Photography Gear News

"The 1 Nikkor VR 30-110mm is a compact tele zoom lens for the new Nikon 1 system. In terms of field of view it offers the equivalent of a 80-300mm lens on a full frame camera. It's available as part of camera kits, but can also be purchased separately for around 200 EUR/250 USD.
Like all zoom lenses introduced at system launch, the 1 Nikkor VR 30-110mm is a collapsible lens. This means it needs to extend an inner lens tube to be operational. Most of the lens' volume is used by the outer tube, the actual glass elements are a lot smaller in diameter than the size of the lens suggests. Nonetheless, the Nikkor is very compact, both in absolute terms as well as compared to lenses in other systems offering a similar focal range. It's actually the first lens that gives an impression of the size advantages that are possible due to the small sensor size Nikon chose for the system."

"The 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 is the first prime lens available for the Nikon 1 system. It's a wide-angle lens that offers a field of view equivalent to a 27mm lens on a full frame camera, a focal length that is covered by three of the four CX lenses introduced at system launch.
On paper, the lens doesn't offer much over the 10-30mm kit zoom. The minimum focus distance is identical to the zoom lens and with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 the prime is less then a stop faster than the zoom at the wide end, which features f/3.5 here. Given the small sensor size of the Nikon 1 system, the difference between the two lenses regarding depth of field potential is almost negligible. The small advantage the prime gains with its slightly larger aperture in terms of shutter speed, it loses on the other hand due to the lack of optical stabilization.

The main difference and real advantage of the 1 Nikkor 10mm is its small size and weight: it's a pancake lens. Especially combined with the smaller of the two current Nikon 1 cameras, the J1, it offers a very small package, that unlike the zoom kit is really pocketable.

In this review we will have a look at how the lens performs on our current CX test camera, the Nikon V1."

"With the introduction of the Nikon 1 product line, Nikon finally entered the market of mirrorless system cameras. For the new system, they went with a rather small sensor size with a crop factor of 2.7, which their marketing calls the CX format. The sensor is considerably smaller than in other mirrorless cameras (except the Pentax Q), probably in attempt to keep a technological gap to Nikon's entry-level DX cameras and thus not to establish competition within the same brand.
Among the 4 lenses announced at system launch is a standard zoom lens, which is available as kit lens with both current Nikon 1 cameras, the J1 and V1. With its physical focal length of 10-30mm it offers the same field of view as a 27-81mm lens on a full frame camera.

In this review we will have a look at how the lens performs on the Nikon V1, which serves as our CX test camera."