Nikon 1 in Scotland, part 1

Last 10 days I spent in Scotland on a holiday. My main priority wasn't photographing so my small camera set J1/V1 were used quite much.

I will go those images through in next weeks, but here is one nice little example about the dynamic range of J1 image developed in Lightroom 4.

First the original.

And here is the adjusted version like I saw it with my own eyes. GND filter couldn't be used ( and I normally don't carry one with me ), but with correct exposure the dynamic range is enough.

Are you suprised?

Some random images from the last week

My computers hard drive broke down so I haven't had much time to photograph or process photographs.
Still, here are couple from the last week.

Does Nikon V1 fit for bird photography? Part 1.

Now when the spring is finally coming here in Finland the birds are also. Migration is about two weeks overdue.
Today I photographed this years first Curlews and yesterday I saw first Crane.

There isn't much places to photograph birds, because most of the lakes are frozen. Anyway there are some areas where ice has melted and I was visiting there shortly today. I didn't have enough clothing to stand incoming storm so I was there only something like half an hour. With V1 I shot only ten minutes before the storm came.

With FT-1+70-200/4 VR the AF-C doesn't work, so I have to rely on AF-S. That is mostly awful setting for photographing flying birds and autofocus also hunts if the bird is too far away. Not shooting birds too far away isn't a real problem. Those images are anyway images which I delete, because the bird is too small in the picture. Dealing with only AF-S the shooting has to be precise and fast. After the camera has acquired focus you have to push the shutter button before the bird flies out of the focus area.

I didn't have my 30-110 VR with me so I have only images taken with 70-200/4 VR. S-mode, Auto-ISO 3200. There wasn't much light so images are grainyeven tough I tried to keep the shutter speed as long as possible. It was mostly something like 1/500s. ( I should have used the M-mode with f4 aperture because V1 doesn't set full aperture often enough.

Holiday photos

I was on a holiday last week and had the V1 & J1 with me.

I rarely had a problem with shiny white snow. Most of the digital cameras underexpose snowy scenery, but J1&V1 work better. I didn't do much photographing on purpose, but just snapping along.

Vacation finally, landscapes and birds

I finally started my winter vacation. I was on a cross-country skiing trip for couple days and today I managed to take some time to walk to a nearby lake.

I think it will take some time to process all those >500 images from that trip. I carried my J1+10mm everywhere so most of the images where taken with it. V1+30-110 was in the backpack. I had D800 with me, but I used it only couple times when I was taking images in the night.
Anyway, V1 can do night photography too. How many times have you been able to shoot the scenery without blowing out the highlights of the full moon?

 
This was taken with V1+FT-1+70-200/4 VR from the trail of a nearby lake.

Nikon 1 cameras for casual shooting

This year I really have been taking my cameras everywhere and noticed some things. I have 1988 images saved and I think some 2000 images has been deleted.
J1: 363 images, V1: 536 images, D800: 1077 images. 50% of the D800  images were taken in one event and I haven't deleted any images from that day. From those images I have rated as good photographs total of 235 images. J1: 30, V1: 96, D800: 109.

Basicly I have stopped using D800 for shooting every day life. V1 and J1 are doing it well enough and with much less weight. Eventually the results are often better with small camera than with big camera. 

But I won't give up with D800. There are still things what I can't shoot well enough with small cameras. Mostly night photography and high resolution landscapes. When I go somewhere only for shooting images I still take D800 with some heavy landscape lenses with me. To shoot something what I have in http://500px.com/MHllfors

Nikon J1 in da club

Today I was listening a band named Eppu Normaali in a club in Tampere. Of course I had to test if it's possible to take technically good pictures in a dark club with my red Nikon J1. I bet all the girls were jealous of my cute little red camera ;)

Here is one shot which I quickly exported before going to bed. I only took three fast bursts to see if J1 was up to it, so there isn't much material. Rest of the time I just enjoyed the gig.

I think the image quality is enough for web. What you think?