So, the first of Samsung NX has just hatched. With a crack and pop sounds a dozens of hands-on previews have emerged. Most of them are just “I squeezed this lil thingy at the show, can’t post any pics though”. But some of them are real preproduction (beta firmware) NX10 previews.
What deserves the careful attention? First of all, the samples. There are not so much of them yet. Korean 1, 2 and 3. Next should be preview from DPreview and theirs own samples gallery. And the last but not least – Samsung NX10 vs. Panasong GF1 noise comparison here.
What’s great about Samsung NX10? Well, not much actually. This is the only APS-C EVIL camera on a horizon yet. It has a nice looking simple and sturdy body (yet not too compact and way too much DSLR-like). It has a normal pancake lens in a roadmap, and it will hit the shelves simultaneously with the first body. Colors are very “Pentaxian”. The several years of working with Pentax gave Samsung a good idea how natural colors should look like.
The rest little things are little. The picture a way too samsungish in terms of very aggressive noise reduction algorithms that are killing too much details. Also, the rumored price of $699 is a little too much for an entry-level EVIL camera, though it’s noticeably cheaper than any of Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras.
The good news is that Samsung – unlike Olympus – is dropping their DSLR operations. I guess it wasn’t a hard decision since all they did was just copying Pentax cameras and rebranding Pentax lenses. So now Samsung will concentrate all digital imaging division efforts on NX system and the fruits of this efforts are promising to be really fascinating.
Tags: cameras
January 16, 2010 at 02:55 |
You sir are amazing. Please keep us informed. Does the NX10 allow us to turn the noise reduction off completely? And can the camera be set so that noise reduction remains in the off position at all times with no concern for the dreaded default back to “noise reduction on” when re-powering up? How deep and real is the “noise reduction off” mode? Also, how instant is the viewfinder? Do we still have to suffer with the electronic view finder problem where we see what has happened a moment after it has actually occured? Thank you for a truly great initial view. Bob
January 16, 2010 at 14:14 |
Actually, as in case with all other modern cameras you can’t turn of noise reduction completely because some amount of NR is performed even before the RAW. But the rest of NR you can control freely. Just shoot RAW.
Samsung NX10 EVF is at least as good as the one of Panasonic GF1 and it means it’s very good.
January 16, 2010 at 02:56 |
yes. thank you. Bob
January 17, 2010 at 04:15 |
Thank you Runnigclam. Yes I know what you mean. I may be able to convert my thinking to RAW. I have to confess that i’m a jpeg junkie. I’ve spent thousands of hours in a darkroom in the past and so now I think I just want to have fun with something extra high quality and instant that I can play with in terms of colour, contrast, etc. Do you think that the NX10 might be one of those cameras like the E-P2 that cranks out nice jpegs? Is it possible to set the camera to a low amount of noise reduction and trust that it can hang on to that setting. I have many shots done with an LX-3 in the Jpeg mode on MySpace – boblanois. Do you think that I’ll notice a jump up in quality from lx3 jpeg to NX10 jpeg. I’ve had a chance to show in art galleries and have come to think that the moment is the whole deal. Is the NX10 pretty fast for grabbing interesting stuff as it happens with no flash? many thanks. Bob Lanois
January 17, 2010 at 08:09 |
NX10 JPEGs are nice and they are definitely much better than those from LX3.
January 17, 2010 at 04:20 |
.. that should have read “Runningclam” A most magnificent name. B