To all of you doubting the Nikon 1:

Markw · Sep 26, 2011

I watched this. I'm sure some of you did as well, but I just wanted to post this video to show you all just why the 1 shouldn't be underestimated.

He says something very important at the end. He says that the technology could be implemented in future cameras, which is very true. The chimping features will be well taken by all of the pro sports shooters and wildlife fanatics like myself. The hybrid AF would be well accepted by just about everyone, I'd say. Could be something extremely interesting for video in future cameras. By the way. The video AF in this camera is nothing to be scoffed at either. It looks like a killer of a camera. I can begin to see very good potential for whatever Nikon has put into the newer Pro models to truly be revolutionary to the DSLR world. Not saying it would be if the technology was directly copied into the new DSLRs, but if they took the time to put these features into the 1, they should have great things coming with the new DSLRs. The Expeed 3 processor alone will be a huge improvement. Shutter actuations would impede on FPS, but who REALLY needs 60FPS in a DSLR? No one. But who would complain to have a translucent sensored DSLR with 25FPS, full-res RAW images with full-time, extremely fast and accurate AF during both burst and video? Certainly not me. I know all of this is a huge stretch of the imagination, but who knows? Maybe it's not. Something cool to see would be an extra tablet-like device with a stylus that recieved the same image as the LCD from the camera, simply trace the subject with the stylus to track with AF. Who knows. All I'm saying is that there's alot of technology in this little beast of a P&S, or baby DSLR. However you choose to look at it. If Nikon did this, things are looking up for the future, I'd say.

Mark

Derrel · Sep 26, 2011

I am enthused by the International-Harvester hay baler styling cues they have incorporated into the exterior design of the 1-series models...the cheap, stamped sheet steel looking exterior...the blocky, "easy grease fittings!" design lines, and the "rugged, works in even the dustiest, roughest fields!" type of ad copy Nikon is spewing forth with the introduction of the two 1-series cameras. Rich, suburban soccer moms with $1,200 to drop on a little camera and lens set, who want to be seen sitting in the stands, snapping away, are gonna' like the 1-series cams. With the 2.7x crop factor, the little sensor is going to be able to pull some serious telephoto shots in, and the $699 and $899 basic prices are steep enough to keep the camera out of the hands of regular Point and Shooters, and more in the hands of hipsters and the affluent soccer mom set. The camera's image quality tops out at, basically, ISO 800...after that it's all noise reduction and mush.

The marketplace will determine how well the Nikon 1 is received; the technical merits of the camera are not what will make it succeed or fail. As Mike Johnston pointed out at The Online Photographer in his article about the Nikon 1, when people are put together in a focus group, in a room, and logically explained the benefits of a product, over several hours' time, they will tell you they LIKE the product; however, when the product is released to the marketplace and is out there, alone on the shelf, against any and all competing models, all of that fantasy focus group support usually vanishes...point being, it is EASY to bamboozle a room full of people, and to convince them that they like and want the product being demonstrated or discussed at length; that is the exact point of events like the Nikon press promotional event seen above: sexy models, four or five of them, handling and stroking the camera, like whores if you will, scantily clad, and striking poses, while the invited guests are handed cameras and allowed to snap photos of professional models in window light...two editors from Popular Photography attended the event shown above, and their shots are already up on the Pop Photo site...lots of shots of the skyline, shot through WINDOW GLASS--laughable!!!! THose sexy models....check....but, no shots of a kid's birthday party....no shots of a junior high basketball game...no shots of a a soccer game...no Facebook shots of young women all drunk...no shots from a fishing trip...

NO SHOTS OF ANY SUBSTANCE, whatsoever, from anybody that really MATTERS...just snaps from invited guests, eating free cheese, crackers, wine,sodas,and ales...the photographic press...they are the same class of people who, as MIke pointed out, LOVED the APS-C film system....you know, the last still-born film format before digital...

I'm not trying to dig on you Markw, but the market is already established in the small interchangeable lens, non-SLR system...I'm not sure that this new small-sensor camera can make it with ONLY Nikon offering it...and moreover, I want to see some "real" pictures of it, by "real" people...not the photo press, in a hotel suite, with free food and booze and free professional models lounging around on Nikon's dime...I do not doubt Nikon as a camera maker, but I do doubt the marketplace's REAL, wallet-opening, credit-card-billing, checkbook-denting desires to buy a NIkon 1...

usayit · Sep 27, 2011

Another view.... as eluded by Derrel

The Online Photographer: Micro 4/3 is the Big Kahuna

Mirrorless is an important emerging market IMO... more competion the better. Be interesting to see how the Nikon fairs on its own shelve next to competitors. The 2.7x crop is a deal breaker in my book.... 2x is tolerable as I adapt many lenses... and the advantage is smaller lens designs. The more I read about it the more I see things that are further deal breakers. For example 1/60 sync speed.... I do like the idea of both contrast and phase af working together. Oh yeh... Nikon hasnt had much success in the PS arena.... well have to see how they do in mirrorless

2WheelPhoto · Sep 27, 2011

They appear to be wonderful facebook.com cameras, maybe they'll light the market up.

Derrel · Sep 27, 2011

usayit said:
Another view.... as eluded by Derrel

The Online Photographer: Micro 4/3 is the Big Kahuna

Mirrorless is an important emerging market IMO... more competion the better. Be interesting to see how the Nikon fairs on its own shelve next to competitors. The 2.7x crop is a deal breaker in my book.... 2x is tolerable as I adapt many lenses... and the advantage is smaller lens designs.

"eluded"....hilarious try at the English language Usayit...figure out the right word next time you try and make an insult. Mmmkay?

It really bugs you that people are not jumping up and down for joy about a new toy format camera system, doesn't it! Again, though, all we need to do is to go back through history to see all the FAILED single-manufacturer formats, such as Kodak's "answer to 135mm cartridges", the 828 format. Or the 126 cartridge format. Or the 110 cartridge format. Or Kodak's own Disc Format. Or Kodak's proprietary 120 imitation, the "620" film size...and of course, the APS-C format...and of course Olympus's efforts at half-frame 135mm film, the "half-frame format". last tried by Yashica with the Samurai series half-frame cameras....and of course, who can forget the 127 film format. Again, it is not the photographic press that Nikon needs to sway in a hotel room with models and free food and drinks--Nikon needs to convince MILLIONS of people,world-wide, to part with $699 + lens money and $899 + lens money to buy a brand-new, ONE-manufacturer, CLOSED system that uses an even-smaller sensor than M4/3... And uh, who here remembers Kodak's ill-fated entry into instant film cameras and film? Oh man, what a doozy that fiasco was!!! Laser Disc ring a bell, Usayit???

The point I was "alluding to" (that's the word you were trying to grasp, I think, but with you, who knows...) is that Nikon is trying to do what Kodak has tried to do repeatedly, and which Kodak has repeatedly FAILED at: to CREATE the very markets they wanted to compete in....sorry Usayit, but in New Joisey, that might work with the Mafia....but in the rest of the world, the market and the consumers determine the success of any product category...not the people selling and creating the products. Nikon is trying to create a brand-new format...Kodak tried that many,many tiems, and failed spectacularly....Kodak Photo CD ring a bell??? Snicker...

Microsoft Zune MP3 player....snicker...oh, you bought one of those too, right? Laughs.... Sorry, I went with the iPod when it came out, andf still have an iPod. Enjoy your Zune, Usayit! Send me a Sony Betamax recording of your complaints, and I'll send you back mine of a DVD disc, mmmkay?? Make sure to drive it down to the shipper's offices in your electric car.

Bitter Jeweler · Sep 27, 2011

WTF were they thinking with the Disc film?

Derrel · Sep 27, 2011

Bitter Jeweler said:
WTF were they thinking with the Disc film?

SPECIFICALLY, Kodak engineers wanted to create a film format SMALLER than 110, so that a slowish-aperture lens would have absolutely pan focus, meaning infinite depth of field. Snapshooters were complaining about the then-egregious 3 foot minimum focus distance necessitated by the "large" 110- and 126-cartridge cameras with fixed focus lenses. So, Kodak figured, hey, let's create a NEW film capture size, a really,really,really small one, so that we can have DOF from 12 inches to Infinity. We will make it cartridge-loading, and idiot-proof, in terms of negatives, negative handling, etc...the negatives, teeny little things that they were, were held all on the "disc", in one location, so negs were never in need of cutting, sleeving,etc. Grandmas and new parents were able to shoot pics with the camera 12 inches to 18 inches from the faces of newborns and puppies and daisies and roses, and get IN-FOCUS snapshots. This account was from Herbert Keppler, of Modern Photograpy magazine, one of the USA's most knowledgeable camera industry insiders,may he rest in peace.

Bitter Jeweler · Sep 27, 2011

Ahhhh.

My sister had one of those cameras.

I had a 110.

Thanks for the info Derrel.

Markw · Sep 27, 2011

I think my post was a little misinterpreted, and rightfully so after I went back and re-read it. I didn't mean that the camera was a magnificent creation and will blow all of the other cameras off the shelves. I meant to put the point across that the whole concept of the creation of this camera wasn't necessarily a terrible idea, given all the technology in it. I meant it like a "all is not lost for Nikon" concept, to say that Nikon has potential for their new DSLRs. A lot of people are getting a little disgusted with Nikon's delayed schedule. So, I was simply trying to open up the option to look at this as a good thing. To lighten the mood a little. I don't know how plausible that is, though.

P.S. One thing Nikon did plan out well was calling it the Nikon 1. They have a clear direction of where to move for further generations (2, 3, etc).

Mark

tirediron · Sep 27, 2011

Derrel said:
I am enthused by the International-Harvester hay baler styling cues they have incorporated into the exterior design...

You take that back or we're going to meet out behind the bike racks at recess! Raymond Loewy would NEVER have produced something that looked like that! I think the styling alone will relegate it to the soccer-mom and Facebook set, regardless of how it performs.