Nikon V2

[ajohnw]

I'm always in search of the perfect smaller sensor.

Some shots.all jpg's unless mentioned, reduced and sharpened. have curves applied and most a degree of clarity.

Blown highlights. The camera has a lot of chroma noise in deep shadows which limits recovery on this shot.




Same from raw raw, just highlight compression and curves.




Swan with camera shake ? This one kept up ending and feeding on the bottom.




Full res crop from another shot showing what the "camera shake" really is. Seems to be resolution related.



Ducks. Interesting at full res as feather detail shows signs of the "swan effect". Haven't tried from raw yet.




200 ISO




6400 ISO. Easily fixed from raw and probably from the jpg. The front of this isn't stained the right colour for the room and the lighter parts of the oak tend to come out too bright.




Bits and pieces





I always use this one as a test shot but need more sun to intensify the shadows.




My wife, not in shot always ransacks this man's stall. £1, £2, £5 and £10 rails. Busy all day and every day. She came away with 2 pieces of good quality £1 knit wear this time. He's wearing an interesting one.







I pushed this contrast wise all over to clean up the guitar players features so OTT in places. Not tried raw yet. This is a fairly hefty crop, not full frame like the rest.




John
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[ajohnw]

I think Nikon nearly have something worthwhile with this camera.

While waiting for them to finish cleaning my car after a service I took a few shots. Angles had to be as they are.





A full resolution crop from the same shot. Pity about the price.
For some reason this one gives a funny address to paste in . seems to be the address of this thread. This may work

An attachment is ok ??


Personally I feel the original ex Aston Martin designed XK badged and made by Jaguar was much better than this one.




They did franchise Lotus but have switched. No loss to me as I don't fit in the cars since Chapman died. I'm just a bit bigger than he was.. I always wanted one of the famed three wheelers from long before I was old enough to drive. Never happened. Sense must have ruled. Unusual in this area for me.










John
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[ajohnw]

I tried a tough flower to photo with it. A violet that's probably a bit dusty. They don't like much water and the flowers stay for ages.


SOOC Cropped and reduced. Auto exposure.





From raw, shot taken - 1 EV, colours corrected. One day I might get the flat blue of the flowers dead right.



Excuse my taste in background colours. Tried all sorts and none really suit.


John
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[Shadowman]

Nice series of images, some do look a bit fuzzy, the stall and musician shots.

[ajohnw]

I suspect that is movement, especially the musician. I could punch up the stall shot more but again I suspect movement as the stationary bits are ok.

DXO (?? hope I have that correct, not a site I like) reckons the camera has an 10.8 EV dynamic range which isn't bad for such a small sensor really. The jpg processing might be messing around with brighter parts of the image.

Looking more closely at the swan shot I've concluded there is camera shake in that one. I have been getting some doubling in images at times. The 2nd stage shutter button press is much stiffer than the E-M1. Might have something to do with it as the camera is supposed to have the "4 stop" Nikon VR.


Slightly more work on the stall shot, from same image.




I'm more impressed with it than any other small sensor camera I have used. Can't help wondering why they haven't added some features that are popular in other cameras such as programmable buttons and a tilt screen. Changing iso and af mode is a bit of a pain. The multiway is tiny also the wheel round it. I'd guess the usual price is set by it having a metal body but I feel they could do a bit more and can't help wondering what the ISO and dynamic range would be if it was 8mp. Seems that the V1 is a touch better and it has 10mp.

Just found that the wheel is also the muliway - I've been trying to press the bits inside it.

Seems it's possible to store picture settings on the card even those developed via NX2. It seems I should be shooting natural and some suggest leaving D-Light on. I should have read the manual really but it's in German - referb. EU wide Nikon guarantee. I don't think I will be sending this one back.

John
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[Shadowman]

The mirrorless/small sensor cameras do work exceptionally well under specific conditions and reasonably well under most others, I like the challenge of capturing dynamic scenes with these types of cameras.

[ajohnw]

I don't really rate m 4/3 as being a small sensor John. My general feeling is that they can match crop cameras and so far I've found ways round the "problems" but have BIF to do still so don't know how that will work out. Semi success on a few on the E-M5. Silly ISO setting but the big problem was mist, the problem with having 600mm FF available. I should have waited 'till they were closer and used a shorter focal length. The E-M1 should offer better focus tracking but the E-M5 only lost a couple.

I thought Nikon were being cute when they bought out the Nikon 1 range. It's has a significantly bigger sensor than all of the bridge cameras I am aware of but needs lens changes. The fact that the optics are smaller helps with quality and they even publish 60 lp/mm mtf's for them just to prove that. You might find that and better in their industrial optics. As I see it the V1 is the toy camera and the V2 is the semi photographer version but I feel they have fallen short on that settings wise. They also make a 70-300mm for it. That's really something with a crop factor of 2.7. Actually that is why I became interested in it but not at the price it's currently at. 810mm and very little weight.

Some of my feelings about the controls could just mean that I need to get used to it but some are double button push types. Push a button, select what needs changing, press ok, change , press ok. I'm unlikely to ever like that. This includes IS0 but it's also possible to restrict the range auto ISO works over not that this always helps. I've read somewhere that it can shoot 60 fps and offers continuous focus at 15fps. Fortunately that can be slowed down. Opening and closing the lens switches the camera on and off - they are collapsible ones for want of a better word. Some nice features in other words.

The viewfinder is nice but as with the E-PL1 noise can be seen in it at times - not as extreme though. The E-P3 didn't do that to anything like the same extent as the E-PL1 so that was probably down to the software in it.

John
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