1 Nikon 18.5mm

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Small, sharp, sold separately.

The Long Version: Of my three Nikon 1 lenses – the others are 30-110 and 10-30 – the 18.5mm prime is my favourite. It's small, bright enough to avoid some of the V1's high-iso penalty, and can almost create some foreground-background separation. Using it on the V1 is a little like having a real camera.

The prime lens also feels more solid than the collapsable zooms, which are built well but have more moving parts. Sharpness is good, but barrel distortion can be an issue, so I always apply software correction in Lightroom or use DxO Optics with its images. To be fair, that's something that I choose to do with most of my photos, including from thousand-dollar primes, but with the 18.5 it's not so much of an option for me.

What bugs me about this lens – there's always something – is its over-specificity. Focal lengths are approximations, and naming this one down to the thickness of a fine mechanical pencil lead is taking it a bit seriously. What would be so wrong about simply calling it an 18mm? If the derpreview commentographers want to lose their mind over it being a 48.6mm-equivalent lens, I say we should let them.

And yes, I do realize that I'm doing the exact same thing.

last updated 27 July 2013

1 Nikon 10-30mm

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: It comes standard.

The Long Version: The 10-30mm lens is what came with my deeply-discounted Nikon V1, so I've owned it longer than any other but it remains my least-used lens. It's a fairly typical standard kit zoom, dim with lots of distortion, and given that I'm not particularly impressed by the Nikon 24-70/2.8 on my D800, the 10-30 doesn't really stand much of a chance.

But when I tested my V1 and 10-30 at its widest end against my Ricoh GRD4 the Nikon won. That made me very sad, but it wasn't even a close call. Still, my use for the 10-30 standard lens is almost invariably documentary and record shots, which just a few tourist shots from days when I was using the V1 as my main point-and-shoot. It has never been my choice for creative moments, where it has always lost out to the 30-110 or 18.5mm prime.

last updated 27 july 2013

1 Nikon 30-110mm

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: A very useful addition.

The Long Version: The Nikon 1 system isn't exactly a bastion for high-IQ photographers – "image quality", what did you think I meant? – but the 30-110 lens makes it all make sense. It leverages the smallness of the sensor to give a long reach from a little lens, creating a combination that I simply wouldn't use a bigger camera for. Even my GH1 with its bigger 14-140 lens, that has about the same long end, is bigger-enough that it stays home when my V1 and 30-110 gets carried about.

None of the three CX lenses that I own – the 10-30 and 18.5mm are the others – are stellar for image quality, but even superb Nikkor lenses on the FT1 adapter don't resolve a huge amount of detail on the V1. Within those limits I find the 30-110 perfectly acceptable, although software correction for its various optical distortions are mandatory for me. It's a little sad that a sub-4x long zoom needs it, but it's cheap and small. Life's a barter.

I'm not much of a long-lens person, but a big part of that is the physical size of the lens. The days when I would happily carry an Olympus E-3 and 35-100/2 on the streets of Toronto are gone; to think of the 30-110 as a replacement for that legend is a sad statement on both our changing society and my own revised priorities. But for website-fodder and the occasional small print the 30-110 on the V1 is enough, and it's an important tool for an ongoing documentary project that I'm working on.

The 30-110 isn't my favourite lens for the V1, but it's the one that genuinely does something that my other camera systems don't. It's not particularly expensive, which makes it fairly easy to recommend. I bought this one just a couple of days after my V1+10-30 kit, and it's the lens that convinced me that the V1 could be the basis of a system.

last updated 27 july 2013