I’ve believed from the start that Nikon 1 cameras are capable of great results. Before I bought the V1 last November, I counted myself lucky when one of my images on flickr was viewed 100 or 200 times. Although I’m perfectly aware that flickr views are meaningless, it’s nice to be able to produce photographs, which interest people. The fact that many of my images taken with the V1 are rather popular (500 views on average) reassures me that I’m not a deluded fanboy praising the camera to the skies. Other people seem to like the output the V1, especially with the 18.5mm f/1.8, is capable of just as much as I do. I now have over a dozen photos with over 1000 views (UPDATE: over a 170 photos as of 12/2013). Here are some of them:
And there are dozens more approaching 1000 views very fast.
What this tells me is that although I’m often very critical of Nikon’s marketing, Nikon have managed to produce a camera which suits me very well and rarely holds me back. Would an APS-C sensor have helped me produce even better, even more popular images? Perhaps. But as you may have noticed, all of these were taken with ISOs up to 400 or maybe 800, which is a sensitivity range in which even the 1″ sensor produces excellent results. Even if I had shot these with a D800, they wouldn’t have been of much better technical quality. More resolution and less DOF, yes, but otherwise? People seem to obsess over sensor size, when in realty your lenses, or rather lack of these, are what can be a limiting factor. For example: I would have liked to be able to shoot macros with a 1:1 native macro lens, sadly Nikon doesn’t offer one. Instead I’m forced to improvise by shooting with the 10-30mm and an achromatic lens, the Marumi +5. I would also like to have a fast, native telephoto zoom, to shoot birds, animals and portraits. There is none! But I’m still hoping that Nikon will introduce such a lens soon and that’s why I haven’t bought the 30-110mm. The reason why I’m not considering a DX/FX Nikkor with the FT1 adapter is because I want full AF support and because these lenses are needlessly heavy, since they need to cover a much larger image circle. The adapter adds bulk and weight as well.
A firmware update for the V1, which allows you to disable image review and fixes some control quirks, would also have helped me produce better images, probably much, much more than a larger sensor would have.
The moral of the story is, if you are going to obsess about some aspects of your gear, obsess about lenses and camera usability, forget the sensor. People who make you believe that it all depends on sensor size are doing you a disservice by lying to you.
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I agree. I LOVE my Nikon 1V1 camera and 30-110 mm lens. Plus I think many people are like me and view and share their images online. If your not printing super large prints who really needs more image size than what the V1 has?
You are right, 18Mp the V3 offers is overkill for the 1″ sensor. It would be better if Nikon stuck with 10MP and improved dynamic range and noise performance. I’m shooting with the OM-D E-M10 as at the time, and so far I don’t see the benefit of having 16MP, but I see the benefit of having an additional stop of usable High ISO performance.