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So after shooting with the J1 for a while, my feelings for it have only gotten warmer. It's been with me for some fun times and opportune moments, and I really ran it hard to see where it's limits were. In the interest of framing this article, my regular camera is a Canon SL1, I've shot it with the kit lens, nifty fifty, L glass, and an old art lens, and at 18mp, it's no slouch in the resolution department. I have to admit, I was nervous about coming down from 18mp to 10mp for this cheap camera challenge, because I guess I've just seen so many cheap cameras with even somewhat high megapixel counts (12-14mp) still look pretty awful, but because megapixels only tell part of the imaging story, I figured I'd put that concept to the test. I took the J1 as a kick around camera to a car show, and it did great, even in the hands of a relatively inexperienced photographer (Stubbs, from over at str8fresh.com, and by the way, if your reading this, your shots were killer ;) ). I took it as my street photography camera to photograph graffiti, I used it for light painting, I stashed it as the car camera, and just generally used it whenever and wherever, and my take-away is this: This is a great, quirky, immensely capable camera that has some interesting flaws, but makes up for them in spades and pushes you to take better photos with a well balanced mixture of freedom and limitations. No manual focus ring, no PASM modes on the selector dial, a somewhat confusing menu system, meh battery life, no touch screen, no wifi, it does not make toast, and it will not do your laundry...however...it takes great photos, the menu system does begin to make sense after a while, and even works well, the autofocus is legendary, the bust rate is unbelievable, the video quality is top notch, the sound is decent, the build quality is amazing, it has interchangeable lenses, the color on vivid mode is gorgeous, and it's fun to use. I would totally advise new photographers to check out this camera as a unique and inexpensive introduction to interchangeable lens cameras/DSLRs, or simply as a quality camera that's small enough to carry around. It's hands down better than a cell phone camera, at least for now, regardless of megapixel count, and justifies it's existence in your camera rotation easily. It's a great 2nd/3rd camera, a great loaner camera, a fun primary, especially on vacation, and an intelligent choice for an art camera, without going to a film/lomo/hipster cam. It's flexible, enjoyable, and versatile, and leaves me wondering why it got bashed a bit when it was released a few years ago. Maybe they bagged on it for not living up to some lofty expectations someone had, or because people were frightened of using a tiny sensor, or there were nervous straying from micro 4/3rds lens mounts, but around here, I'm judging cameras based on how they shoot, and the Nikon 1 J1 shoots legit.
4 of 5 stars. -Stunch
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