where there’s smoke there’s fire

Nikon 1 V1 Vs. Olympus PEN EP-3

This is a follow up to the Nikon 1 V1 review. In this post we will show comparison images and video taken with the Nikon V1 w/ 10mm f/2.8 (two lens kit price: $996.95) and  Olympus PEN EP-3 w/ 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens (one lens kit price: $899.99).

Still Image Comparisons

In the first half of the article, we discussed still image quality and compared the Nikon V1 and Olympus PEN EP-3 on paper. DR, SnR and Color Sensitivity numbers only tell half the story. How did the Nikon V1 fare against the Olympus PEN EP-3 with its larger µ 4/3rd sensor in real-life shooting?

NOTE: There is a difference in resolution between the Nikon V1 and the Olympus PEN EP-3. The Nikon V1 is 10.1 MP vs. Olympus EP-3’s 12.3 MP. There is also a difference in focal lengths in this test. The Nikon 1-Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 pancake is mounted on the V1 (35mm equivalent: 27mm) and the Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake is mounted on the EP-3 (35mm equivalent: 34mm). I could have used a zoom lens on the V1 for this test to obtain the same equivalent focal length, but I didn’t want to stop the cameras down in this low-light shooting environment. This would of meant longer exposure times, which would introduce more noise into each shot and Long Exposure NR would of tainted the test results even more. So, I opted to deal with the differences in focal lengths in favor of a more “true” test.

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The Nikon 1 system: A [NR] hands-on review by Cary Jordan

The Nikon 1 system might be one of the most talked about interchangeable lens systems in Nikon’s history. While it was built as a new system from the ground-up, it’s been surrounded with controversy, speculation and even pure hatred. Now that the Nikon 1 system has been released and is in the hands of photographers around the world, it seems a lot of the speculation and hatred was completely unfounded and was based solely on the unknown (I admit, I am was a skeptic as well) and Nikon’s choice to build the system around the newly Nikon designed CX format (13.2mm x 8.8mm, 2.7x crop factor) 10.1 MP CMOS sensor. Nikon’s reasoning for the Nikon 1 design is now clear and actually quite brilliant, considering the 1’s target market. While the Nikon 1 represents major technological advancements the photography world has never before seen, it’s not without its flaws (although, very few indeed).In this article, we will present to you the Nikon 1 system, in all its glory and its faults. As icing on the cake, we will pit the Nikon V1 against one of its main competitors, the µ 4/3rds Olympus PEN EP-3 (the comparison will be coming online few hours after this post).

In this article, we tested the Nikon V1 (kit price $846.95), Nikon 1-Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 pancake ($246.95), Nikon 1-Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 and the Nikon 1-Nikkor VR 10-100 f/4.5-5.6 PD-Zoom ($746.95). We will break the article up into four main categories, one for each piece of equipment. Each category will be broken-down into the appropriate sub-categories that pertain to each item. At the end of the article, we will present sample images taken with the system. The first set of images are presented straight out of the camera (JPEG Fine) with ZERO post-processing. We will also provide separate sample images that have been post-processed from the V1’s NEF files to show how the Nikon V1’s RAW files fair in professional post-processing. In a separate post we will show comparison images and videos with the Olympus PEN EP-3 w/ 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens.

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