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Saturday, 10 January 2015

Nikon 1 V2 Ergonomic Score




Nikon has  been floundering with its 1 series of ILCs, seemingly unable to figure out where the system fits into the camera world or even the Nikon group of products.

The V1 was an ergonomic disaster, caught between high end and snapshooter ambitions.

The V2 was a substantial improvement featuring a more mainstream, functional control system.

With the V3 Nikon removed the built in handle and EVF, in my view a very strange step back towards the snapshooter/compact genre, except they increased the price presumably preventing the great majority of snapshooters from giving it any consideration.

I have had the opportunity to spend substantial time with the V2 and become familiar with its workings.

Overall it operates quite well as long as one is prepared to accept the limited functionality of the user interface.  It was tested with the 10-100mm f4-5.6 collapsing zoom lens.

Setup  7/15

The menu system is deliberately limited in scope which is no bad thing however other limitations are restrictive. There is  no Q menu or equivalent, no Fn buttons with user assignable functions, no My Menu and  no Custom Menus.

Prepare  6/15
There is a Mode Dial which functions as  expected. There is also a basic Fn button the implementation of which is clumsy.  There is no direct access to Drive Mode, AF Mode or Focus Mode.  Quality and VR cannot be accessed outside a menu.

Holding  12/20

There is a built in handle but it has a boxy shape conforming to no human hand and it is very short. The thumb support is vestigial.

Viewing  10/20

There is a built in EVF in the optimal location above the lens and it does have a proximity sensor for switching with the monitor. But the EVF itself is of low quality and is minimally  adjustable. The monitor is fixed, not articulated and cannot be set to have the same style as the EVF.

Operating  8/25

The V2 is something of a Dr Jekell and Mr Hyde. On the one hand it can fire off long bursts of shots at  high speed with each frame individually focussed on a moving subject. On the other hand it has  limited functionality for user adjustments and inputs.

There are many parameters such as ISO which are difficult or impossible to adjust while using the viewfinder.

Position of the AF box can be changed but there is no recenter button.

Manual focus is very difficult as most lenses lack a focus ring.

Review  3/5

The V2 has the usual problem encountered in cameras having only one command dial. It is difficult to scroll from one image to the next while maintaining position in frame and level of enlargement.

Total 46/100

I know some people who own a V2 and are quite happy with it. They are essentially snapshooters who use the camera in one of the automatic modes and rarely seek to change exposure or focussing parameters directly. 

But I suspect the enthusiast/expert photographer will soon tire of the V2s limitations.



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