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| This butcher bird sat uncharacteristically still for more than two seconds so I was able to get a shot with the P900. Pity about no RAW capture though. |
Of all the corporations which make cameras, Nikon may be most heavily reliant on cameras for its income. Most of the others make refrigerators, TVs….. etc….etc with cameras forming a minor division.
One might imagine therefore that Nikon would be the R&D leader in camera technologies. Maybe not, that would probably be Sony, however Nikon has produced some interesting cameras this year.
The mainstay of Nikon’s output continues to be DSLRs.
I have no interest in these as I explained in Chapter 1 of this little series.
But Nikon has the 1 Series of MILCs and also its long running Coolpix line of fixed lens cameras, most of which are zooms.
1 Series
The curious name “1” for this series of cameras derives from the same quaint logic which led to the “Micro 4/3” name for MILCs with a somewhat larger sensor.
Way back in the bygone days, cathode ray tubes or something like that were used to capture video.
The diameter of the tube, expressed in inches, determined the effective size of the light receptive sensor at the end of the tube.
So the tube which might have been required to house a 17.3x13mm sensor (found in M43 cameras) would have been about 1.33 (4/3) inches.
The tube which might have been required to house a 13.2x8.8mm sensor (found in Nikon 1 cameras) would have been about 1 inch.
Hence the naming by numbers which appear unrelated to the actual product.
Nikon introduced the “1” series in 2011. Right from the start there was a very strange dichotomy between the internal workings and the external form of these cameras as if the team working on the internals had no connection to the team working on the casing and user interface.
The internals have been characterised by outstanding performance with extremely high frame rates featuring continuous AF and predictive AF on every frame.
The ‘V” versions of the 1 Series could be an enthusiast/professional sport/action/bird/wildlife photographers dream if well implemented.
But the casing and user interface has apparently been aimed at “cute teenage Facebook girl” with
Coolpix style compact camera layout, funky colors and jazzy functions.
It appears Nikon doesn’t know what it wants to do with the 1 Series.
Our family had a V2 with 10-100mm lens for a while but it went as soon as the FZ1000 came along with much better picture quality and performance from the same sized sensor.
The latest 1 series offering from Nikon is the J5. This is not a camera which I would consider buying due to the ongoing internal/external dichotomy.
However I am going to nominate it as the Most Interesting camera of 2015.
Why ? Because it has no mechanical shutter. It operates entirely with the electronic shutter.
Why is this interesting ? Because in my view the mechanical focal plane shutter is the curse of modern interchangeable lens cameras and the sooner it disappears the better.
Mechanical shutters create vibration during the exposure which can lead to degradation of image quality in some, not always predictable, circumstances.
Now it appears we have a camera running entirely on E- Shutter which can shoot 20 frames per second with predictive AF and (maybe) EVF refresh on every frame (not sure about that, the V2 couldn’t do it) shutter speeds from 2 minutes to 1/16000 sec and compatibility with flash.
I don’t know if there is a catch to this. Each of the other cameras which (probably) uses the same sensor namely the Canon G7X, G3X, Sony RX100(3), RX10 (1) and Panasonic FZ1000 has a mechanical shutter so maybe the J5 is missing some capability.
Never mind, the fact that it runs entirely without a mechanical shutter makes the J5 interesting and the 1 Series space definitely worth watching.
Coolpix
Some time back I bought a Coolpix P7800, a not-so-compact camera with an excellent lens and quite good picture quality. Unfortunately its performance in terms of operating speed was tediously slow so it did not last long in my camera drawer.
This year Nikon startled the camera world with the P900 and its amazing 83x zoom lens. One member of our household is very keen to make bird photos for which the P900 seemed ideal so we bought one and gave it a good workout over a period of two months.
But the P900 proved to be a sheep in wolfs clothing. That big lens is attached to a Coolpix body with the slow old C2 processor from the P7800 and other Coolpix cameras.
Our birdwatcher has gone back to the FZ1000. It zooms out to an effective E800mm with i-Zoom, has a better EVF, better picture quality and faster operation .
If Nikon really wants to capture the amateur/budget sport/action/bird/wildlife market they need to improve operating and processing speed. They already have the ability to do this. The J5 mentioned above uses the Expeed 5A processor which runs very fast.
So no more Nikons for me this year but I will keep a close eye on developments in the 1 Series and Coolpix lines which I believe have great potential if only the product development people would agree to roll out fully powered products unrestrained by artificial shackles.
But we can’t have that, can we ? They might compete with the DSLRs.
Addendum: Leica
Leica did not get a separate post from me as the brand is somewhat of a niche-within-a-niche player.
I resolved some time ago to never again buy any camera without a built in EVF.
Not counting rebadged Panasonic Lumix models that excludes all Leicas but the recently released Q which has a single focal length 28mm lens on full frame.
In the film days I used compacts with fixed 28 and 35mm lenses. I found the 28mm too wide for general photography with the 35mm focal length being more versatile.
The other problem for Australian buyers is uncertainty about Leica’s commitment to warranty and servicing.
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