Lumix 100-300mm vs Nikon 70-300mm

When Nikon launched their Nikon 1 mirrorless format, it was hard to understand why anyone should buy into it. The cameras were pricey, relatively large for a 1'' sensor, and did not have a good ergonomics.

With the launch of the Nikon 1 CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, I think the format finally makes sense. This is the only 800mm equivalent lens which is truly portable and which can be handheld. It is a very good birders lens.

In my review of the Nikon 1 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, I was testing it with the Nikon 1 J1 camera, with a 10MP sensor. Since this time, I have acquired the Nikon 1 V3, which is a more suitable camera for a long lens, with the extra hand grip, and the EVF. The V3 also has 80% higher resolution, at 18MP.

With the V3 camera, I have re-run the sharpness tests. For the rest of the lens review, see my previous article.

I'm not sure if the image quality is better with the 18MP sensor in the Nikon 1 V3 camera. But the resolution is higher, which should make it better for an evaluation of the sharpness.

For a point of reference, I have compared the images from the 70-300mm lens with the Lumix G 100-300mm f/4-5.6 on the Lumix GH4.

Both cameras with lenses are pictured below:

As you can see, the Nikon system is much smaller, and should be easier to bring along for trekking.

GM1 vs Nikon 1 J1 autofocus during video comparison

Looking at the Nikon 1 J1 and Lumix GM1, it is clear that they are very similar:

Both are quite compact mirrorless cameras without a grip, without a flash shoe, and with fixed LCD screens. You can't put an eye level viewfinder on any of them. Both are mounted with rather similar wide angle pancake lenses in the picture above.

Also, since the Nikon 1 J1 is the very first generation mirrorless camera from Nikon, and the cheapest, it may look strange to pitch it against the Lumix GM1, which is a new, premium camera from Panasonic, widely seen as the leaders in large sensor video.

However, the Nikon 1 family of mirrorless cameras has something which Panasonic has never implemented: On sensor PDAF sensors. Panasonic have decided to rely on CDAF, which requires more image processing power to function well, but has the advantage of not sacrificing any pixels for PDAF sensors. In theory, PDAF should be able to give a much better AF-C performance, and AF performance during video recording.

You may also think that the Lumix GM1 is not a very good video camera, as it appears to be styled in a classic way. However, in my experience, it performs just as well as, or even better than, the GH3 in terms of image quality, quality of ETC video, and AF during video. So the GM1 is pretty much state of the art, except for the fact that it doesn't have 50/60 FPS 1080p video, and of course, it doesn't have 4K video.

To see how the Nikon 1 J1 camera performs in terms of autofocus, I mounted both to a Desmond Mini Dual Camera Bracket, typically used for stereo photography. The lenses are the Lumix 14mm f/2.5 and the Nikon 1 10mm f/2.8. I set both lenses to f/2.8.

For the test videos, I set the ISO to 200, except when otherwise noted. Here are the results: