Nikon 1 V1 @ Wellington Rose Garden

♬♫♪♬♫♪  I Beg Your Pardon, I Never Promise You Rose Garden... ♬♫♪♬♫♪

The second day (29 December) after I received the Nikon 1 V1, the sky opened up and we had none stop rain for five solid days!  As if Wellington need a good cleansing to welcome 2012!

Today (Tuesday 3rd) the sun came out full broom, the air was crystal clear and snappily cool on this public holiday :)

What better time to test the Nikon 1 V1 at our Wellington Botanic Garden! I knew that roses are in full bloom at the Lady Norwood Rose Garden which is on the left end of the garden.

Beside the V1 with the 10-30 kit zoom, I also took with me the E-P2 with the 14-42 for comparison; the other two lenses are the 1Nikkor 30-110 and the Panasonic 7-14 ultra wide zoom.

The award-winning rose garden has 110 formal beds, each representing a different variety of rose.

It includes newly released roses and traditional favourites.

If you want to test the colour fidelity of your lenses, this is the best place to go; when the roses are in season that is.

The top picture was shot with the V1 and on the bottom, with the E-P2. Both were taken with their kit zoom at ISO 200 f5.6 and these are straight RAW to JPEG files, no other adjustment were done to them.

Notice how neutral the Nikon V1 file is, the E-P2 is a bit warmer; a little more yellow. Both cameras did a great job in rendering the full colour range.

Did you expect the half size (to M4/3) smaller sensor Nikon will loose out to Olympus? Duh!

I notice to my amusement, there are some tourist taking pictures with their iPad :)

Using mobile phones as cameras are very common!

How both cameras render bright red colour can be seen from the two pictures above.  Which one do you prefer?

To find out if there are any subtle colour tonal differences between the Nikon1 RAW and JPEG, I opened both in Adobe Camera Raw...

The colour of the RAW file look more intense and the JPEG lighter. The quality of the JPEG is so good, I was doubting the advantages of shooting RAW ;)

A rose named Warm Wishes

The Nikon 1 V1 with the very light 30-110 (80-300) zoom on the cafe table where we had lunch.

Across our table was a little boy having lunch, I took some candid; the camera is so silent that no one took any notice! The focusing is lightning fast!

A stunning looking rose called Sheila's Perfume!

The sun drenched resting "room" to the Begonia House which contains tropical and temperate displays, including seasonal displays of orchids, tuberous begonias, cyclamen, ornamental, and others.

The tropical end also features a lily pond containing aquatic plants and a giant water lily.

Two varieties of Begonia Hybrids captured with the compact 1Nikkor 30-110. The light inside the "house" is strong yet soft enough to give a 3D like effect!

The more I use the 30-110 compact zoom, the more impressed I was! Look at the whites on the lily, plenty of detail and not blown out like some lens do.

A job for the ultra wide! At 7mm (14mm equivalent ), the Panasonic made this shot possible. The lily pond brought back memory of my dear dad and mum when they were in the same green house many moons ago :)

My dad and mum, how I missed them!

On our way to my car, I thought I will give those flying bumble bees another go..
Bumble bees are tough to photograph, their erratic flight path are impossible to predict and the motor-drive on your camera better be damn fast ;)

This is the only camera I ever used that captured me a flying bumble bee!  I love the second shot of the bee's approaching the flower!  How sharp do you think the bee is?  I blow it up 300%!  Take a look below :)

It has been a very productive "test day", I am finding out new capabilities that the little V1 can do.  I love how fast the camera is, both in focusing and exposing. May be now you understand why Nikon has decided on this "small" sensor, it is for speed.

We will look at next, the part or function of the camera that I think can be improve upon :)