Hawkstone Park Follies with the Nikon D1x

What happens when you take a trip to the beautiful Hawkstone Park Follies with the Nikon D1x? Long story short.. You get 30 frames before the battery dies (8 of which suffered with shutter malfunction).

I guess they don’t make them like they used to.

Still, walking around with a 18 year old camera, shooting a whopping 5.3mp with an astonishing 3fps (frames per second) and we can't dismiss it’s 5 focus points. To say it’s nostalgic and fun, would be an understatement.

Combined with the Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX lens it takes the cost to a very affordable £175(ish). That said, with its crazy low battery capacity, is it worth the purchase?

The short answer is absolutely. If you’re looking for something a little fun, something too push your boundaries, make you think before you hit the shutter (scratch that, before you even power it on!) and if you’re like me and you’ve always been curious to know just what life was like before 4000mp and 756,000 focus points, this is it.

However, if you’re actually looking for a ‘functional’ camera, something you can use to capture your family day out, this isn’t it.

It has to be said, since the early days Nikon really hit the ergonomics of the DSLR range, exceptionally well. It just feels great in the hands (that’s what she said!). That is of course until you switch orientation and use it portrait. That’s where things just don’t seem to work. The grip is just far to shallow and holding it this way and especially using it one handed, becomes almost impossible. This was somewhat improved in the Nikon D2hs (and no doubt the Nikon D2 full stop - Im yet to own one). However, the Nikon D1x just sits more comfortably in Landscape orientation. It has a grip deep enough for the largest of hands and (for me) feels solid to hold (ooo-errr) and I don’t worry it’s going to slip.

This is something that they’ve simply refined over time. Ok, so admittedly, sometimes they seem to have moved the button placement for no particular reason and with the Nikon D1x the WB (White Balance) button is hidden behind a panel. Yes, I even had to resort to Google to find out where it was.

Yes, Nikon have refined the ergonomics well over time but I dare say at the time, it was fine. I mean, if it’s all you’ve got, then you work with it, right?!

As I briefly touched on earlier, it has 5.3mp. By today’s standards that’s incredibly low. We all know Mega Pixels aren't everything however and I find the 5.3mp incredibly nice to work with. The file size is insanely small, making loading times far far quicker. When you’re used to working on thousands of 38mp+ images from a wedding, the load times make a refreshing change.

The LCD screen is, well, honestly, just not worth bothering with. Other than setting a few things up, that’s pretty much it’s only use. If you plan on reviewing your images on it, forget it. You’d have better luck just staring at a postage stamp.

The 5 focus points make for interesting compositions, especially if you’re not one to focus and recompose. On a nice sunny day they work fine. But even so, I still found it hunting once or twice for focus. It wasn’t painful, it was expected. That said, it nailed every photo… all 30 of them, well… minus 8, but thats because it’s hard to tell what was in focus as 90+% of the image was black due to a shutter malfunction.

With modern camera’s becoming smaller and lighter, you could argue something this big and heavy isn’t going to be kind on your wrist and you’d be right. The bonus is, the battery life won’t last long enough for you to notice and it’ll end up spending most of the day in your bag. Oh, yeah, you’re going to need a bag, because you probably don’t want what ultimately becomes a giant paperweight hanging from your neck/shoulder. Unless of course you want to have the ultimate conversation piece. In which case, you don that Nikon D1x strap and you watch people look over with great curiosity.

But with that, there is something to be said about the Nikon D1x. It’s like the saying, “you don’t know how far you've come until you know where you've been” and the Nikon D1x answers just that.

Finding replacement batteries seems tough and I don’t think I could warrant the £100+ price tag for a Nikon one for something that I’m going to take out on the odd occasion to play around with.

Yes, you read that right. Despite the limited battery, the old technology and ultimately the dead weight it becomes after limited use. I can’t help seeing myself reach for it more and more as I walk out the door.

It’s a piece of history that is very much capable of delivering some fantastic images, you just have to get past the bad points first.

Thanks for reading.
Rich