 or higher and I would be happy to use it.

c) Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6

This lens is not an AF-S so I have to do some manual focusing. I rely on the in focus spot in the view finder but as you might imagine I have to throw a lot of images away. Another drawback with this lens it the extreme magnification you actually get when you get up to 300mm that is 810mm in full frame terms.  So I need to do more testing with a monopod as the shutter speed needs to be faster than 1/2 of the focal length to minimise camera shake which could be a problem with its limited usable ISO range of 100-400.

In conclusion on this update the Nikon 1 is still a keeper and a relatively good performer in good light. The results with the 70-200mm f/2.8 are very good at f/4 and would make a worthy print indeed. But of course it is still early days.

Update 2:

The purpose of this update is just to clarify a point that I may not have elaborated in the main body of the article.  My main use for the camera as you know is for a portable every day compact with interchangeable lenses for street and natural history photography for use in fair to good light.  On that basis I think it is a great product.  It has all the build quality that you would expect from Nikon but the only point I would make is the lack of an inbuilt flash and limited ISO performance.  There is a hot shoe available for the dedicated Nikon 1 flashgun which is an additional cost of course. So if you are looking for a general all rounder with a mind to family portraits and using flash then this additional item and associated expense may not make this model ideal for you. At the time of writing the flash unit costs £120 on Amazon so be warned! The V2 has the flash built in and a slightly better ISO performance at 400 but still costs £710.

Update 3:

I got a response from Nikon technical as to why my Nikon 70-200mm @ f/2.8 was producing soft images on the V1 with the FT-1 lens adapter    Apparently it is due to the limitation of the single focus point that is available with the FT-1. While I considered this I find it an inadequate conclusion because I would expect to see a portion of the image to be in focus instead of the uniform softness that exists.  I have asked Nikon to look at this again and I will update you if I get a better explanation.