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Nikon's 1 system represents the company's arrival in the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera market. Like its rivals, the company says it is targeting the compact camera user who wants better quality but is put off by the size and complexity of a DSLR. We spoke to the company when the system was first launched and wrote about our first impressions.
According to Nikon, the 1 system has been four years in the making. Tracking back, this means that Nikon started work on its new mirrorless system in mid-2007 - about a year before Panasonic launched the pioneering Micro Four-Thirds system with the Lumix DMC-G1. The result of all this work is two cameras, based around a completely new lens mount and a unique 'CX format' sensor.
At 13.2 x 8.8mm, the 10MP sensor inside these new cameras (common to both models) is small by comparison with most of their mirrorless peers, and results in a 2.7x effective focal length multiplier (which sees a 10mm lens becoming an 'effective' 27mm). Now that the dust has had time to settle, it is fair to say that this decision surprised a lot of people, and disappointed many. It is very clear that, as far as Nikon is concerned, the J1 and V1 belong to a new market segment, distinct from the one targeted by Sony's NEX series or Panasonic and Olympus' Micro Four Thirds models.