Nikon Nikon shuts down Nikon 1 System

Oddly I never regarded the Nikon1 system as a fail except in the period after its release, until I bought my J1. and then a V1. I've kept the gear. Its great for some things and will always have a spot in my collection. I guess I can hope that the 32mm and the telephoto zoom will now reduce in price but I bet they do not.
 
... Nikon could have had a winner IMHO if they embraced maximum integration with the F mount system, but they played scared and lost..

This.

Well said and what I was trying to get at. I came to Fuji from Leica and Nikon. When I got my first Fuji I had a Leica M7 .85 and an MP4 .85 with over a dozen lenses. I also had a Nikon D700 with a set of lenses. All gone, including me to Fuji because one marque (Leica) couldn't make a reliable and robust digital body without "middle age spread" and the other (Nikon) was afraid of going back to their roots and cannibalising the sales of their massive DSLRs.
 
I'm pretty sad to see the Nikon 1 system gone — I have owned the V1 and I think it's a terrific piece of gear. The only thing that prevented me from investing more into the system was that Nikon's commitment to it seemed questionable at best.

The thing I liked the most about it was that it was an absolutely reliable tool in terms of exposure, focus and other core photographic features: once I learned its limitations, my hit rate really went through the roof.
My friend has a kit consisting of the the V2, 10-100, 18, and the 10-30 kit zoom. I see many of her vacation pictures before she removes the bad ones (I help) and I do notice the remarkable keeper rate in terms of exposure and focus. I also notice how nice the V2 fits in my hand. With the 18 it would have been a very nice walk-around camera. She favors the long zoom but as long as she was willing to carry it I can't argue with her results.
 
I never owned the system, but played with it many times in the store. The noise and dynamic range wasn't up to the micro four thirds 16mp sensor and lens selection was lacking. The af was blazing though.
 
The N1 lost way because Nikon never really put together a coherent lens strategy. All the Mirrorless makers iterate bodies at a fast rate, but the ones that are not only surviving, but thriving - Oly, Panny, Fuji and to a lesser extent Sony, have a diverse and well populated lens family.

I don't regret getting into the N1 - but am glad that I didn't spend the high end money for things like the 32mm. The real bangs for the buck in that system are the 18.5 and the 30-110 - the latter especially - what a nice piece of tele kit that I could and did often stick in my pocket for those photowalks and didn't need a bag. It did however whet my appetite for mirrorless and eventually moved me to Fuji, with which I am very happy with.
 
Does this mean that now is a good time to grab a bargain or two?? Prices on old gear will fall!

Maybe. The volumes were so small, what you find out there may not be what you should get. For example, if you're an EVF user, avoid the V1 because of the "mandatory preview" feature that interrupts your shooting flow. It was only fixed in V2 onwards, but I rarely see used V2s, and V3s require a separate EVF purchase and are mostly holding value.

Three lenses I would get - 18.5, 32 and 30-110. The rest I can do without or they don't perform quite the way I would like for a CSC. 32 is rarer than hen's teeth.
 
Maybe. The volumes were so small, what you find out there may not be what you should get. For example, if you're an EVF user, avoid the V1 because of the "mandatory preview" feature that interrupts your shooting flow. It was only fixed in V2 onwards, but I rarely see used V2s, and V3s require a separate EVF purchase and are mostly holding value.

Three lenses I would get - 18.5, 32 and 30-110. The rest I can do without or they don't perform quite the way I would like for a CSC. 32 is rarer than hen's teeth.

I wonder if a V2 is worth getting, there are some available here in AU. Been considering.

I have the 18.5 and its really nice. I also have the 10mm and the 30-110. The 32mm is still too expensive here to even consider, ditto the 70-300 which I'd love.
 
I wonder if a V2 is worth getting, there are some available here in AU. Been considering.

I have the 18.5 and its really nice. I also have the 10mm and the 30-110. The 32mm is still too expensive here to even consider, ditto the 70-300 which I'd love.

If you can get a V2 at a good price - I say go for it.
 
I wonder if a V2 is worth getting, there are some available here in AU. Been considering.

I have the 18.5 and its really nice. I also have the 10mm and the 30-110. The 32mm is still too expensive here to even consider, ditto the 70-300 which I'd love.
My friend has one. Ergonomically, it's a great camera in the hand.
 
Well, at Photokina there was a lot of Nikon 1 stuff, albeit nothing new at all.

On the other hand, Nikon executives at Photokina, said that they indeed are considering Nikon 1 as an up and alive line of cameras.

So (hopefully) something new will arrive in 2017!

In good light the V2 is very good, not least when attached to a 150-600, but to keep the noise at bay you really need to keep ISO very low.

The J5 is, on the other hand, pretty amazing in any kind of light, rendering fantastic images, but need to be set to +0.3-0.7 EV to be perfect. That it lacks a EVF is a great shame, that it lacks a means of attaching an external EVF is even worse. And due to its minuscule battery it can't be used with any kind of long lens with AF, or VR.

My wife has returned to her m43s (E-M5, E-M10 & GX8) for everything that can't be done with the with the superb 70-300CX, so her J5 with a loupe is the only N 1 camera she uses, for the time being, the 150-600 being too big and heavy for her.
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I have added a D3300 to my camera gear to use with the 150-600, as that has a very precise AF point (if you set it up like that), which is excellent for shooting static birds inside bushes, and similar situations. The image quality of the D3300 is very comparable to the V2, when used with the same 150-600, due to the fact that you need to crop the D3300 images more to get the same magnification as with the V2. If the J5 could be used with the 150-600 it would blow the other two away, but it can't.
 
I'm pretty sad to see the Nikon 1 system gone — I have owned the V1 and I think it's a terrific piece of gear. The only thing that prevented me from investing more into the system was that Nikon's commitment to it seemed questionable at best.

The thing I liked the most about it was that it was an absolutely reliable tool in terms of exposure, focus and other core photographic features: once I learned its limitations, my hit rate really went through the roof.

The J5 would transform your photography yet again, I can assure you that, as long as you can manage without a viewfinder.

In the family we have three, all obtained at a very fair price in Tokyo, and it is one of the most conventional of the N 1 cameras (buttons and menu-wise), but uses Sony's sensor (the same as in the RX100 — and RX10 — line of cameras), a huge step up from the Aptina used in the older cameras.
DSC_4888 - 2016-10-04 at 17-38-23.jpg
 
This is total conjecture on my part and my views are not shared by/supported by this website or Nikon. :D

I still contend in my little head that the Nikon 1 system was an "experimental" system for Nikon. I believe that the felt OK in experimenting with some things in this system, and if they could recoup some money in it by others buying it that was all well and good. They could do this by not putting untested technology into their bread and butter lines (DSLR). From my estimation, they have a great on chip phase detect AF system, they figured out how to get a decent if not superb continuous frame rate.

I think a lot of what was learned there will show itself in the new DL line of cameras and when Nikon decides to go mirrorless with their mainstream line of cameras, I have a feeling they will be killer.

(snip)

Again - all pie in the sky, my own tin foil hat theories....but fun to speculate. :D

These DL cameras, if they ever appear on the market in their planned form, are, as presented, an odd bunch. Some have the latest lens coatings, but not all, some are very expensive, some not, and with neither you have a way of clearing out dust from the sensor, or the rear element of the lens.

That sole fact (after a few problems with dust) was the main reason I stopped buying compacts, and when I fell for the lure of the compact again (a Ricoh GR — a lovely camera, with fantastic menu system, and that takes excellent images), I naturally pretty soon got the same problems with this camera (dust on the sensor), evidently a known fact in the Ricoh crowd. Sigh.

Getting it fixed cost me about 30% of what the camera cost new! By now it is a very expensive little camera!

One wonders, will there be many DL owners that make a similar trip down the lane of bad investments?

Naturally the camera manufacturers don't care: are you, the customer, dumb enough to buy a camera with a known flaw, you have to face the music and dance on your own.

You can rest assured I will never buy a Ricoh compact again!
 
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