Who's that handsome photographer?

EASY TO CARRY and fun to use, the Nikon 1 J5 is a mirrorless, interchangeable-lens camera with 20.8-megapixel resolution and fast shooting speed. It gets good-quality shots and – you bet – it’s great for selfies.

The J5 is the latest addition to the popular Nikon 1 series, which all use a CMOS sensor that’s 13.2x8.8mm, something the maker calls “CX format”. You get an effective angle of view of 2.7 times the lens focal length, so the 1 Nikkor 10-30 VR lens kit I used in my testing here had a 27-to-81mm focal length in 35mm equivalence, which should cover every possible shooting need.

The J5 might indeed become your everyday camera. It’s a compact 98x60x32mm and the body weighs just 231 grams, so it’s comfortable to carry around on the neck strap, ready for those spontaneous shots. It starts up fast, too – ready to work less than two seconds after you switch on the power.

You have a 20.8-megapixel backside illumination CMOS image sensor, enabling good-quality shots even in low light. An Expeed 5A image-processor engine keeps the operation snappy, making the autofocus fast as well, with 105 phase-detection AF points. With all this you can get full-resolution photos at 20 frames per second with continuous autofocus.

If you love taking selfies, let the J5 be your enabler, with its three-inch TFT LCD screen that can be reversed 180 degrees. As soon as the monitor is turned around, the camera switches to self-portrait mode, with three settings to adjust – skin softening, self-timer and exposure compensation. The first one magically makes your complexion younger and fairer. You just tap the monitor to focus on the selected subject, or simply press the shutter button.

Now you’ll want to share those selfies, and the J5 has built-in Wi-Fi connectivity backed up with NFC connection-assisting technology. Tap the N (for “NFC”) mark on the back of your smartphone to the N mark on the front of the camera and the phone is prompted to download and install a Wireless Mobile Utility app. This app can serve as a remote control for the camera, right down to adjusting some of the settings and firing the shutter. You can also download photos from camera to phone to easily share on the social networks.

Rookies will have no problem mastering the J5. In full automatic-exposure mode it adjusts the shooting parameters for you according to whatever light is available. You can still tweak the settings by using Live Image Control, which lets you preview changes and adjust Active D-Lighting, Background Softening, Motion and Brightness controls and the Creative Palette.

With Motion Control you can freeze moving objects or reduce the amount of blur. Creative Palette is all the fun effects – you use a finger or a multi selector to rotate the palette for different colours, even black and white if you wish. 

Active D-Lighting is useful in complicated lighting, letting you preserve details in the highlights and shadows for more natural contrast.

More advanced photographers will prefer the other modes – Programmed Auto, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Manual, all accessible from the main dial. P mode is recommended for snapshots and other situations where you want to leave the camera in charge of shutter speed and aperture. You can still override its choices, regardless.

Creative mode has 19 scenes and effects, including Night Portrait, Landscape, Fisheye, Toy Camera Effect, Pop, Retro, Nostalgic Sepia, Easy Panorama and Miniature.

In my test I found that the camera captured pleasing, good-quality shots. The landscapes were sharp and beautiful, the colours natural, though you can enhance the hues by selecting “Vivid” in the picture-control system, or make the image neutral or monochrome.

Portrait mode produced lovely shots with the subjects’ skin softened, and Sports mode has a choice of frame rates from five to 60 frames per second. Best Moment Capture mode records 20 frames just before and after shutter release so you can choose the best or let the camera do so, based on composition and movement.

The J5 is also capable of recording Full HD1080/60p and 4K/15 video clips.

Several choices of 1 Nikkor lens are now available for the Nikon 1 mount system. You can also use an FT-1 adapter to use lenses from Nikon DLSR cameras.

The Nikon 1 J5 with the 1 Nikkor 10-30 VR lens kit has a suggested retail price of Bt21,990.

 

Key Specs

- Type: Digital camera with support for interchangeable lenses

- Lens mount: Nikon 1 

- Effective angle of view:|2.7x lens focal length |(35mm format equivalent)

- Image sensor: CX, CMOS, 13.2x8.8mm

- Effective pixels: 20.8 million

- Storage media: microSD (micro Secure Digital), microSDHC, microSDXC

- Shutter type: Electronic |shutter

- Shutter speed: 1/16,000 to 30 seconds in steps of 1/3 EV; Bulb (ends automatically after two minutes)

- Release mode: S (single frame), Continuous, Self-timer, Interval timer shooting

- Frame advance rate: |Five to 60fps 

- Self-timer: Two seconds, |10 seconds

- Exposure metering: TTL using image sensor

- Metering method: Matrix, |centre-weighted, 4.5mm circle |in centre of frame. Spot, 2mm circle centred on selected |focus area

- ISO: 160, 200-12800 in steps of 1 EV

- Autofocus: Hybrid (phase-detection/contrast-detect AF); AF-assist illuminator

- Focus areas: Single-point AF: 171 focus areas; centre 105 areas support phase-detection AF; Auto-area AF: 41 

- Highest movie resolutions: 1920x1080/60p; 3840x2160/15p

- Monitor: Three-inch, 1037k-dot, tilting TFT LCD touch screen with brightness adjustment

- Interface: micro USB, micro HDMI

- Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g

- Battery: rechargeable Li-ion EN-EL24 battery