$$$ The Best Digital Camera! $$$ - The Nikon D1 Professional Camera!
Written: Dec 03 '00 (Updated Jun 09 '01)
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Pros: The best of all digital cameras.
Cons: The Cost $$$$$$$
The Bottom Line: This is the BEST digital camera on the market today!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Nikon D1X SET Digital Camera |
The Nikon D1 is the “Best Digital Camera” I have ever used. This is not my camera, it belongs to a good friend of mine who can afford it. He let me use it for the weekend so I could write this review about it.
This digital camera is made for the professional or like my friend, if you can afford it. It looks like a 35mm SLR and if you are use to the Nikon F100 35mm SLR, then you will feel at home. Most of the design and looks was based after the F100. Yes it will use the same lenses. It uses your Nikkor F mount lenses, AF lenses, AF-D lenses AI-P lenses and all D-type in manual focus.
The Nikon D1 is about the same size your 35mm SLR models by Nikon. It has a metal body that makes it more rugged than those out of plastic. It feels like you are holding a regular 35mm SLR. This makes it a lot heavier than most other digital cameras.
Picture quality is out of this world. It is a 2.74 megapixel with resolution up to 2000 x 1312. At this resolution the photos are large and beautiful. You can click off one picture at a time or up to 4.5 per second with 21 consecutive shots and then it will hesitate a couple of seconds and you can click off 21 more. The hesitation is due to the built in buffer that can only store so many pictures and the hesitation comes when it writes to the CompactFlash card.
The pictures can be saved in JPEG or for the best resolution TIFF. There are three different compression levels for the JPEG format.
It took me a little time to get the handle on all it will do but it was worth it. The easiest way is to use the Programmed Mode or I call it Automatic Mode with an AF lens, then you just point and shoot. It is very responsive and quick in the Programmed Mode and produces a great picture every time. You also have Shutter-Priority, Aperture-Priority and Manual Modes to choose from.
More Specifications
There is a 2-inch color TFT LCD in the back for you to view your shots instantly. You can also view 9 thumbnail photos at a time and watch a slide show. You can delete selected frames or all at once. There is a monitor button that lets you turn on or off the color LCD, this can save battery life.
There is a second smaller monochrome LCD display in the back to show you your number of pictures you have taken and what modes you are in. Modes are: Monochrome, Quality and White Balance. Plus there are custom settings and more.
On the top of the camera is another monochrome LCD display. Here you can see your shutter speed, exposure mode, flash sync mode, battery power, pictures taken and left plus much more.
The self-timer can be set from 2 to 20 seconds. Most cameras are set at about 10 seconds and sometimes that is cutting it close.
The D1 viewfinder is very similar to the Nikon F5 if you are familiar with it.
The D1 uses a CompactFlash Type I or II, this is not the full size card as other digital cameras use. The camera I used had a 160-megabyte card and you can get up to a 1-gigabyte card.
The Lens
The lens that was on it was the Nikkor Wide-Angle Zoom AF-D 24-120mm F3.5. This lens will bring the subjects close to you, it gives you a good viewpoint from wide to far. This is one of the reasons that it felt like you were shooting pictures with a 35mm SLR. The lens worked smooth in the auto focus mode and manual focus mode.
The Flash
This camera has a built in dedicated hot shoe and not a built in flash. This camera had the Nikon SB-28DX flash on it, this flash was made for the Nikon D1. This is a very impressive flash and worth the extra expense. It has Center-Weighted Mode, Spot metering mode and Manual Mode.
Pros
Uses the same lenses as most of the Nikon 35mm SLR cameras. This is a plus if you already have a Nikon 35mm SLR, now you won’t have to invest in those expensive lenses.
It looks and feels like a 35mm SLR.
It is quick and responsive when you click the button to take your picture.
Another plus for me was setting up ISO settings, this makes it feel like a regular 35mm SLR. Settings start at 200 through 1600 ISO and you can custom set it up to 6400 ISO.
Cons
Way too expensive for most people.
It takes a little time to learn everything it will do for you.
Overall
The only disappointment was, I had to give it back to my friend, but I really did appreciate that he trusted me and let me use it.
I only used it for two days and there is a lot to the camera as far as learning, to get the full use out of it I would probably need to own one. I was very impressed with the camera on the quality and speed it can produce, this is the best digital camera that I have ever used.
Cost, well I didn’t ask, I was just happy to use it a couple of days and I know they are very expensive in the several thousand dollar range.
As far as software I used my Photoshop that I had already loaded and it worked just fine.
Nikon is going in the right direction with this camera, all they need to do is get into a price range we all can afford. You will see a lot of other digital camera manufactures follow the D1.
I highly recommend it if you got the $$$$$$$.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 3999
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Epinions.com ID:
surferdude7
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Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
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