I stated yesterday that it was going to be the last post about the V1 and the 10-30 f3.5-5.6 VR lens. Well, I decided to make one last post. I will be stating my likes and dislikes about the system and lenses available as of this post. Don't forget, I take some time in posting these things so there could well be developments in this area even before this post comes out.

Likes:
It's small, light and the battery lasts forever. It's the same one used in their DSLR range of cameras so they can't be that bad.
It's quick to focus and metering is excellent. This is my first Nikon camera believe it or not and I'm just wondering what the metering is like in their DSLR range. I know that I wasn't all that happy with the Canon metering and I've tested systems that are much better than Canon. Maybe I should have switched years ago, but you know how it is.
The lenses seem to be getting better. The 18.5 f1.8 lens is great but I won't be buying the 32 f1.2 unless they reduce the price considerably (although it comes close to my favourite focal length).
The raw files are good and since I'm a raw shooter, the jpg engine interests me very little.

I was amazed when I ran the above image through LR4.4. The dynamic range is very good and sharpness is there too. When I import my raw files into LR I make sure that they are all zeroed which means that the files look flat and lack contrast. Totally different to how the jpg files look...overcooked.
Most of my work is done in LR and I use Photoshop at the end to do some touches, resize and normally sharpen and add a frame. This doesn't take long as I've saved some actions to do the mundane stuff.
I'm going to out a limb here and say that the file has a film like quality to it and it's the sort of look I get from my Voigtländer lenses. I like it too and strive to find a workflow that gives me this permanently. I'm still looking by the way.
As this is going to be the last post from the V1 for the moment I have to tell you that the 6.7-13 f3.5-5.6 VR is on the way. Actually by the time you read this post it should have arrived. I was missing that wide end that I know I would be pining for if I didn't have a lens in that focal range. I just hope the weather is going to get better than it's is now so I can get out get some photography done.

After seeing images made with the 18 f1.8 lens and again looking up the prices, I decided that this would be a good lens for portraits. It gives you an equivalent focal length of approximately 50mm on a full frame camera. Not my favourite focal length as I prefer the 80-135 range and sometimes even longer than that, but that's all there is at the time of this post.
Images from this lens are very good indeed. They should make more lenses of this calibre in my opinion but I assume that people who use this system will prefer zooms. Presently this lens will cost you €160 which is amazing price for lens like this.
Nikon have also introduced the 11-27.5 f3.5-5.6 lens which I can't really understand since it's very close to the 10-30 f3.5-5.6 lens. There may be advantages to the lens but right now, I just don't see it. That is one lens the I won't be purchasing.

One of the advantages of these smaller format sensors is the increased DOF you get. This is a great advantage for all landscape photographers where depth of field is normally of critical importance. That is not to say that shallow DOF isn't possible with this system, it is.

The smaller sensor gives you a multiplication factor that you have to use to compare your lenses to the 35mm format (if you're inclined to do this sort of thing). This means, for instance, the Nikkor 1 30-110 f3.8-5.6 VR lens can be compared to an 80-300 lens on a full frame camera (approximately). For the younger photographers this might not mean much because they haven't used full frame cameras, but for people like myself, I like to convert these values to the full frame equivalent because then I know what to take with me when going out on a shoot. I still think in 35mm terms when it comes to lenses, so I suppose that just shows my age to all. In time and after using the system a lot more I won't have to do this because I will know what the different lenses will give me in terms of field of view.

After seeing what the 30-110 and the 10 f2.8 lenses could do I decided that my 10-30 wasn't really all that good. So I got another copy very cheaply off the Internet and set out one sunny afternoon to do some test shots. My test shots tend to be rather boring and mundane and are meant for me to test out these tools. They do mean something to me and do  tell me a lot about the lens because of what and how I photograph the world around me.

This second copy is much better than the first and is a keeper. I am now much happier with the system and the more I work with it the better the images seem. I think people would find it difficult to tell the difference between these images and any other camera on the market today. I'm not saying that you can replace a Nikon D88 with the Nikon V1 but images posted on the Internet are of course much smaller and the difference cannot really be seen.

Printing is another matter, especially when you start to print big. I wouldn't start thinking about printing the V1 images at poster size, I don't think the camera was meant for that but up to a size of say 30 x 20 centimetre prints there would be no noticeable difference. This is just my opinion of course and yours may differ from mine.

Reading more about the camera and seeing results people were getting with the 30-110 f3.8-5.6 VR, I started to think that my kit lens wasn't really up to it. Quite a few reviews weren't all that impressed with it at all. Looking at the prices of these lenses I decided I could afford to go for the 30-110 f3.8-5.6 VR lens and if things didn't work out I could sell it and not lose too much on the purchase I'd made.

For those of you who have been following this photoblog for some time may remember that I posted a couple of images from this system earlier this year. They can be found here and here.

Using Four Third lenses on m4/3 does work (the PL 14-150 is a good example) but some are not optimized for contrast detec focusing and performance is abysmal to say the least. This lens is an okay  performer on Four Third cameras, not brilliant, just okay. When shooting macro AF doesn't play a role for me and I focus manually with every macro lens I own. It's just as well because putting this on a m4/3 camera via a four thirds to m4/3 adapter doesn't enhance it's performance in any way. Takes nice images though.