Nikon V2 Performance

Generally excellent performance for a compact system camera, though startup and buffer clearing is slow.

Startup time was a bit sluggish for a compact system camera, though shutdown time was very fast. Buffer clearing time depends on the quality and number of shots, and on the speed of the memory card. With a fast 95MB/s UHS-I SDHC card, the Nikon V2's buffer clearing times were quite slow for max-length bursts, though buffers were very deep.

Mode switching was pretty fast.

The Nikon V2's full-autofocus shutter lag in single-point AF mode (center AF position) was incredibly fast, at only 0.072 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 0.148 second, though that's still very fast for a CSC and faster than most DSLRs. Enabling the flash added some delay for preflash metering, however lag was still good at 0.391 second. Continuous AF mode resulted in a shutter lag of only 0.085 second, though we can't test tracking ability in the lab. When manually focused, the V2's lag time was 0.055 second, also very fast. The Nikon V2's prefocused lag time of 0.055 second was quite fast as well, faster than most DSLRs and CSCs, though many point & shoots are still faster in this regard.

Overall, Nikon 1's hybrid AF system offers outstanding AF speeds and the V2's iteration has set a yet another benchmark for CSCs and 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 very fast at less than a third of a second no matter the file type, which is much faster than average for a CSC and a big improvement over the V1's 1+ second cycle times.

The Nikon V2 offers full-resolution continuous mode speeds up to 60 fps when using the electronic shutter, and up to 5 fps with the mechanical shutter. We tested the 60 fps mode, and the V2 met expectations, delivering approximately 60 full-resolution frames per second with any file type -- outstanding!

Buffer depths were also outstanding, at 40 frames for any file type. Buffer clearing took a long time when shooting maximum burst lengths, though that's not a complete surprise given their depth.

USB download speeds were very 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 95MB/sec UHS-I SDHC card: Slower cards would likely show slower transfer times.)

Bottom line, the Nikon V2's overall performance was generally outstanding. Autofocus speeds, burst speeds and buffer depths were all exceptional. The only sluggish performance results we got were startup time and buffer clearing, though the later is mostly due to the unusually deep buffers. Again, the Nikon 1 system truly raises the bar for CSCs in most performance metrics.

Battery Life
Below average battery life for a CSC.

The Nikon V2 uses a custom EN-EL21 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and dedicated charger. The rated 310 shots per charge is somewhat below average for a compact system camera, so we strongly recommend getting a second battery for your V2 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))