The Nikon 1 V1 5 month ('ish) report

kygarden

It's been a little under six months since I bought the Nikon 1 V1 with the SB-N5 flash and the 10mm, 10-30mm and 30-110mm lenses. I have to say, I'm still very impressed by this little gem (which gets almost no attention - though Rob Galbraith and some other well know pros use and and praise it). It's fast, small, has outstanding metering and very good image quality. I'll insert some images I've shot below and also give you a link to my SmugMug gallery for the V1 that has lots and lots of examples. Images processed in Adobe Lightroom.

The main gallery:
http://www.openbloom.com/GEAR-Etc-1/Nikon-1-V1/19648888_Nn5D4F

Another gallery shot in a dimly lit (spotlights mainly) air force museum:
http://www.openbloom.com/VACATION-AND-SHORT-TRIPS/MUSEUMS-ZOOS/US-Air-Force-Museum-Nikon-V1/21029581_xcd28D

My ISO test gallery:
http://www.openbloom.com/Other/Nikon-V1-ISO-Test/19658418_fpQQ6w

I'll defend this little gem until my last breath. LOL It's a winner in my book. Almost every image was shot handheld. I rarely use a tripod. The air force museum is entirely handheld at mostly 1/15 sec.

















There's the little V1 next to his big brother.

ziggy53

Very nice tonality and excellent image "pop". Nikon is really getting everything it can out of that imager. Kudos to you for compositions, subject matter and processing. thumb

Thanks for sharing.

kygarden

Thanks, Ziggy. I appreciate that! It'll get the job done...but it's still no SLR (if you need higher performance).

adbsgicom

Nice stuff. You certainly seem to have gotten a lot out of the camera. What is your take on the flash unit. Some previews/reviews didn't like that the V1 didn't have a pop-up and required the mini-speedlite. Do you just use it for fill (and can it be controlled as such)?

kygarden

adbsgicom wrote: »

Nice stuff. You certainly seem to have gotten a lot out of the camera. What is your take on the flash unit. Some previews/reviews didn't like that the V1 didn't have a pop-up and required the mini-speedlite. Do you just use it for fill (and can it be controlled as such)?

Thanks :-)
The flash is small, well built and tilts/swivels in all directions for bouncing flash. It doesn't seem to be as integrated as Nikon's larger SB units (you can only use the SB-N5 on the V1 though). I mean, my D700/SB-600 combo for example is awesome for fill flash but the SB-N5 doesn't seem to be as 'Nikon'ish' as the bigger flashes. It does well but just not as well as the larger cameras and flashes. You can control the flash via the body, like added flash exposure compensation. Bounce flash with low ceilings works pretty well and direct flash works well. I rarely use flash so I'm probably not the best person to ask about this. I leave the flash on the V1 all the time. It's so small I see no reason to remove it. It's there when I need it.