Nikon J5 Flash

Flash Test Results

Coverage and Range
A weak flash with narrow coverage. More than average exposure compensation needed.

Flash coverage, 10mm

Coverage. Flash coverage was very narrow at wide angle (10mm) as you can see from the dark corners and edges in the image above. Narrow coverage at wide angle isn't unusual, though, and some of the corner darkening may be from the lens itself. We no longer test flash coverage at telephoto, as it is invariably better, making wide angle the worst case scenario.

Normal Flash
f/4, 1/60s, +1.0 EV
Slow-Sync Flash
f/4, 1/20s, +0.3 EV

Exposure. For our Indoor Portrait scene test, the Nikon J5's flash produced a fairly bright image with +1.0 EV, a little more than the average +0.7 EV compensation needed for this shot. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode also produced bright results at +0.3 EV, but resulted in a strong pinkish-orange cast from the ambient room lighting due to the slower 1/20s shutter speed.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range

7.4 feet
f/2.8, ISO 160

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Nikon J5's flash Guide Number (GN) is 5 meters or 16 feet in auto flash mode at ISO 100, which translates to a range of only about 7.4 feet at f/2.8 and ISO 160. The target in our flash shot above was underexposed by almost a full stop at those settings, indicating Nikon's rating for the J5's flash power is perhaps quite optimistic.

 



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