Just before Christmas I got a pretty good deal on the Nikon V1 (I paid more than I need have since the price dropped even further after I got mine). I ended up picking up the V1 with the 10-30mm kit lens (which is a pretty decent macro lens in case you’re wondering) and the FT-1 adapter, allowing me to use my F-mount lenses — notably my 70-300mm VR — with the V1.
My previous blog post shows three photographs I took with the V1/70-300 combination at the zoo, but this was all hand-held and pretty terrible. I’m actually surprised any of the pictures were usable at all (a few of the red panda pics were lovely). On my second excursion I brought my new monopod (a Christmas present). Definitely better but (a) I need more practice with a monopod and (b) an 810mm (effective) lens probably needs a tripod.
When I pixel-peeped at the unretouched image I noticed some chromatic aberration. Loading the image in iPhoto fixed it automagically. So I added a tiny bit of saturation, retouched two tiny blemishes (not the camera’s fault — the cheetah had some gunk stuck in its fur), and performed a single unsharp mask.
To my eye it’s sharp — not quite tack sharp, I think the pixel density of the V1 sensor is beyond the lens’s resolving power (but it looks like the 70-300VR should do just fine on a 24MP FX sensor) — and the background looks fine. Not bad.