Nikon J1 Performance

Generally excellent performance for a compact system camera.

Startup time was a bit sluggish, but not bad for a CSC. Shutdown time was good. Buffer clearing time depends on the quality and number of shots, and on the speed of the memory card. With a fast 45MB/s UHS-I SDHC card, the Nikon J1's buffer clearing times were quite slow, though buffers were very deep in standard continuous mode.

Mode switching was quite fast.

The Nikon J1's full-autofocus shutter lag in single-point AF mode (center AF position) was incredibly fast, at only 0.094 second with the 10-30mm kit lens. That's faster than most professional DSLRs we've tested! In auto-area AF mode, lag more than doubled to 0.232 second, though that's still quite fast for a CSC, and competitive with most DSLRs. With the flash enabled, full AF lag increased to 0.288s, which is very fast. Continuous AF mode resulted in a shutter lag of 0.102 second, also quite fast, though we can't test tracking ability in the lab. When manually focused, the J1's lag time was 0.072 second, also very fast. The Nikon J1's prefocused lag time of 0.074 second is quite fast as well, though some DSLRs and many point & shoots are faster in this regard.

Overall, the Nikon J1's hybrid AF system offers outstanding AF speeds that set a new benchmark for CSCs and consumer DSLRs alike.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times were surprisingly sluggish even for a CSC, at 1.44 seconds per shot for large/fine JPEGs, 1.48 seconds for RAW, and 1.66 seconds for RAW+JPEG files. The Nikon J1 does penalize you for pressing the shutter button too early after taking a shot.

Default continuous mode speed was quite good, at 5.0 frames per second no matter the file type. The Nikon J1 also offers an "Electronic Hi" mode with options of 10, 30, or 60 frames per second at full resolution. (We're not sure why they call it "Electronic Hi", as the J1 always uses an electronic shutter. Perhaps they just wanted to keep nomenclature consistent with the V1, which also has a mechanical shutter.) When 10 fps is selected, the J1 is capable of focusing at the center of the frame between shots, but at the higher settings focus and exposure are locked at the first frame of a burst. In 60 fps mode, we managed 57.9 frames per second in our tests, which is incredibly fast for full resolution files.

Buffer depths were outstanding when shooting in the standard 5 fps mode, at 28 frames for large/fine JPEGs, 19 frames for RAW files, and 19 frames for RAW+JPEGs. In 60 fps mode, buffer depth was naturally shallower, at "only" 12 frames, but that's still very good considering the burst rate. Note that our test target for this was designed to be difficult to compress, so JPEG burst lengths should be longer with typical subjects. Buffer clearing was quite slow when shooting maximum burst lengths, though not a complete surprise given their depth.

Flash recycle time was also very fast at only 1.8 seconds after full power discharge, though the flash is rather weak.

Download speeds were good, quick enough that you probably won't feel the need for a separate card reader. (Note that this test was performed with a SanDisk Extreme Pro 45MB/sec UHS-I SDHC card: Slower cards would likely show slower transfer times.)

Bottom line, the Nikon J1's overall performance was outstanding. Single-area autofocus speed and the "Electronic Hi" burst modes were much faster than any CSC we've tested, and buffer depths were excellent as well. The only sluggish performance results we got were startup time, single-shot cycle times, and buffer clearing, though the later is mostly due to the unusually deep buffers. Still, the Nikon 1 system truly raises the bar in most performance metrics.

Battery Life
Below average battery life for a CSC.

The Nikon J1 uses a custom EN-EL20 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and charger. The rated 230 shots per charge is well below average for a compact system camera, and slightly below average compared to most digicams. That's a price you pay for "big" performance in a compact package. We strongly recommend getting a second battery for your J1 if you plan any extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))