Author Topic: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't  (Read 114861 times)

Erik Lund

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2015, 11:27:03 »
... but then the item got stuck in the Norwegian Customs ....).

Sadly it sounds very familiar for how customs works here as well... Hope it turns up soon :)
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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #16 on: June 29, 2015, 11:40:04 »
Thanks for the comment, Erik.
Good luck with the customs Bjørn, hope you get it soon.
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Jakov Minić

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #17 on: August 14, 2015, 20:55:54 »
Øivind, you made a wonderful review of the AW1. I love the little camera and I wish I use it more often.
Just like you, I didn't buy the 10/2.8 because it's so close to the zoom lens. As Bjørn mentioned, I would jump on to a AW fish-eye!

The frog photos are amazing :)
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tommiejeep

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #18 on: August 15, 2015, 06:35:26 »
Great write up on the AW1  and images :). My wife continues to want one but really wants good, easy Wi-Fi. The little AW120 Wi-Fi works a treat with her Samsung Note.  She makes her money from representing businesses on social media.  She worked  at a Dive Centre last season and used her AW120 in the instruction pool, dive boat and underwater.  Diving is an expensive hobby and combining with UW photography goes ballistic  :( .

The Dive company she works with is very into Underwater Environmental Protection so much of her photography is shallow(ish) water and most is PJ type images.

Getting the housing and strobes for her favourite EM1 is pretty pricey but a good friend is one of the top UW photographers in India , shooting big Canons, an evening talking underwater  gear with him is frightening  :) .  Add the cost of globe trotting for Dives..... !

The real question is, will Nikon update the AW1?   At the moment the AW1 two lens package is at a very good price here but only available in Black (if available) . 
Many thanks for posting and I guess I will show your review to my wife  ;)
Tom
Tom
Tom Hardin, Goa, India

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #19 on: August 15, 2015, 06:46:18 »

Thanks Jakov and Tom, I am glad the information is useful.
The kit zoom remains my preferred lens for general land use. At minimum focus distance, reproduction ratio is better at 27.5 mm (ca 9.5 cm wide field) than the AW 10mm lens (ca. 11.5 cm wide field without the fisheye converter) and quality is then outstanding wide open and much better at the edges than the 10mm.



This is very impressive considering the very modest price tag of only $147, less than the AW 10mm. On can almost afford drowning this lens as long a water does not penetrate into the body...

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tommiejeep

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #20 on: August 15, 2015, 08:00:49 »
Well, I think you just made a sale for Nikon  ;) My wife happened to pass through between my post and your post and was very impressed. Many "that's what I want to do" comments on your images  :).  It is Independence Day here so I texted my dealer and surprisingly he called back.  He doesn't stock the Nikon 1 range anymore since no demand but he will contact Nikon India on Monday to get me a price/availability.   I wanted a TC1.4III anyway.     

I have been mulling over a Sony a7II but I still have concerns and it will really not do anything that my Df , D750 cannot do since I'm not really worried about Vids.  Money better spent on my wife and son  ;)
Cheers,
Tom
Tom Hardin, Goa, India

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #21 on: August 15, 2015, 08:16:31 »
A few notes for the record of this thread:
Last autumn I provided feedback to Nikon with respect to problems with the GPS logging feature of the AW1. The log was interrupted when the camera turned itself off, and also gave completely wrong longitudinal coordinates in the log (but not images) when logging in Alaska (it located me to Hudson Bay in Canada) opposed to logging in Europe. This spring I was pleased to be notified that Nikon had provided a firmware update (1.11) that fixed both of these problems:
https://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19380

As also noted by Bjørn, the already excellent GPS receiver in the AW1 can be helped by downloading and updating with the A-GPS file. It is a file that apparently contains information about expected locations of different satellites which helps with faster lock-on. It is issued for intervals of about 2 weeks and then the file needs to be updated again for this advantage:
http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/download/fw/112.html

Akira pointed us to a report of a patent for a Nikon 1 AW amphibian wide zoom (7.2-13.6mm above water, 6.10-10.93 under water):
http://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=900.0
http://egami.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2015-07-29
It appears to have a curved front port. So in spite of my previous comments that a dome port like front element would cause problems with infinity focus below vs. above water, Nikon apparently know how to do this. It will be interesting to see if this lens comes through. The rumored 10-100mm AW lens still have not come though though; all patents do not necessarily lead to products.


The last comment in my last post brings us to my need to send in the AW 11-27.5mm in for repair to fix a wobble that developed in the zoom ring; In addition to the physical wobble, I noticed a few captures at infinity had started to become  blurry on one side. There were no signs of water penetration in spite of the wobble.
In the US, all warranty repair of Nikon 1 system component has now been outsourced United Electronics Group's camera repair department. https://unitednikonrepair.com/Repair/

When I received the lens back from repair, the wobble was gone, however the zoom mechanism felt suspiciously stiff and dry, and had a clicking sound when zoomed towards the wide end. A few test shots indicated blurriness still present on one side at infinity, even worse than before and there was a sound of something like a loose screw inside the lens when I turned it...  OK I thought I would give the lens a chance before possibly sending it in, so I went for the prescribed submersion test mounted on the AW1 in a clear cylinder of clean water. When it reached 15cm depth, I started to notice bubbles escaping front the front of the zoom ring at a steady pace..., so I quickly aborted the test. The lens immediately fogged up  and soon water was visible behind the front glass...



No water had gotten to the mount, and I noticed that for water to get all the way to the sensor shield of the AW1 it will have to pass through the small opening in the baffle. So there should be a good chance to save the body from a moderate flood of the lens in shallow water.

This was apparently a completely butchered repair, performed by a person with inadequate training including incorrectly installing the o-rings. When I told them so in a polite manner, United Camera immediately got back to me apologizing. A couple of weeks after returning the lens back, I had a new lens from Nikon. It should also be noted that when I initially sent the lens in, there was no questioning of my truthful statement that the lens did not have impact damage or had otherwise been misused, so communication seems to work reasonably well with this facility. The new copy of the lens does not show de-centering and performs just as well as the original one (image in my last post with the new copy), and without wobble in the zoom ring that has a smooth dampened feeling, so end of story.
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Øivind Tøien

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #22 on: August 15, 2015, 08:25:26 »
Well, I think you just made a sale for Nikon  ;) My wife happened to pass through between my post and your post and was very impressed. Many "that's what I want to do" comments on your images  :).  It is Independence Day here so I texted my dealer and surprisingly he called back.  He doesn't stock the Nikon 1 range anymore since no demand but he will contact Nikon India on Monday to get me a price/availability.   I wanted a TC1.4III anyway.     

I have been mulling over a Sony a7II but I still have concerns and it will really not do anything that my Df , D750 cannot do since I'm not really worried about Vids.  Money better spent on my wife and son  ;)
Cheers,
Tom

Happy to hear you got your wife with you on this. And do not let the image in my last post scare you. As everybody who has dealt with submersible equipment know, one just need to be very meticulous when maintaining/inspecting the seals.
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tommiejeep

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #23 on: August 15, 2015, 08:52:41 »
Yup, our friend Diggy (http://www.scubadiggy.com/blog/) was going through his 48 hour routine on caring for his gear after the Dives.  She has plenty of experienced divers to advise her.

Cheers,
Tom
Tom Hardin, Goa, India

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #24 on: August 15, 2015, 09:17:12 »
Lost of nice captures there.
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Bjørn Rørslett

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #25 on: August 15, 2015, 10:22:36 »
If the standad kit AW zoom lens suits your shooting requirements, then just let it stay permanently on the camera. I admit there are many opportunities that the 11-27.5 (AW) could not handle, so I tend to have the 18.5 mm f/1.8 or 32 mm f/1.2 attached to the AW1 much more frequently than the AW lenses. For travels, the 10-100 mm comes in very handy. The 6.7-13 zoom is excellent if you want to move in close, but still needs a wide coverage. It isn't great for landscapes, but that is more due to the low magnification than the optical performance, which is excellent.

Still, the image quality of the 11-27.5 AW cannot be denied.

As to GPS, the AW1 is so much better than say a Nikon D5300 in getting a satelitte fix, so haven't bothered with uploading an aGPS file to it. Probably much more useful if you use the camera at high latitudes, though, as the GPS system itself tends to become less reliable there. (In comparison, a D5300 is virtually useless if you need a working GPS, unless you feed it an aGPS file. The difference is like night and day).

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #26 on: August 16, 2015, 13:08:02 »
Bjørn, yes, I recall now your comment with respect to the A-GPS file was for the D5300.

I cannot recall seeing many images here from the 18.5mm and perhaps even less with the 32mm (at least when used at wide apertures). It would be interesting to with some more light on how these render. In the past (before I got the 10mm) I found that I tended to use the AW-1 in two different modes - either in "point and shoot" mode with the standard zoom, or with the FT-1 mounted most of the time with F-mount lenses. As for now, if I want to blur the background I use FT-1 with the 105 mm f/2.5 or 135mm f/2.8 AI-s. A very good match to the FT-1 if one do not want to manual focus and with wider angle of view than the former two is the 50mm f/1.8 G, which performs really well and with pleasing background rendering, and in addition handles quite well on the FT-1.

AFS 50mm f/1.8G @ f/3.2 on AW1/FT-1, worshiping it's master:





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Bjørn Rørslett

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #27 on: August 16, 2015, 13:21:00 »
The AFS Micro-Nikkor 40 mm f/2.8 is quite small and very light, so is eminently suited for the FT-1/AW1 set up.

I will download and install the aGPS file for the AW1 before leaving for South Africa later this month. Just in case the GPS of the camera decides to play tricks on me.

By the way, I wasn't aware of the 1 sec. shutter speed limit for the FT-1 (mode A or M). In S or P, it is slightly shorter, 0.8 sec, for some inscrutable reason. Nikon engineering and reasoning never cease to amaze.

Akira

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2015, 02:01:26 »
Øivind, thanks for such an extended review and user report of AW-1.

I'm afraid this should be very out-of-place image, but you could see the bokeh rendition of 18.5/1.8 wide open.  Nikon 1 J1, ISO800, 1/13 handheld.  The pure electronic shutter helped.  The original NEF is lost, and this is resized from the best quality JPEG out of PSE11 precisely to 1/2 length-wise.

The lens uses the same optical design as DX35/1.8G, and thus show some characterics similar to its larger sibling (a bit hard, somewhat double-lined bokeh).
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Øivind Tøien

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Re: Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't
« Reply #29 on: August 17, 2015, 07:13:40 »
Thanks Akira, it should not matter much which 1 series body is used in this context, so absolutely in place as an example of the rendering.
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