Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site

New Feature: SMS Notification alert

New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist

FM Forums | Nikon Forum | Join Upload & Sell

Archive 2015 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

mmurph
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

I purchased both of these cameras in the past week. The biggest problem is that they both use different media - SD cards on the V2 and microSD on the J4. And both cameras use different batteries!

I think I just talked myself into keeping both of them as I wrote out this post, but I thought I would leave it to gather feedback on both cameras, and possible suggestions on alternatives.

Or just to whine about Nikon (and others) changing batteries with *every* *single* *model* release on the Nikon 1.

+++

I bought a Nikon 1 J4 kit with the 10-30 mm lens and an underwater housing. And a V2 kit with the 10-30 mm lens. I already have a 30-110 mm lens.

I plan to use the V2 for wildlife photography, probably with an adapter and my Nikon 70-200 2.8 II. I might also add a Nikon 70-300 or an older Nikon 70-400 VR later. I will also use it as a "casual use" and vacation camera when I don't have my Sony A6000 around.

If I kept the V2, I would only use the J4 for occasional underwater photography, in Northern Michigan during the summer and in Florida while I am down there for 4-5 months in the winter. But I have chronic pain and am not that active with swimming, diving, etc.

I have owned about 10 different mirrorless cameras in the past 6+ years, including the J3. I had pretty much vowed to only buy cameras with an EVF going forward. I am really, really tired of trying to use LCD only cameras in the sun!

The problem with keeping the J4 in addition to the V2 is that the the J4 would require a new investment in microSD cards, and both cameras use different batteries that don't fit any other of the 3 cameras that I own ... Probably the biggest expense in buying and selling "third tier" cameras like these (behind my DSLR's and the A6000) is the cost of buying batteries, L plates, and in this case the microSD cards. I can usually recover more of the cost of the lightly used equipment when I resell it, but things like batteries and the microSD cards are almost "freebies" that I would include with the camera.

A good 64 GB microSD card looks like it would cost about $54 shipped. Two additional Wasabi batteries would be $33. Add in about $75-$100 in "depreciation" on the resale value of the camera, and the net cost become about $165+ to "play" with the J4 as an underwater camera a few times with surface/ slightly underwater shots. If the Nikon 1 AW1 wasn't so expensive I would but that - the housing is a little bulky and cumbersome. But there is no way that I could justify the cost on an AW1 until the AW2 comes out and it drops **a lot** in cost..

Anyway, as I said above - I think I am going to keep both for now. They are fairly low ion the list of my "sins" in terms of GAS. And I have things that I haven't used in a few years that I could sell to pay for them. Like some audio recorders and much of my DSLR video kit ...

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the V2, the J4, underwater housings, and the Nikon 1 line in general. I have read most of the thread dedicated to Nikon 1 images in this forum, and I got some good advice about a year ago before I bought the J3.

Time for summer vacation fun. Happy 4th to those in teh US!

Michael

Jul 03, 2015 at 01:46 PM

playerofwar
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

V2 with AW1 looks like a good combination.

Jul 03, 2015 at 02:19 PM

binary visions
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

Well, your microSD card cost estimate is off by a lot. Stock price on a UHS-I 64gb card is only $25, and they regularly drop lower than that on Amazon Gold Box deals and such.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Memory-Adapter--SDSDQUAN-064G-G4A-Version/dp/B00M55C1I2/

Did you get in on one of the recent great deals for the J4? If so, your depreciation is quite a lot less as well.

I'd probably just keep the J4 and housing as a toy, maybe invent some reasons to use it for fun, and keep it as a disposable item that you can take places you might not otherwise take a camera. Heck, if you can kayak or something you could mount it on a pole and check out what's under your boat

Jul 03, 2015 at 03:13 PM

mmurph
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

I did get the recent clearance price on the J4! I was already planning on buying the V2 when teh J4 sale popped up. But I am not too sure future resale, especially if I use the housing in salt water. The blow out sales tend to establish a new "baseline" for the prices going forward.

The AW1 would cost me about $400-$500 more than the J4 with the housing. It does use SD cards instead of microSD, but it uses a still different battery! Grr... Nikon makes it hard to upgrade from one camera to the next. EN-EL20, to 21, to 22 and microSD.

I was looking at the Sandisk Pro 95 MBs microSD for $54 at Amazon. I am hesitant to buy the Sandisk Ultra for a camera that can shoot at 20 to 60 FPS? Especially for wildlife use, where hitting the buffer can be a pretty big PITA. I have also been looking at some "stacking" tests to reduce noise, or pulling the best image out of the "20 best" images saved by teh camera in "video" mode.

I'll have to look again at benchmarks on the Nikon 1 with different cards.

Jul 03, 2015 at 03:19 PM

DaveOls
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

That does seem strange that the J4 and V2 use different batteries and memory cards. I guess Nikon did that to make the J4 camera smaller. Is it that much smaller? I would keep both cameras as you are already out the cost of them. You could take the J4 whenever you did not want to expose the V2 to the weather or dusty conditions. Or even leave it in the car all the time. I used to keep a film camera in my car in Texas inside of a small ice chest to protect it from the heat of the summer. I know B&H has sales on Sandisk memory cards once in a while and posters notify us of the fact.
I'm glad that Sony got away from using the memory stick cards as they were more expensive and smaller than the SD's.

Jul 04, 2015 at 05:45 AM

mikekeating
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

Michael,

I just got the same deal on the J4 and the UW housing. I sold my entire UW rig earlier in the year and got a goPro. I loved the video, but the pictures were not great. So I got that J4/UW housing combo and I am going to mount the goPro on the hotshoe. Best of both worlds. Plus they both run on microSD.

I am going to use a sola light to light everything.

Jul 04, 2015 at 07:02 AM

binary visions
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

mmurph wrote:
I was looking at the Sandisk Pro 95 MBs microSD for $54 at Amazon. I am hesitant to buy the Sandisk Ultra for a camera that can shoot at 20 to 60 FPS? Especially for wildlife use, where hitting the buffer can be a pretty big PITA. I have also been looking at some "stacking" tests to reduce noise, or pulling the best image out of the "20 best" images saved by teh camera in "video" mode.

Keep in mind, that 20+ FPS is all buffer. Some quick mental math suggests that 20 FPS is going to result in 130-160 MB/s, which will quickly overwhelm even the fastest cards (since you don't get exactly that max speed anyway). It'll definitely clear faster with those Pro cards, but I don't know how fast the J4 can write.

I guess I just don't see that 20 FPS as a feature I'd use outside of specific situations. For general use I'd probably cut it in half or further just so I didn't have to dig through the duplicates.

Jul 04, 2015 at 10:22 AM

mmurph
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all of the feedback! I am feeling more comfortable with my impulse purchase. I kept going around and around on what to buy and keep....

In terms of GAS excess, these are relatively small amounts of money. It's not like I bought a D750 or D810 on impulse. But I was hoping to reduce the number of cameras and camera "systems" that I own. I have Canon, Nikon, and Sony. The Nikon 1 is almost like it's own system - call that 3 3/4 systems?

DaveOls wrote:
That does seem strange that the J4 and V2 use different batteries and memory cards. I guess Nikon did that to make the J4 camera smaller. Is it that much smaller? I would keep both cameras as you are already out the cost of them. You could take the J4 whenever you did not want to expose the V2 to the weather or dusty conditions. Or even leave it in the car all the time. I used to keep a film camera in my car in Texas inside of a small ice chest to protect it from the heat...Show more →

Yeah, thank god Sony got rid of that stupid memory stick! That would be the 4th type of media for my A6000. I already have about $200 invested in some faster CF cards, and $200 in fast SD cards - both for wildlife purposes. I replied below to binary vision, I think I have a strategy to let me use the J4 before I have to decide how much to commit to microSD cards.

The 2 Nikon 1 brings me to 6 total cameras, after I just sold my full frame Sony A7II last week (I am staying with APS-C.) I guess that isn't too bad. Only my Canon 7DII was more than $1,000.

Along with 6 different batteries, and 6 different chargers, with 6 different flashing, blinking, colored lights! It's too bad we can't have standard size camera batteries, like we have AA, AAA, C, D, etc. Could you imagine if each printer manufacturer had their own paper sizes? Although I guess they gouge us on proprietary cartridges instead.

Keeping the J4 in the car as a "go everywhere" camera makes a lot of sense! I was looking at things like the Sony RX1000III and the Nikon Coolpix A as go everywhere cameras. The J4 is a decent low cost substitute for those.

mikekeating wrote:
I just got the same deal on the J4 and the UW housing. I sold my entire UW rig earlier in the year and got a goPro. I loved the video, but the pictures were not great. So I got that J4/UW housing combo and I am going to mount the goPro on the hotshoe. Best of both worlds. Plus they both run on microSD.

I am going to use a sola light to light everything.

Cool Mike, thanks for sharing! Congratulations on getting in on the deal!

It is good to hear from someone with some real underwater experience. This is all brand new to me. I also just got into wildlife photography for the first time last December down in Florida. That will be a great place to play with the J4 and housing, especially if I head down to the Keys. (I stay in Cape Coral.)

I'd love to see some of your results when you test out the J4 and housing! There is the existing Nikon 1 Image thread in this forum, or you could post the underwater images separately. I am also pretty new to video. It sounds like you will have a pretty cool rig with the GoPro stacked on the J4!

I am going up north with my wife and son July 15 for a couple weeks, I should be able to try it then. But I won't get time to do real work until I go to Florida December 1. I will be down there alone for 3-4 months during the winter. I can't take the cold here in Michigan any more!

I had a look at the sola lights, those look pretty interesting! The Nikon 1 SB-N10 flash unit also looks pretty cool, but the prices are still way high on those at $750. If Nikon ever blows those out like they do the older bodies I may grab one.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1052079-REG

binary visions wrote:
Keep in mind, that 20+ FPS is all buffer. Some quick mental math suggests that 20 FPS is going to result in 130-160 MB/s, which will quickly overwhelm even the fastest cards (since you don't get exactly that max speed anyway). It'll definitely clear faster with those Pro cards, but I don't know how fast the J4 can write.

I guess I just don't see that 20 FPS as a feature I'd use outside of specific situations. For general use I'd probably cut it in half or further just so I didn't have to dig through the duplicates.

Binary, I just came up with a strategy to decide what to do for microSD cards! (Although it is a relatively trivial problem. I just don't want to have to buy the microSD a second time)

I have a 32 GB Sandisk Ultra microSD in my phone. I also already have 64 GB Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 MBs SD cards that I can use in the V2.

So, I will try out the J4 with the Sandisk Ultra that I have, then compare the performance and buffer clear times on the V2 with the Extreme Pro. And compare overall camera operation.

I know on some cameras it can be tedious/ painful to wait for the buffer to clear before you can review recent images, change some settings, or turn off the camera. (I have had my Sony A6000 shut down with a dead battery while writing to teh SD card. The batteries can get trashed pretty quickly.)

Jul 04, 2015 at 03:03 PM

EB-1
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

The 90-95MB/sec. µSD cards can be used with an adapter in SD slots for your other cameras. That's what I do.

EBH

Jul 04, 2015 at 06:13 PM

mmurph
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Thoughts: Keep Both Nikon V2, and J4 with Underwater Housing?

Thanks EBH, that is a great idea! I hadn't thought of that. You have never had any problems when using the adapter in camera?

I have 2, 64 GB Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 MBs SD cards that are still in teh unopened package. I could sell one or both of those and get the microSD. That should help to make sure I have enough space for all of the cameras.

Thanks!
Michael

Jul 04, 2015 at 06:28 PM


FM Forums \| Nikon Forum \| Join Upload & Sell

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.