Nikon Z5 – Is an affordable mirrorless camera worth it?

The Nikon Z5 is Nikon’s Entry Level Full Frame Mirrorless Camera. It is compact yet powerful, simple yet sophisticated. With whatever skill level, the Z5 has the tools you need to be as creative as possible.

This is the most affordable full-frame camera from Nikon, but is it any good? Well, let’s find out.

If you’ve ever watched my review of the Nikon Z6, you would notice some significant similarities between this and that. I did say in that video that, the Nikon Z6 was the best beginner full-frame camera. But I might change my mind with this one, might?

For the design, up top is the shooting dial, along with the record and ISO button. We also get the speaker grill almost hidden in there. The front shows the screen and most of the regular buttons and controls you would typically see on most cameras. I love the fact that you can easily switch between photo and video without using the mode dial. This is convenient for me. On the left side are the MIC input and headphone jack, the USB type C port, the HDMI port, and one other port for external remote control. There are other 2 Function buttons right next to the lens, but I never found myself utilizing such a feature. The camera is tough and feels tough with a robust magnesium alloy chassis that is both dust- and weather-resistant.



I know the camera looks bulky when you look at it this way, but since there’s no lens cover at the moment, I just have the FTZ mount on it. For that, there’s a lens cover for.

Nikon says that this camera is your entry to video since it shoots 4K using all the advantages of mirrorless technology and the Z system’s high-performance optics. Now that’s all fancy to say and hear, but honestly, the 4K at 30fps is cool but has an incredible 1.7x crop which zooms in when you switch. This turns videos from this to this. So, if you don’t have a really wide lens to compensate for this, then most of your normal-looking shots, will turn to this. Fortunately, you can shoot in 1080p 60fps and have absolutely no issues. For photos, it shoots up to 4.5 fps in photo mode

It has 231-point phase-detect autofocus which works quite impressively. It works well in 4K but works phenomenal in 1080p. There’s also the animal and human eye detection autofocus which works well when the subject is a lot closer to the camera. Is that just me, or does that sound very similar to what we have on Canon? Say the M50, which you can find out more about here, or even the EOS RP. Well, if you don’t trust the autofocus on this or just want to have that control over what the camera focuses on, the manual focus system comes with focus peeking, so you’ll definitely know when you nail the focus.



This camera is a 24.3MP full-frame sensor which Nikon calls the FX-format. And unlike the traditional crop sensor or DX-Format, the sensor here is a lot bigger. And with that, combined with the EXPEED 6 Image Processor, we get better photos and videos even at higher ISO.

Speaking of ISO, the Nikon Z5 maxes out at 51,200 ISO. With the amazing work, most camera makers are doing with mirrorless systems, working with higher ISO is much better. It’s still not too great, but it is way better than older DSLRs.

When shooting, photos especially, you have the option to use the 3.2 inches touchscreen LCD on the back or the 3.6m dot OLED electronic viewfinder which is activated using this button right here. And just like the LCD on the back, you can see and adjust your camera settings like the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed using the viewfinder. With no magnification, what you see on either display, is exactly what you get. The screen provides a bright, clear, and vivid image playback and lives view shooting. The screen has a tilting design, which I don’t really like. I mean, it’s ideal for shooting high and low angles, but I feel a flip-out screen would make more sense to me.

For photos, I didn’t notice the usual greenish look with Nikon cameras here. Everything I took pictures of, look close to what I was seeing. For videos at 1080p, here’s how it looks and sounds.



The Nikon Z5 has dual SD memory cards slots both of which support up to the UHS-II for high-speed photo and video file saving. I’ll recommend you get at least a card with 95M/s read and write speed if you intend to be shooting fast-moving subjects or at a higher resolution for videos.

Then finally, powering this entire camera is Nikon’s EN-EL15c rechargeable lithium-ion battery which provides approximately 470 shots per charge. And if a single battery isn’t enough for you or the body is a bit too small for you, you can always get a battery grip extension, so you can use 2 batteries at the same time. Luckily for streamers, the camera supports charging via USB, even when the camera is in use. So that means this is among the handful of cameras to be used as a webcam for live streams or even video calls, straight out of the box, neat. I did notice that the battery will have to be this exact type. So, do well to get them from Authentic shops.

There are some other advantages of using the Nikon Z5. And some of them include Optical VR image stabilization and electronic Vibration Reduction. Focus Peaking in manual focus mode. The ability to capture stills while recording. Although, you would be limited by the frame of the video. In-camera time-lapse shooting and the whole-Body Design and ease of both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Connectivity makes this, the best budget full-frame camera from Nikon at the moment. For close to GHc 8000, is this is one to go for? Well, if you can look past the unavailability of a flip-out screen, the slightly slower autofocus system, the additional payment to make for an FTZ adapter, then this is one to go for.