Small-bodied interchangeable-lens cameras are the future of photography,and everyone knows it. At their best,they bring DSLR-like control and quality to cameras with much smaller bodies. That's what Sony went for with the NEX-3,and what Olympus and Panasonic did with their Micro Four Thirds cameras. Two big names have been missing from this list,though,and that's Nikon and Canon. Neither camera goliath released an interchangeable-lens camera that isn't a DSLR,until Nikon finally unveiled the J1,the first of its new 1 series. On paper,the $649.95 J1 stacks up well against its competition ¡ª competitive price,small body,multiple lenses. But how does it stack up in the real world? Can Nikon come into this market late and dominate it,as it did with DSLRs? Read on to find out.
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Hardware / design
One thing the J1 has going for it: it's great-looking. Thanks to its flashy colors ¡ª it comes with a glossy white,black,red,silver,or pink front,and a black back ¡ª and 4.2 x 2.4 x 1.2 -inch body,it looks more like a compact camera than a DSLR. It's still too big to fit into a pocket,though,and it's so heavy it'd pull your pants down anyway. It weighs 13 ounces,but feels much heavier; since there's no grip,and the finish on the camera is a little slippery,it's hard to hold on to. The Sony NEX-C3 has a little bit of grip that makes it easier to hold,even though it's about the same size. Overall it's a sleek,minimal device without a lot of buttons or wheels marring its good looks; it's nicer to look at than the Canon Powershot G12,a similar high-end point-and-shoot camera that is absolutely littered with controls,and is more like a larger version of the also-comparable Powershot S95.
Features
The J1 is full of shooting gimmicks that do unusual things with your photos. While you won't find any super-trendy Instagram-style filters,what is present is Motion Snapshot mode,which takes a one-second video before and after a still shot,adds music,and and plays the video before fading into the still shot. It's a neat trick,and always funny given the music choices ¡ª you choose Relaxation,Waves,Beauty or Tenderness ¡ª but not something I'd ever imagine using except to show off the feature. There's also a slow-motion option in video recording,which shoots five seconds of video at an incredibly high frame rate ¡ª 400 or 1200 fps ¡ª and then converts it to a minute or so of slow-motion footage. This might actually be useful,except that to shoot that fast the J1 has to shoot at 640 x 240 or 320 x 120 resolutions,which really don't look good anywhere but on your camera's small screen. Also people moving that slowly are creepy.
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Smart Photo Selector was the one feature I used more than a couple of times. It shoots 60 photos with one press of the shutter,and algorithmically picks five of them to keep. It tosses out blurry or dark shots,followed by shots where someone is blinking or not smiling,and tries to find the best of the bunch. I can't say for sure that the selector never threw out a good photo,but it did always leave me with a couple of good ones to choose from.
Performance and Quality
As long as lighting is good,the J1 takes excellent photos. I used the camera to shoot at a farm,and photos of animals,running children,and landscapes all turned out sharp,with accurate and rich colors. When the camera is able to use a fast shutter speed,it produces nice results. As soon as you move indoors or shoot in anything other than broad daylight,though,the camera's quality drops like a stone. The small sensor forces the shutter to stay open a long time in low-light situations,which means blurry images when you're not shooting a still life from a tripod. You can also crank up the camera's ISO sensitivity as high as ISO 3200; it does all right,but having to choose between soft images at high ISOs and blurry images at low ones is a bummer of a trade-off. Taking sharp pictures of my cousin throwing a football was easy in the daylight,but as the sun set he started to look more like a phantom moving through the night,unable to be captured standing still ¡ª even when he was standing still.
When you shoot with a DSLR,you do it both for the quality and the style ¡ª the soft-background feel that makes subjects pop. The J1 can't do that. The small sensor can't take in much light at a time,so the J1 is mostly unable to do any kind of focusing magic. The problem could be somewhat compensated for by a super-bright lens,but there isn't one available for the J1,so if you're looking for bokeh and soft backgrounds,look elsewhere.
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Wrap-up
Calling the J1 a high-end camera is like putting a Honda engine into a Ferrari's body,and calling it a Ferrari. The Nikon J1 looks and feels like the expensive camera it is (except for that flash),but if you peek under the hood you'll find a sub-par engine (the sensor,in this case). Like a Honda,the J1 works pretty well,and even has some clever features baked in -- but if you're paying for a Ferrari you expect a Ferrari,and that's just not what the Nikon J1 is. It's a high-end point and shoot priced like a low-end DSLR,and the addition of interchangeable lenses doesn't make up for the small sensor inside. At a lower price it could be compelling,but at $650 it's firmly in the price range of cameras like the Sony NEX-C3 and the Olympus E-PL3,both of which produce better images in more situations than the Nikon J1.