So out of the two biggest Camera manufactures, Nikon become the first to release a Mirrorless Interchangable Compact.
Image quality generally is related to the size of the film or imaging sensor.
- Large Format (4 x 5 to 8 x 10 inches)
- Medium Format 6 x 6 cm’s (or close to it)
- Small Format (used to be 35mm film)
Now that digital is so popular a number of different small formats have come about. These have generally been full frame (same as 35mm, 864 square mm) APS (cropped, 376 square mm) usually giving a 1.5 or 1.6 crop. Then there is the modern digital compact. These sensors are tiny with the biggest being about 43 square mm.
Many photographers have wanted a camera that filled the gap between the small compacts and for many that missing link is the micro four thirds system.
Now we have another option, the Nikon 1. If you check the forums then you will see most people are very disappointed with this camera. People wanted something like a Sony NEX-7 with a APS sized sensor.
For me, I am open minded and will wait to see how it handles and what the image quality is like but with it’s smaller sensor and the larger sensors of the micro four thirds cameras and Sony’s NEX range, its going to have a hard job.