Nikon 1 System : After 2 months of use

Lets see, i mostly use the M9 nowadays but after getting the V1, i was enjoying it for a while and now is time to share my thoughts on it.

The biggest problem and this really makes the V1 INFERIOR to ANY 4/3  is that you could not have shallow DOF due to the sensor size. I know this have been repeated over and over again so much so that Selena
Gomez "repeat peat peat peat" song comes in handy while writing this. But, i cannot help but emphasize on this point.

Here are 5 reasons why the lack of shallow DOF makes a camera near USELESS for todays use :

1. Nearly all movies/shows and ads you seen depends on shallow DOF or employ shallow DOF to give that pop visual impact. The Out of focus area or "blur" or bokeh is as important as the subject in focus.

2. Portrait/people photography are severely limited in beauty and appeal without shallow DOF. If you take a look a http://prosophos.com/ and wonder why his family images are so appealing, you only need to look at the f stops used. Most often its 1.4 or 2 and that means the images background are blurred to give the beautiful people in there a real pop.

3. Without shallow DOF, a 2d image (all photos are) layout of pixels gets badly mixed up with the background's pixel since essentially a deep DOF shows everything clearly, this renders the focus away from the subject unless you are shooting scenery all the time which requires deep DOF.

4. Its whats differentiate a P&S crap camera from the big DSLR brothers. Nikon 1 is super crap as long as it can't employ shallow DOF to its images. (it could when u position it real close to the subject or long zoom). Why buy a camera that give the output that is essentially a P&S and yet pay more?

5. Shallow DOF allows powerful distance blurring that is relative to distance. This cannot be duplicated or mimic properly by any software. No, not even bokeh2.0

Apart from that, the TOTAL lack of fast lens on the V1 makes its inferior to any 4/3 offering. For Eg, I was shooting in a cloudy day, on the OMD it requires just base iso with the 2.8 f, on the V1 its asking for ISO 800 on the same aperture! Nikon 1 system, is essentially a glorified P&S camera with an appealing auto-focus.

* Update : Sony released its own camera RX100 using the same sensor. In fact this makes more sense and the lens goes all the way from 28mm-100mm starting with F1.8! So this gonna trash Nikon silly 1 system any time and does it without purposely making it an "interchangable system"

My thoughts on the Nikon v1

While there are many praises and reviews on this camera, i thought it would only be fair if i go around and play with it before i pass on my conclusion to it. Its been some months now since it was released and one respected review (steve huff) which i often refer to, also praises it for its overall capability and there are even comparison with 4/3rds systems.

Now after playing with it around for a while, i came to a very simple conclusion. The camera is unable to perform any decent shallow depth of field (bokeh) apart from close up shots. The ability to do DOF is very important, sometimes even more important than sharp focusing, this is my personal opinion. Hence the Nikon V1, would not be preferred over 4/3 systems cause 4/3 could easily do bokeh that this small gem can't.

Limiting yourself to just large DOFs is nothing more than what compacts have been delivering all these years. Yeah sure u can slap in the FT mount and put in a 50mm 1.8 nikon lens, but that would be transformed into a 135mm lens, that means you either pay very expensively for wide-angle lens so that your 2.7 crop factor would make it into a 35-50mm format or you are stuck with the current slow lens that is offered. 

Come on, the Sony and 4/3rd have much better pancake lens than a 10mm 2.8 and could deliver bokeh easily. 

In all fairness, I would find it hardpressed that any salted photographer would find the V1 anything more than just amusing or infatuation. 

Here is one that i took recently, notice how DOF makes it all more interesting...

** here is the joke though, i bought the V1 after writing this. I call it Leica-M-auto-syndrome, after using leica M and manual focusing for sometime, bokeh or not, hell i need a camera that focus super fast and one that i can use as simple snaps without compromising quality too much and without getting too near to the M9 

Updated : Having said that, its now been 5 months since i played with the V1. Nikon should really have used a bigger sensor. Rightnow, its just a glorified point and shoot. If you are thinking of buying it, i suggest no, instead go for X-pro1 or OMD. 

Upgrading your skills

Its very hard to change how a person behaves. That is bec its equally hard to change how a person thinks.
In photography, your skills and "creative eye" are limited by your own set of thinking and to really break out of the hole that you dug urself in, you can do either one of the following :-

1. purposely shoot how you would never shoot
2. copy someone's else composition

I attended a Bride's theme shooting lately and i tried to modify my default shooting behavior as much as i could. I could already imagine and see how other photographers who participated in the event will end up getting the same images, so i tried to move anywhere that i don't see them moving to.