I thought it would be fun to finish out the winter doing a bunch of work with the Nikon 1 system, just for fun. Even though it's officially dead, gone, and buried by Nikon, who would probably prefer people forget its oddball initial misstep into the world of mirrorless cameras, I find they have a certain quirky charm.
The 1" sensor, which is the same size as the one in my usual RX100 shirt-pocket camera, means that not only are even quality lenses extremely compact, but the camera bodies are, too. The J4 in the picture above is wearing the 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 which is, given the crop factor of the small sensor, the equivalent of a 50mm/1.8 on this thing. It gets good reviews and takes sharp photos, especially with the aperture set in the f/2.8 to f/4 range.
The 18.4MP J4's body (at least the front, top, and bottom) is aluminum and the whole thing is noticeable smaller than the original plastic-hulled 10.1 megapickle J1 pictured below. It's less than 2.5" high and not quite 4" wide; about the size of a deck of cards. I really dig the white aesthetic, too. It looks like something the crew of the Discovery would have brought along in Kubrik's 2001.
The cool thing is that the body and a full panoply of lenses will go in a small camera bag that would normally hold a DSLR and a single lens.
The first warm-ish week, I'm taking it to the zoo. Also, I'm thinking about trying to shoot some magazine photos with it. I'll bet it's more than capable!
