In my opinion the finest Nikon 1 Series "wide" lens available, capable of capturing the scene without compromise, Nikon got it right with this lens, it is a fine example of what a lens should offer, has very close focus capability, excellent sharpness, clarity, and color contrast: this lens might just be the perfect match for your Nikon 1 camera. I highly recommend one for your bag. Nikon is Tops, customer service!
Mine arrived in a nice white and yellow all cardboard box that is recycled friendly – Thanks, Nikon! After unpacking my little gem I immediately screwed on the multicoated front filter I ordered with the lens. This Nikon 1 series lens accepts a 52mm threaded filter in case your needing one. Over the years I have been sticking with one of three suppliers for my filter needs, Hoya, B+W, or Tiffen.
Many of the online reports I read for this lens seems to give very good comments and remarks. Quite frankly one thing that bothers me with smaller sensor cameras is the crop factor you need to think about when buying your lenses. For a Nikon 1 CX sensor, the crop factor is 2.7. This means if you’re a wide-angle shooter you will have a more difficult time finding good quality wide-angle lenses and in this case, for a CX sensor your crop factor is 2.7 (Crop Factor x Focal Length = FOV equivalent)
What this lens is best suited for: My subjective View here
With this Nikkor 1 lens being a 6.7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 on your 1 camera body you have about an 18mm on the wide end and about 35mm on the opposite end. I think this field of view offers many great opportunities for various shooting situations, especially if you want to encompass wider areas or people into your photographs without having to re-position yourself. This lens provides a view close to what we see with our eyes— a very wide angle that's great for landscapes, cityscapes, architecture, interior shots or just capturing large subjects from up close. This is exactly why I wanted this lens for the wide-angle.
More about the Lens:
This lens feels solid and appears to be made mostly of metal, and while using the lens the action is firm, precise, and tight without any noticeable wobble or looseness – Precise and Tight are two keywords I use to describe the feeling.
Zoom Range is short, starting at 6.7mm going out to 13mm, and surprisingly the lens will extend slightly during the zoom operation, and more surprisingly the further out the lens extends the wider the angle. Personally I am not a fan of the lens that extends during zoom, but this lens does not extend too much, about an inch.
Operating the Lens: Since I use a V3 body, twisting the zoom turns on the camera, and with this lens, you depress a lock button to place the lens in the ready mode while twisting, and depress the lock button and twist the lens back when finished shooting for the day – this action turns on and turns off the camera in the process. A nice feature I think.
Image Quality: From all indications the resolution, contrast at the center image is very good at both 3.5 wide open, and 5.6 zoomed. The MTF charts show this as being a very good performer at the center image with some degraded loss of sharpness out toward the image edges. I will be posting images taken with this lens in the upcoming weeks. I snapped a few around the house and was quite pleased with the results.
Nikon 6.7-13mm Lens f/3.5-5.6
A great lens
Emphasized Foreground Subject: When composing your subject with the 1 NIKKOR 6.7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens at the widest setting the objects in the foreground will appear more “emphasized” to draw more attention to your central subject.
Vibration Reduction: Funny, with a wider lens Nikon includes VR and according to Nikon’s literature, it will help reduce blur during image capture in lower light situations.
Who should consider this lens? If you have a Nikon 1 system body and miss the wide-angle shots, and find yourself trying to move back shot after shot then this will be a great wide-angle solution + it opens new ways to take beautiful photographs. I personally like using wide-angle on my DSLR, but when carrying my little V3 the wide-angle was limited to around 30mm due to the crop factor of the CX sensor. Adding this lens to my bag - I now have a great wide-angle lens again and because I find wide-angle a very useful tools for acquiring the best composition for many scenes; otherwise you sometimes compromise by not including the true breadth of your main subject. This lens allows you to offer a different perspective by drawing attention to the perspective of wide-angle. For dramatic shots try moving your camera closer to your subject.
Recommended!
I recommend this lens for any Nikon 1 shooter.