Folks who visit my blog on a regular basis know that I like to shoot dogs, cats, macro and portraits. This time around I’m posting some of my latest dog photos taken with the Nikon V1, 18.5mm f/1.8 and “Plastilux” 50mm f/1.4 C-Mount lens. Let’s begin with the shots taken with the 18.5mm f/1.8.
All photos, except the last one, were taken with a Nikon V1 and Nikon 18.5mm f/1.8. The last one was shot with the V1 and the 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6. 🙂
I tried to photograph some of these stray cats with a DSLR, but as soon as the mirror claps most of them run away. This doesn’t happen with the Nikon V1 and Nikon 18.5mm f/1.8. As soon as the electronic shutter is enabled, the camera is silent. If you close the aperture, there is a faint noise of aperture blades closing, right before the images is being captured. If you stay at f/1.8 however, the camera makes no noise whatsoever. The loudest sound is the finger tipping the shutter release button. 😉
The Nikon V1, with its small size and thanks to the electronic shutter silent operation, is a perfect cat capturing machine. Which lens you end up using for cat pictures is up to you. I use the Nikon 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 and the Nikon 18.5mm f/1.8. If you get close, you can achieve nice bokeh with both of them. The 18.5mm is best used at full aperture at f/1.8 and the 10-30mm at the long end, also wide open, if bokeh is what you are after. Here are some cat samples with the V1 and both the Nikkors.
The 18.5mm f/1.8 is a sharp lens, even wide open. And sharp lenses tend to produce relatively harsh (as in opposite of creamy/buttery/smooth) bokeh. That seems to be the case with the 18.5mm as well. More often than not, the bokeh is harsh, and it isn’t easy to achieve bokeh with the small 1″ sensor in the first place. You really have to stay away from foliage. However, pleasing bokeh isn’t downright impossible with the Nikkor. You just have to be careful and avoid “nervous” backgrounds.
I’m very pleased with the high ISO performance of the comparatively tiny 1″ sensor. IMO ISO1600 is perfectly usable. ISO3200 on the other hand is more situational. Sometimes it’s all good, other times it’s noisy as hell. I guess you have to be much more precise with exposure when using ISO3200. However, that is nothing new to me. High sensitivity film behaved the same way. The higher you go, less room for error you have.
