Nikon 1 J5
A blend of high-tech features and old-school design gives the J5 a whole lot of charm
Discover a new CSC with high-tech features in a retro shell
Digital SLRs can only dream of achieving the shooting speeds which the J5 boasts – it’s capable of shooting at 60 frames per second
Whether you’re travelling or simply in a situation where you want to take ‘snaps’ rather than create art, sometimes you just want
a lightweight camera. Nikon’s latest compact system camera could be of great interest to digital SLR owners looking for a smaller alternative, as it’s pocketable yet still gives you plenty of control.
The J5 looks smarter and more retro than the J4 it replaces, especially in the two-tone colourway. The body is plastic, but it looks like metal and feels nicely put together.
With its new 20.8-millionpixel CX-format (one-inch) sensor, the J5 has the highest resolution of any Nikon 1 camera yet. Additionally, it’s backsideilluminated, which should be good news for low-light performance. A new processing engine, the Expeed 5A, is on board, which enables some extra movie options. The headline feature here is 4K video shooting, although that’s only available at 15 frames per second, which makes it seem more like a marketing gimmick than a fully usable feature. It’s also likely videographers will be disappointed by the lack of external microphone and headphone ports.
Digital SLRs can only dream of achieving the shooting speeds the J5 boasts. It’s capable of shooting at 60 frames per second, which should be fast enough to record split-second moments, such as a water splash. However, the number of frames you can shoot is limited by the camera’s buffer size, which can only hold around 20 frames, making that burst rate a little less spectacular than it would initially seem.
Build & handling The shutter itself is electronic, which has a few advantages. Most impressive is the top shutter speed of 1/16,000 sec, which is great for capturing fast-moving action, or shooting at wide apertures in bright light. Also, an electronic shutter is completely silent.
Like the other cameras in the Nikon 1 line-up, the J5 has a hybrid AF system with 171 autofocus points, 105 of which are phase-detection points, distributed across the imaging sensor. Nikon is keen
to boast about the J5’s autofocusing speeds, and it’s fair to say that they are blisteringly fast in good light. In lower light conditions, we found that the lens will tend to hunt around a little, but it’s still pretty good in all but the very darkest of conditions.
Switching to tracking focus allows you to keep focus on one particular subject as it moves around the scene. Once you’ve set the subject you want it to follow, it will be tracked until you tell the camera to stop tracking. In practice, this works quite well, but it’s not difficult for another subject to enter the frame and confuse the camera, which could be problematic when you’re shooting team sports.
If you prefer manual focus, frankly it could be better with the J5. The 10-30mm kit lens that comes with the camera has no focusing ring, so you’ll need to use controls on the body. Once you have selected manual focusing, press the OK button to see an enlarged view of the scene. You then use the scrolling dial on the back of the camera to adjust focus.
Improving on the J4, the J5 has a top-plate mode dial that gives a direct route to semi-automatic and manual exposure modes – Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Manual – as well as the collection of scene and fully automatic options.
On the back of the camera, the three-inch 1,037,000 dot screen is touch-sensitive and can be flipped 180° for shooting selfies. It can also be pulled out and tilted downwards.
You can use the touchscreen to set a number of key features, such as the autofocus point and the different options within menus. A function menu, accessible by pressing the up directional key on the rear of the camera, gives you quick access to key settings such as metering and ISO.
General operational speeds of the J5 can be a little slow. It takes between half a second and
You can use the touchscreen to set a number of key features, such as the autofocus point and the different options within menus