Are Nikon 1 cameras worth the investment? - A kind of review of the 32mm f/1.2 lens

With better and better phone cameras, the market for small point-and-shoot cameras shrink. A small camera is often not much better than a phone camera, and in a few cases it may be worse.

One of the attempts at capturing the low end or mid range camera market is the Nikon 1 series - mirrorless cameras with exchangeable lenses. They produce very good results, just like many phone cameras. Often a Nikon 1 takes better photos than a phone, but it will not fit in a small pocket. While many nowadays always carry their phone around, they often do not bother with a camera.

The question then arises if it is really worth it to invest in a Nikon 1 system.

Personally, I will say it is, if you get the 32mm f/1.2 lens. It costs a fortune, about three times the cheapest Nikon 1 camera, but it opens up possibilities that one does not have with other lenses. As an example, look at the photo below, taken inside Kunsthaus Zürich in dim light. With any other Nikon 1 lens, one would have had to crank up the ISO above 500, something that would have meant a grainier photo. In addition, it would have been difficult to isolate the sculpture in the front from the painting in the background, as no other Nikon 1 lens can achieve such a shallow Depth of Field as the 32mm f/1.2.

In the Background: Ferdinand Hodler's painting Heilige Stunde (1907). In the foreground: Aristide Maillol's sculpture Monument à Cézanne (1907). I have no idea why it is called like that. It does not look like him very much. Didn't Cézanne have a beard?

Another example of the shallow depth of field of the 32mm f/1.2 is this panther chameleon sitting peacefully on a twig. The shallow depth of field makes the eye focus on the chameleon in the foreground. Another chameleon in the background is so fuzzy that it can almost be taken for a dark leaf.

Panther chameleon, Furcifer pardalis. Photo taken in the Masoala Regenwald in Zürich Zoo.

Finally an example of shallow depth of field of some painted glass. The painting on the front of the bottle can be distinguished from the painting on the back of the same bottle, due to the shallow depth of field. This would hardly have been possible with another current Nikon 1 lens.

Painted glass bottle from le Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame in Strasbourg. 

Does this mean that a Nikon 1 serves no purpose with other lenses than the 32mm f/1.2? No, they are decent cameras with most lenses, but the number of situations where they are better than a good smartphone goes up if one gets the 32mm f/1.2. Hopefully Nikon will provide other equally good lenses in the future.

Which hobby is cheapest: buying cameras or taking photos?

That may be a good question to ask oneself.

Buying photo equipment is such an easy thing to get into if one has spare money lying around. On the internet, there are plenty of comparisons of lenses, of sensors, of auto-focus systems, of low-light capabilities, high ISO, low ISO, bokeh, dynamic range, depth of field and so on. There are plenty of web pages, blogs and forums where people compare one against the other, and recommend one over the other as superior according to select criteria. The criteria may be measurable and absolute, and yet completely irrelevant, as the next camera around the corner will be even better.

Taking photos can be much more challenging. What kind of photos do you want to take? What kind of photos of yours do you think other people want to look at? How do you take unique photos - photos that look like no one else's photos? There are no absolute rules. There are no easily measurable criteria that always can tell you if one photo is "better" than another. A photo that sells well may not get much "likes" on photo sites or social media. A photo people rate high may not be the one you like best yourself. It is all very fuzzy.

But it is much cheaper to take photos than to buy cameras.

And it is often more fun.

Handy lens that fits in your coat pocket. The current price for a new one is around 9000 Euro.

Old Camera with Big Sensor - New Camera with Small Sensor

There is a widely accepted view that large camera sensors produce better pictures. In Nikon terminology, that means that a big FX sensor is better than a smaller DX sensor, which is better than the really small CX sensor. That is true in most cases. However, when one compares old cameras with new ones, occasionally the roles are reversed.

Some examples using DXOMark's criteria:

The 2012 DX camera D5200 vs the 2007 FX camera D3:

That's a five year difference. The DX camera has a better overall score, but it still lags behind the FX in some areas, like low-light ISO.

The 2013 CX camera Nikon 1 S1 vs the 2005 DX camera D70:

This is an eight year difference, and even though the CX Nikon 1 has an overall advantage in DXOMark's rating, it still lags behind the larger sensor when it comes to low light.

Like all comparisons, this is not the whole truth of course. There are many other aspects on cameras than what is measured by DXOMark. The point is simply that for certain things, new and small can be better than old and big, even when it comes to camera sensors.