Nikon 1 J5 Black

The Nikon 1 J5 is a tiny mirrorless camera with a wild 60 fps burst mode and a decent tilting touchscreen. But the 1-inch sensor struggles in low light, the 4K video is a choppy mess at 15 fps, and the lens system is completely dead. It's a fun toy for burst shooting in daylight, but most people should put their money toward a used Micro Four Thirds or Sony APS-C body instead.

That 20.8MP BSI CMOS sensor does a decent job in good light, but it's a 1-inch chip, so low light gets noisy fast. The EXPEED 5A processor helps, but you're still fighting physics. The real party trick is the burst speed, up to 60 fps with locked focus, or 20 fps with continuous AF. It sounds incredible until you realize the buffer fills up in about a second and the autofocus, while snappy with 105 phase-detect points, isn't exactly a sports demon. Video is a mixed bag. You get 4K, which is rare at this price, but it's capped at a choppy 15 fps. 1080p at 60 fps is the mode you'll actually use. The 3-inch tilting touchscreen is a standout, bright and responsive, but there's no viewfinder, so you're stuck shooting at arm's length in bright sun.

Stacked against something like a used Sony a6400 or Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II, the J5 feels like a toy. The Sony gives you a much larger APS-C sensor and vastly better autofocus. The Olympus offers in-body stabilization, weather sealing, and a massive lens ecosystem the Nikon 1 system can't touch. Even the Fujifilm X-H1, while bigger, runs circles around the J5 for video and stills. The J5's only real win is size and that bonkers burst rate, but you sacrifice so much to get it.

At $260 to $358 used, the J5 sits in a strange spot. It's cheap enough to be an impulse buy, but you're buying into a dead system. For the same money, you can find a used Micro Four Thirds body with a huge lens library and better overall performance. The J5 makes sense only if you specifically need a super compact camera with a fast burst rate and don't plan on building out a lens collection. For most people, it's a tough sell.

The Nikon 1 J5 is a weird little camera. It packs a 20.8MP CX-format sensor into a tiny body that feels more like a point-and-shoot than a serious mirrorless rig. The tilting touchscreen is genuinely nice, and the burst shooting numbers are absurd on paper. But the 1-series system was basically dead on arrival, and using one today means living with all the quirks Nikon never bothered to fix.

Skip the J5 if you need good low-light performance, a viewfinder, or a camera system with a future. The sensor is too small for serious indoor work, and the lack of an EVF makes it frustrating outdoors. If you plan to buy more than one or two lenses, look at Micro Four Thirds instead. The 1-series lens road is a dead end.

The Nikon 1 J5 is a niche camera for a niche buyer. If you already have some 1-series glass and just want a pocketable backup body, it's a fun little gadget. For everyone else, it's a dead-end curiosity. The burst speed is a hoot, but the sensor limitations and abandoned lens mount make it hard to recommend as a primary camera in 2024.