Any of the 4 people that follow my blog will know that I have an ongoing quest to find my perfect take anywhere camera, my objective is to have a camera that is smaller than an SLR but that offers the image quality and usability good enough to stop me lugging the big guns around with me. To this end I have tried a lot of cameras! For example just over the last few years I have owned the Sigma DP1, Panasonic G1, Olympus E-P1 (x2), Panasonic GF1, Canon G9, Canon G12, Olympus XZ-1, Panasonic LX-5, Panasonic G3, Sony NEX5N, Fuji X100 (which I still own and use), Fuji X10 and bringing us onto the reason for this post the Nikon V1. The latest of these to have come and gone is the Fuji X10 which is worthy of a mention, it is a terrific camera in the hand with a great lens and I liked it a lot, ultimately however I never got on with the tunnel viewfinder and the one conclusion I have come to (finally) from all of the cameras I have tried is that I absolutely have to have a proper usable 100% (or very close) viewfinder.
Which brings me onto my latest purchase the Nikon V1, like many people I immediately dismissed this camera when the specs were announced, it has a smaller sensor than even micro four thirds and when launched was priced at a level that I felt was unrealistic. The positive reviews however started to roll in, the price dropped a little and after I had a play in my local Jessops I found that I really liked it, there was also the matter of the FT1 adapter and my existing collection of Nikon lenses that finally convinced me to pick the one up, so I purchased the V1 10-30 kit, the FT1 adapter and the SB-N5 flash. This is not a review as there are many good ones out there, it is not even my own definitive user review which may come later, this is just my initial thoughts and early impressions of the V1 after a week or so of light use.
First impressions were good, the V1 feels very nice in hand and it’s magnesium allow body gives a feeling of real quality, the electronic viewfinder is very nice in use and the autofocus is (in good light) as fast as Nikon claim and as accurate as you would expect from a Nikon camera. The image quality is very good, I have only used RAW and I would put the image quality on a par with the current Olympus M43 bodies which is pretty good, at high ISO if you pixel peep it is not quite as good as the new Panasonic M43 bodies or for that matter APS-C cameras, it though good enough. Where the V1 falls down in my opinion is in it’s interface and maybe this is indicative of Nikon’s target market for this camera? There are precious few manual dials and the ones that are there cannot be programmed so you have to venture into the menu system to change the shooting mode and commonly used functions such as selecting the ISO. The implementation of the movie button is also a little curious as is the absence of auto bracketing. The ability to program the existing buttons or dials and/or having a “my menu” would make a massive difference to this camera so hopefully Nikon can do this via firmware.
Once you get used to the quirks however the V1 is a lot of fun to use, I have so far mostly been using it with the FT1 adapter and my 50mm f1.4 lens which with the crop factor gives a similar setup to a 135 f1.4 lens, not too bad at all. Infact after my intial use I have decided to use the V1 in portrait project I am in the process of planning so watch this space on that one. As no post is complete without pictures here are a couple of the latest addition to the Luxford household, both were taken with the V1 and 50mm 1.4, one is at ISO 400 the other 800, they are snaps grabbed around the house but should hopefully give an idea as to what the V1 is capable of.
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