Nikon 1 J4 adds the power of touchscreen to compact system camera line

Nikon has announced the 1 J4, adding touchscreen and other features to the company's compact system camera line.

The 1-series has been under constant refinement, arriving at a point where the J4 looks a lot like a high-end compact camera. The stripped-back design and 3-inch touchscreen make for a small scale design, physical controls are limited to a mode dial, d-pad and a few buttons, but you can of course swap out the lens for other 1-series glass.

Although it looks like a compact, the onus here is on exceeding performance expectations. The earlier J3 had super-fast autofocus which has been evolved further in the J4 model. The hybrid autofocus system has 171 AF points, 105 of which are phase-detection points. This ought to mean swift focus in various lighting and for both still and moving subjects.

Speed is part of Nikon's unique sell in this system, which is capable of shooting up to 20 frames per second with continuous autofocus, while 20 raw image files can be shot at an eye-watering 60 frames per second if you forgo the continuous focus.

The J4 also plucks much of the latest tech out of its bigger brother model, the 1 V3. There's no viewfinder option, but the latest 18.4-megapixel 1-inch sensor is delivered minus a low-pass filter for heightened sharpness. Add the Expeed 4A processing engine and the J4 can snap away from ISO 160 through to ISO 12,800, while movie capture up to 1080p at 60fps is also possible.

There's built-in Wi-Fi for on-the-go sharing to a smart device, as is the current must-have feature in recent camera launches.

The Nikon 1 J4 will be available in June, price information is yet to be released.

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