Nikon Useful Add-Ons for the Nikon 1

Covey22

Hall of Famer
Well, I finally was able to get my own copy of the J1 after writing the Field Review on this site. Better late than never, but other priorities took hold before I could satisfy another round of Nikon Acquisition Syndrome (NAS). :cool:

Grip - my comment on the Nikon OEM grip in the article still stands. Way overpriced. Get Richard Franiec's grip, it looks really nice or for 4x less the price, get the adequate and still stylish Flipbac G4. I got the G4, it was easy to put on and works just fine to give me that extra hold point on the front. Works for either V1 or J1.

Spare batteries - when I was trolling around Cape Cod with the J1 review unit, the battery quit at an untimely point. When I got my personal copy, I searched around and found a pair of non-OEM batteries for about USD11 on Amazon. Seems to work and didn't blow up in the charger or the camera. We'll see. Everyone's aware of the 2nd round of battery recalls by Nikon for the V1 - unfortunately, the same batteries power the D7000 and the new D800 so availability may be scarce again for a while as Nikon scrambles to make up for the recalled units.

Screen protection - For the V1, I researched the options for a friend who bought one and it came down to either GGS or Giottos - they both have a 3" hard glass protector with excellent transparency factors. In fact, you have be very careful that you clean the camera's LCD screen before applying the hard protector - it will show every dust mote and blemish trapped between the layers, including a fingerprint that I had missed on the last polish pass! Grrr. I had previous experience with the Giottos Aegis model on both my EPL-1 and my Nikon D3100, so it was a no-brainer.

For the J1, there is very little to offer in terms of hard protectors. This is because the J1's rear display is elongated compared to the V1. None of the "4x6" shaped hard glass protectors on the market fit. I did find a GGS brand protector that supposedly is custom-made for the J1 on Amazon, but after adding it to my cart, the estimated delivery window was 3 weeks with an additional 1-2 day processing time. I was leery of that. I went with a Zagg film instead. As with many film protectors, it was a bear to apply, especially with the extra step of Zagg's custom liquid applicator. I may still end up ordering this screen just because I hate how the Zagg looks on the back. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Update 02-AUG-2012 - I did end up buying the GGS J1 sized hard glass protector - see my Mini-Review in a separate thread in this forum.

Miscellaneous - It is amazing that the HBN-101 hood for the CX 10-30mm as well as the pouch, are optional. I was debating to just pick up a generic 40.5mm screw-in rubber hood instead. The advantage would be that I could collapse the hood instead of having to reverse mount the OEM one when storing the camera. The disadvantage is that the screw-in would definitely cause additional mechanical vignetting based on previous experience with SLR lenses when I needed to use a specialty filter. Choices. Choices. I'm debating a filter kit as well. Don't need UV, but ND and C-PL would be useful for starters.
 
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