When I was in India and Australia earlier this year, I wished that I had a camera that was small and easy to pack, but versatile for whatever sort of pictures that I wanted to take. For me, versatile means having the option to choose whatever lens I want to fit the type of picture that I was taking and being able to set the camera up the way I want to. Usually, all of that is an oxymoron. But I just discovered a camera that fits this thanks to Nikon. It is the Nikon 1 J5. Allow me to illustrate this visually:
The camera is quite compact and comes with a 10-30mm lens which is quite good. However, one trick that it does have is that you can actually change the lens so that you can use the camera in any situation:
In this case, I got a 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm lens that is bigger than the camera. The logic was I wanted to test the extremes that the Nikon 1 J5 is capable of. But there are a few other tricks that this camera has up it’s sleeve.
The LCD display flips up so that you can take selfies presumably.
But the LCD also pulls out so that you can have it away from the camera. One other plus is that it is touch sensitive and you can actually use it to focus the camera as well as take a picture. The only minus that I found is that it is almost unviewable in bright sunlight. That’s a big problem because there’s no viewfinder.
Besides coming with a 20.8 megapixel image sensor, the camera has NFC and WiFi which allows you to control the camera remotely from a smartphone via Nikon’s free app. Connecting to a smartphone (Android or iOS) via Wi-Fi is pretty easy. There’s a dedicated button on the back of the camera which you can press either in shooting or playback modes. You’ll then be prompted to connect to the camera’s Wi-Fi from your phone or tablet. Once connected, you need to launch the Nikon Wireless Utility app. If you have an NFC enabled device (Android only at this point), you simply hold the two together to form a connection and automatically load the app (once it’s already installed). Once paired, you can use the app to see what the camera sees and to fire off the shutter release. Memory for the Nikon 1 J5 comes in the form of MicroSD cards which I suspect that Nikon uses to keep the size of the camera down. But that means if you’ve got a bunch of SD cards lying around, you won’t be using them in this camera. The camera is powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery that survived the three hours of continuous usage. You may want to spring for an extra one though as it is specific to Nikon cameras. A recharger comes with the camera
Now the body looks like it is metal but it is actually plastic. It does feels nicely put together and the faux leather covering is also quite stylish and it gives you some extra grip. The camera feels solid and appears to be well constructed. With the 10-30mm lens it is quite small and easy to carry around.
In terms of usage, you can set it to automatic and let the camera make all the decisions about focus, exposure, shutter speed at the like, you can set everything yourself, or you can choose from a number of pre-set programs for any situation. This adds to the versatility of the camera. If you look at the first picture that I took of the camera, you’ll notice that the camera has two shutters. One is for taking still pictures, and the other is for video. That’s handy. What wasn’t as handy was that shot to shot times are a little slow for my liking. Having said that, it does have a burst mode which holds about 20 shots. That’s adequate for most people if you’re taking action shots such as a hockey game.
Speaking of pictures, that’s what really matters at the end of the day. To test what this camera can do, I went to my usual location for this sort of thing which is Pearson Airport in Toronto. Let’s start with the still pictures using the 10-30mm lens. Click the picture to enlarge it:
And now the 10-100mm lens where I made full use of the zoom function. Again, click the picture to enlarge it:
In terms of the latter pictures, I was a good distance away from these planes which meant that I had to really zoom in to get these pictures. You can see that the detail level is excellent.
This camera can shoot video up to 4K resolution (although only at 15fps at that resolution). I wasn’t that ambitious as I stuck to 1080P video. Again, I tried both lenses, starting with the 10-30mm lens. Please set it to full screen and 1080p:
Now the 10-100mm lens where I tried to zoom in on a jet that was landing:
The latter had some auto focus issues because I was zoomed in so much. Plus you could see some camera shake. If you want to shoot video, you should stick to the 10-30mm lens.
The Nikon 1 J5 goes for $600 CDN with a 10-30mm lens. If you want to add the 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm lens to the mix, that’s another $800 CDN. But keep in mind that there are a number of lens options to choose from so that you can find the lens or lenses that suit your needs. And that’s the key point when it comes to this camera. You can have as much or as little camera as you want. Combined with the fact that you can run it in auto mode, customize it, or choose from a number pre-set programs, you also get a camera that is perfect for all users. And its physical size makes it easy to take anywhere. If you want a compact camera that you can use in any situation, the Nikon 1 J5 is definitely worth a good hard look.
This entry was posted on June 26, 2015 at 6:46 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Nikon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Review: Nikon 1 J5 & 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm Lens
When I was in India and Australia earlier this year, I wished that I had a camera that was small and easy to pack, but versatile for whatever sort of pictures that I wanted to take. For me, versatile means having the option to choose whatever lens I want to fit the type of picture that I was taking and being able to set the camera up the way I want to. Usually, all of that is an oxymoron. But I just discovered a camera that fits this thanks to Nikon. It is the Nikon 1 J5. Allow me to illustrate this visually:
The camera is quite compact and comes with a 10-30mm lens which is quite good. However, one trick that it does have is that you can actually change the lens so that you can use the camera in any situation:
In this case, I got a 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm lens that is bigger than the camera. The logic was I wanted to test the extremes that the Nikon 1 J5 is capable of. But there are a few other tricks that this camera has up it’s sleeve.
The LCD display flips up so that you can take selfies presumably.
But the LCD also pulls out so that you can have it away from the camera. One other plus is that it is touch sensitive and you can actually use it to focus the camera as well as take a picture. The only minus that I found is that it is almost unviewable in bright sunlight. That’s a big problem because there’s no viewfinder.
Besides coming with a 20.8 megapixel image sensor, the camera has NFC and WiFi which allows you to control the camera remotely from a smartphone via Nikon’s free app. Connecting to a smartphone (Android or iOS) via Wi-Fi is pretty easy. There’s a dedicated button on the back of the camera which you can press either in shooting or playback modes. You’ll then be prompted to connect to the camera’s Wi-Fi from your phone or tablet. Once connected, you need to launch the Nikon Wireless Utility app. If you have an NFC enabled device (Android only at this point), you simply hold the two together to form a connection and automatically load the app (once it’s already installed). Once paired, you can use the app to see what the camera sees and to fire off the shutter release. Memory for the Nikon 1 J5 comes in the form of MicroSD cards which I suspect that Nikon uses to keep the size of the camera down. But that means if you’ve got a bunch of SD cards lying around, you won’t be using them in this camera. The camera is powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery that survived the three hours of continuous usage. You may want to spring for an extra one though as it is specific to Nikon cameras. A recharger comes with the camera
Now the body looks like it is metal but it is actually plastic. It does feels nicely put together and the faux leather covering is also quite stylish and it gives you some extra grip. The camera feels solid and appears to be well constructed. With the 10-30mm lens it is quite small and easy to carry around.
In terms of usage, you can set it to automatic and let the camera make all the decisions about focus, exposure, shutter speed at the like, you can set everything yourself, or you can choose from a number of pre-set programs for any situation. This adds to the versatility of the camera. If you look at the first picture that I took of the camera, you’ll notice that the camera has two shutters. One is for taking still pictures, and the other is for video. That’s handy. What wasn’t as handy was that shot to shot times are a little slow for my liking. Having said that, it does have a burst mode which holds about 20 shots. That’s adequate for most people if you’re taking action shots such as a hockey game.
Speaking of pictures, that’s what really matters at the end of the day. To test what this camera can do, I went to my usual location for this sort of thing which is Pearson Airport in Toronto. Let’s start with the still pictures using the 10-30mm lens. Click the picture to enlarge it:
And now the 10-100mm lens where I made full use of the zoom function. Again, click the picture to enlarge it:
In terms of the latter pictures, I was a good distance away from these planes which meant that I had to really zoom in to get these pictures. You can see that the detail level is excellent.
This camera can shoot video up to 4K resolution (although only at 15fps at that resolution). I wasn’t that ambitious as I stuck to 1080P video. Again, I tried both lenses, starting with the 10-30mm lens. Please set it to full screen and 1080p:
Now the 10-100mm lens where I tried to zoom in on a jet that was landing:
The latter had some auto focus issues because I was zoomed in so much. Plus you could see some camera shake. If you want to shoot video, you should stick to the 10-30mm lens.
The Nikon 1 J5 goes for $600 CDN with a 10-30mm lens. If you want to add the 1 Nikkor VR 10-100mm lens to the mix, that’s another $800 CDN. But keep in mind that there are a number of lens options to choose from so that you can find the lens or lenses that suit your needs. And that’s the key point when it comes to this camera. You can have as much or as little camera as you want. Combined with the fact that you can run it in auto mode, customize it, or choose from a number pre-set programs, you also get a camera that is perfect for all users. And its physical size makes it easy to take anywhere. If you want a compact camera that you can use in any situation, the Nikon 1 J5 is definitely worth a good hard look.
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This entry was posted on June 26, 2015 at 6:46 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Nikon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.