Hi everyone,
If you're not interested in cameras and photography then perhaps skip this
posting.
I have finally made time to process my photos from the December pelagic from
Portland, Victoria. The pictures can be found here:
http://paul.angrybluecat.com/Trips-and-Locations/2014/Portland-Pelagic-Dec-2
014/
These photos were all shot with the Nikon 1 compact (mirrorless) system
rather than my usual Nikon D800 with 500mm and 300mm lens. I have a number
of Nikon 1 bodies, but in this case I chose the Nikon 1 V2. I don't have the
latest V3 body, so I am unable to offer any comparisons currently. I used
two lenses - the wide images were made with the 6-13mm lens (effectively
16.2-35.1mm) and the long shots were taken with the new 70-300mm lens
(effectively 189-810mm).
First, the positives. The Nikon 1 is incredibly light, even with the
70-300mm lens. With the V2 body, the 70-300mm lens is well balanced and is
definitely not front-heavy. The 6-13mm lens is fun and is certainly more
than wide enough for most purposes. The 70-300mm lens is simply spectacular.
It is everything you could want in a telephoto zoom. At its full extent
(effectively 810mm) it is brilliant for bird photography. I find the Nikon
1's electronic viewfinder clear and responsive. If you attempt to manually
focus the EVF automatically zooms to assist with focussing. Perhaps the
single best feature of the camera, though, is it's incredibly high frame
rate - up to 60 frames per second! I shot the pelagic using the 15 frame per
second mode because it allowed continuous autofocus. At rates of 15 frames
per second and above the camera uses a silent electronic shutter rather than
a mechanical one.
Now the negatives. The camera uses a "CX" size sensor, which is quite small
- I find the images quite noisy, even at relatively low ISOs. Whilst the
6-13mm lens is, of course, very wide, it actually has quite a lot of
distortion, increasing towards the edge of the frame. I'm sure that this
could be corrected in Photoshop or Lightroom - however, the standard lens
correction provided with Lightroom does not do this. The vibration reduction
in the 70-300mm lens is good, but certainly not up to being on a moving boat
at the full extension - if you check my photos, very few were shot at 300mm
(810mm) - hardly a surprise, really. Whilst the rig is quite sophisticated,
the user interface in the camera are rather basic - much closer to a
point-and-shoot than a DSLR. For instance, there is no histogram function,
no focus peaking display for manual focus, no advanced functionality
whatsoever. Autofocus is quite fast (not incredibly snappy, but workable).
The autofocus was easily confused by the waves, meaning that many images
were out of focus (with lovely, sharply focussed sea!) To my eye the images
from this camera are slightly soft and (not surprisingly) lacking in fine
detail when compared to the shots I would have achieved with the D800 and
500mm lens.
I shot entirely in RAW, so I can't comment on the relative quality of JPEG
images from the camera. Because the camera is a Nikon, Lightroom and
Photoshop support the RAW format completely and all post-processing
functionality is available in those two applications. With my D800 and 500mm
lens, I tend to set the camera to 1/1250 and f/8 for pelagics. I use f/8 to
attempt to get sufficient depth of field to ensure that the whole bird is
sharp (not always possible). With the much smaller sensor in the Nikon 1 I
left the camera in Aperture Priority mode, set it to f/5.6 and left it there
all day - relying on the fact that I would have much greater depth of field
than the DSLR would have at f/8.
In terms of comparison with other cameras, the Canon SX50 and SX60 come to
mind - whilst they're not exchangeable lens cameras like the Nikon 1, they
are comparable in other ways, not the least that quite a few birders have
one or the other of these cameras. Firstly, both Canons exceed the maximum
zoom of the Nikon - the SX50 has a 1200mm equivalent and the SX60 has a
1360mm equivalent (compared with 810mm using my 70-300mm lens on the Nikon).
I don't think that this would make the slightest difference on a pelagic
though, especially as I couldn't use my camera at its maximum zoom. I would
suspect that the optics in the Nikon 1 lenses that I was using, especially
the 70-300mm would well exceed the quality available from either of the
Canons (especially as the 70-300mm lens is built to the same standards as
the best Nikon DSLR lens and has the advanced coating common to all other
Nikon "N" lenses. The sensor size in the Canons is considerably smaller than
in the Nikon, so would be considerably noisier.
All in all, I think that for birders not wanting to expend many thousands of
dollars for a DSLR and long lens, this setup is pretty good. The setup is
lightweight so would suit someone not wanting to lug many kilograms around.
Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria
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