I spent a little bit of time at Ruthven Park this morning and got a few usable images of a hummingbird in flight with my Nikon 1 J5.

Since the J5 doesn’t have an EVF I used four, thick elastic bands to attach my Zacuto Z-Finder to the back of the camera.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

This worked well enough to keep the Zacuto reasonably snug against the rear screen. I looped my camera strap through the strap on the Z-Finder as an extra precaution just in case the elastics gave way.

Unfortunately I had a jam-packed day and I didn’t have too much time to spend at Ruthven Park. Luckily I had the chance to capture a few, short hand-held image runs of a couple of hummingbirds near a feeder.

I found that the AF-C on my Nikon 1 J5 wasn’t quite as responsive as my V2s, but it still got the job done. It did hesitate slightly when the hummingbird first approached the feeder. I needed to quickly reset my focus using the feeder before I could acquire initial focus on the bird.

Once the J5 acquired initial focus, all of the images in the short AF-C runs were acceptably sharp.

I know a lot of Nikon 1 owners have been patiently waiting for an updated V-series camera, and some have either bought, or are considering, a J5.

Using a loupe like a Zacuto helps quite a bit when trying to photograph birds in flight. Many photographers would find the performance of the J5 to be acceptable for their bird-in-flight needs.

While the AF-C has a little bit of hesitation in good light it does a credible job. The AF-C frame rate of 20 fps quickly fills up the small buffer of the J5, which takes some time to clear. I suggest taking shorter bursts instead of filling the buffer with one image run.

Attaching a loup to a Nikon 1 J5 does add some bulk and weight, but folks who prefer to shoot with a viewfinder will likely find this to be an acceptable trade-off.

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