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.

Conversion of Zoom Rates for FX, DX and CX sensors

Nikon has three sizes of sensors for their current models of cameras with exchangeable lenses. The same lens gives different angles of view depending on which sensor it operates on. If you, for example, like using a 50mm prime lens on your D700 camera (FX sensor) and you want to use a lens with a similar width on your D5100 camera (DX sensor), you should get a 35mm lens. (You should actually get a 33mm lens, but that does not exist, and 35mm should be close enough.) More about that here.

The table below gives some common focal lengths in mm and their equivalent with other sensors.

Sensor type:	FX	DX	CX
Crop factor:	1	1.5	2.7
	28	19	10
	50	33	19
	70	47	26
	200	133	74
	270	180	100
	300	200	111

Some cameras with FX sensors are: D700, D800, D3, D4,

Some cameras with DX sensors are: D300, D7000, D5100, D3200, D40, D50, D60, D70, D80, D90

Some cameras with CX sensors are J1, V1.

Nikon J1 - Why I Love this Hateable Camera

Very recently, I defied my waning bank account and once common sense, and bought a Nikon J1 camera with two lenses: the 10mm prime and the 10-100mm zoom.

The camera has one big advantage with the 10mm pancake lens: it is small. It is so small that it fits in a trouser pocket. Almost. I cannot actually walk or sit down with the camera in the pocket, but I can push it in, and with some effort I can usually pull it out. The fact that the camera is only almost small enough, is one of the frustrating things with the camera. Realistically, I need to carry it in its strap or in a jacket pocket.

Then there are all the other limitations. Forget about zoom. Forget about flash - especially off camera flash. Forget about quick adjustments of ISO, aperture, shooting mode (PSAM) or auto-focus options. There is no nice grip, no swivel screen and the battery life time is not very good. If one wants any of that, one has to use another camera.

But if one wants to simply take a picture, it works fine. It is easy to take sharp pictures that are not too grainy. And there is one unexpected bonus: Nikon's ML-13 remote control happens to work. With a Gorillapod or a Manfrotto table tripod 709B attached, it is extremely easy to just put the camera on a table or floor and trigger a photo with the remote.

10mm is slightly too wide for my taste, but it works. One just has to take one step closer to the target. 10mm on a J1 is roughly equivalent to a 18mm lens with a DX sensor or 28mm with an FX sensor.

10-100mm lens. 31mm focal length. ISO 100, f/5.3, 1/1250s. There is no denying there is some potential for bokeh in this camera and lens. It is not much, but it is much more than none.

Then there is the 10-100mm lens. The range is almost the same as the DX 18-200mm lens or the FX 28-300mm. There is no way the camera will fit in any normal pockets with that lens on. In fact, with the 10-100mm lens, you can forget about the camera's size. The camera is just a little adornment at one end of the lens. The best way to hold the whole thing, is to put the lens in a comfortable position in your left hand, and then fumble around with your right hand, until you get to the little camera at the end, and press the trigger button.

This lens is sturdy. The zoom is electric, but very, very quiet. It is apparently built for movie recordings, so we still photographers pay a lot for features that do not matter that much. But just hearing the absence of sound when you zoom, or feel the weight in your hand is a pleasure. And I love lenses that have internal zoom, so they do not change size when you zoom in and out.

It would be silly to complain too much about the weight and size of the 10-100mm. It is much smaller than Nikon's 70-200mm for example. When it is switched off and retracted, it is shorter than 100mm. (There is a function to keep it expanded, even when it is switched off, to save battery.) However, considering the large diameter of the 10-100mm and the fact that there is no good grip on the J1 camera, it is not that convenient to carry it around in your hand, especially not if you have short fingers.

All in all, the J1 with the two lenses is acceptable for travel shooting, at least for destinations where you can come back later with a DSLR and take some serious photos.

10-100mm zoom lens, 58.2mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/320s, F5.6. Handheld. There was no problem at all to get this sharpness. I in fact got much more keepers with the J1 in this Marathon than I usually do with my D300 and a 70-200mm lens.

10mm prime lens. ISO 100, f/7.1, 2.5 seconds. Taken with an ML-13 remote and a Manfrotto 709B tripod.

Which Nikon camera settings matter when you shoot RAW?

Almost all the settings in a Nikon camera matter when you shoot JPEGs, as a JPEG is supposed to be good enough for immediate use.

When it comes to RAW/NEF files it is a little more complicated. Some settings matter a lot. Some settings do not matter at all. For some settings it really depends. There does not seem to be any exhaustive list of which settings matter and which can be ignored - probably because it is so complicated. The following list is not exhaustive.

Shutter speed is important, as it obviously cannot be changed in software.

Aperture is equally important, as it cannot be changed in software.

ISO is less obvious, but it is also important. ISO is not just a matter of how bright the picture is, but it sets the physical light sensitivity of the sensor. The incoming light is amplified by hardware. When a lot of amplification is needed (high ISO), the system is more likely to introduce noise. Even if my explanation may not be one hundred percent clear, a simple experiment can show that a NEF taken with long shutter speed (much light) and low ISO has less noise than one with short shutter speed (little light) and high ISO.

Long Exposure NR seems to matter. There is no way to undo it even in Nikon software.

White Balance can in theory be ignored, but it is practical to give it a correct value. It is visible to virtually all RAW conversion software, and it can be changed freely in most software. However, some software is unable to correctly adjust bad White Balance, like Picasa or the Finder previews in Mac OS X.

Exposure compensation does not really matter on its own. However, it affects shutter speed and aperture, so it indirectly matters what you set it to.

Active D-lighting is not clear cut. The setting seems to be ignored by Adobe software. At the same time, it cannot be switched off in Capture NX, if you use that software. Anyhow, when you switch it on, it will change images to a somewhat darker exposure by changing shutter speed or aperture, so it indirectly affects the image.

Picture Controls can safely be ignored. They can be changed freely in Capture NX and View NX, and they are not even visible to non-Nikon software like Adobe Camera RAW, Lightroom or Aperture. This is the reason why a black and white NEF file is displayed in colour in Photoshop.

Nikon's Active D-lighting - what is it?

"Nikon has gone through great pains to promote this feature without telling anybody what exactly is going on."

Frans Waterlander

I have no idea who Frans Waterlander is, but I think he was spot on in a discussion forum. This blog post lists some known facts and some important guesses - if you switch Active D-Lighting (ADL) on.

ADL is a technology Nikon uses to handle pictures with big contrast - a lot of light and a lot of darkness in the same photo.

To make it work properly, use Matrix metering.

Switching on matrix metering on a Nikon D300.

ADL is not the same thing as D-lighting. D-lighting does about the same thing - it reduces shadows and highlight, but it is made after the picture is taken. Active D-lighting is made while the picture is being taken.

How it is done, no one seems to know. One theory is that it is done by the camera sensor itself. Another is that it is a setting applied to the RAW camera data.

You cannot change the level of ADL in Capture NX or View NX. Normal D-lighting can be changed in those products.

It is rumoured that ADL does not work when you take pictures in Manual mode in the camera.

When you use ADL in A, P or S mode, it makes the general exposure slightly darker.

From experiments it seems like Adobe products ignore ADL in NEF files completely. In other words: if you shoot RAW and use Adobe products like Lightroom or Photoshop, Active D-lighting will serve no purpose.

Normal D-lighting can be applied in the retouch area of the camera in many models. It can also be applied in Capture NX and View NX.

My own strategy currently is to switch ADL off. It is complicated to handle, it takes time to switch on and off, there is a risk factor that you do something wrong, and life is too short to learn all the aspects. If there are high contrast images to take, they can often be handled by post processing anyhow.

Which lenses autofocus on a D40, D40X, D60 or D5000?

The low range Nikon cameras D40, D40X, D60 or D5000 can only autofocus with lenses with built in motor, for example Nikon's own Silent Wave Motor (SWM). These cameras lack autofocus motor themselves - something which makes them smaller, lighter and cheaper.

Nikkor lenses with "AF-S" in their name should auto-focus on these cameras.

Sigma lenses with "HSM" (Hyper Sonic Motor) in their name should auto-focus on these cameras.

There are also a number of Tamron lenses that should auto-focus on these cameras, but I have not found any reliable way to tell which ones. The secret letters to look for may be "di" (digitally integrated), but there seems to be no confirmation that it is a fool proof sign.

Using "hidden" NEF data in Photoshop or Aperture

If you shoot raw nef files with your Nikon camera, you may have camera settings that are not readable by non-Nikon applications. One of the most striking ones is if you choose to set the picture controls to create a black-and-white picture. When you open that nef file in Photoshop or Aperture, for example, the colour will come back.

To see this kind of information in non-Nikon applications, you will have to convert the files in a Nikon application. You can for example batch process all your nef files to jpeg or tiff format using View NX (menu File > Convert Files...) or Capture NX (menu item Batch). Then import the tiff files to the other application.

But don't forget that conversion from nef to both jpeg and tiff will lose some data. Tiff is a lossless format, but the only thing that is lossless is what is visible. In the nef file you can always go back and change the picture controls to some other setting. However, there is no way you can get the colour back in a black-and-white tiff file. In other words, it is always good to keep the nef as backup, in case you need to make some other modifications.

Manual Focus with a D40X, D40, D60 - or any other Nikon

If you use a low end Nikon DSLR like D40, D40X or D60 together with a number of lenses without built in autofocus, like Sigma, Tamron or even Nikon's own AF 50 f1.8D, then you have to use manual focus - that is, you have to move the focus ring around the lens until you are in focus.

Nikon has an in-focus indicator, that lights up in the form of a green dot in the viewfinder to show when you have the subject in focus:



The in-focus dot is there on most other Nikon cameras as well, in case you choose to use manual focus on them.

(I feel like an idiot for not having realised this before. I probably shot around 1000 pictures with manual focus without looking for the green dot. But it is quite well hidden in the manual.)

About D50

My first DSLR was a D50. I changed it for a D40X (later complemented with a D300). The move D50 > D40X was a step both up and down.

• The D50 has less pixels than the D40X. This is not necessarily a problem, but for cropping photos, the additional pixels on the D40X really help.
• The D50 has a control panel with shooting data on the top, just like the D300 and other more expensive cameras. The control panel display can be convenient, but the same information is of course accessible in the D40X in other places - like the big monitor on the back and in the viewfinder. The control panel makes the camera bigger.
• The D50 has vertically positioned focus points, something I used all the time. Sometimes I rotate the D40X to portrait mode just to get the focus points righ.
• The D50 has an auto-focus motor for lenses without built-in motor. If you only have lenses with built-in motors, this is of course no big advantage.
• The D50 does not accept SDHC memory cards, which means it is limited to 4G cards. On the other hand, the images are smaller, so that never turned into a problem for me.
• Settings like white balance and ISO are easily accessible on the D50, but you have to know where to look for them. On the D40X they are easier to find, but less easy to use. Neither camera is particularly good in this respect, if one compares with the D300.
• The D50 is heavier than the D40X, which is extremely small and light - at least for being a DSLR.
  

All in all, I do not miss the D50, in spite of its advantages. It was a good entry level camera, but everything it did well, my D300 does even better.

About D40X

D40X is a very light entry level DSLR from Nikon. When carrying weight is more important than getting the absolutely best possible photo, the D40X is much more useful than a bulky but excellent camera like the D300, D700 or D3.

The most important difference between the D40X and its sibling, the D40, is that the D40X has 10.2 million pixels, while the D40 only has 6.1 million pixels. For many situations there is no reason to aim for more pixels, and in a few situations it is even bad for the image quality. However, all new DSLRs from Nikon have at least 10 million pixels, so it is something we will have to adapt to.

Like other entry-level DSLRs, and most compact cameras, the D40X has a number of "programs", like Portrait, Sport or Close-up, with settings that supposedly are good for particular situations. However, it is very difficult to figure out what kind of settings the camera maker considers good for a particular situation. As experienced users prefer more control, high end cameras do not have this kind of preset programs.

The D40X is reasonably flexible, but Nikon does not seem to think that the user can handle all settings efficiently, so some are half hidden away. To change the ISO, for example, there is no way of doing that without accessing lit up menus or windows on the LCD, which can be embarrassing in some low light situations, where the light potentially disturbs bystanders. For a user who trusts the auto-ISO function, this is of course not a problem.

Like many older DSLRs the D40X does not have Liveview display of the motive on the LCD screen.

The D40X does not support bracketing.

The D40X has only three possible focus points, aligned horizontally. This can be a problem when taking photos of ships at the horizon, as the logical disposition often is to have the ship fairly low on the photo with a lot of sky on top.

The D40X works well with almost all Nikon lenses, even really high-end ones. The ability to change lenses is one of the big advantages of DSLRs compared to compact cameras.

The D40X uses SDHC cards to store images.

About D300

D300 is a "mid range" DSLR from Nikon. Here are some of the features that makes it stand out against low range DSLRs, or at least compared to the D40X.

• The D300 has Liveview, so you can see the motive on the LCD screen before taking a photo. The function is somewhat clunky compared to compact cameras, but there are situations where it is indispensible.
• The D300 has easy access to standard configurations, like changing ISO or image size and quality.
• The D300 has bracketing, which means that the camera can take several pictures in a row with slightly different configurations. This is very useful for HDR.
• The D300 has an auto focus motor, so lenses without auto focus motor still work without manual adjustments.
• The D300 has higher ISO and much better noise control in low light situations.
• The D300 has slightly more pixels than current low end Nikon DSLRs.
• The D300 has more 51 possible focus points, so the focus point can be virtually anywhere in the picture. Low end cameras have much fewer points - sometimes just 3.
  
• The D300 has a faster motor, so it can take 6 photos per second, while a low end camera may only take half of that. The high speed is very useful for photos of moving objects like birds, acrobats and Formula 1 cars.

The cameras that currently are defined as high range are the D3 and D700. However, already the mid range D300 can easily create pictures that can be used for serious professional purposes.

D50 vs. D40X & D300

There are two things I consider incredibly important in a camera:

1. It should be good.
2. It should be light.

My first Single Reflex Camera was a Nikon D50, which was a good compromise. It was fairly good and fairly light. However, this year I decided to upgrade in both directions. Therefore I got a D40X, which is incredibly light as SLRs go, and then a D300, which is really good.

The D40X I use when I travel or go on hikes, and the D300 I use when I want to actually take good pictures.


D40X with AF-S DX VR 18-200 f/3.5-5.6G lens. Light and powerful.

For a comparison between these and other Nikon DSLRs check for example Nikonians' comparison chart and Imaging Resources' reviews, which have some interesting performance information regarding auto-focus speed.