Samsung NX30 mirrorless camera: review

Longtime followers of my blog will know that I have reviewed all previous Samsung NX cameras since their first

NX10

and held dozens of Samsung NX workshops covering all of their NX models.The latest NX camera released by Samsung in April 2013, the

NX300

, for me, was a leap for the NX series mirrorless camera. But Samsung made NX owners wait another year before releasing another pro-grade NX camera.

Samsung NX cameras are designed to give users flexible shooting controls, which any old school photographer would appreciate. I like the number of direct hardware buttons that allow me to adjust aperture, shutter, ISO, white balance, shot control, exposure compensation, etc. The i-Function allows the user to adjust settings by rotating the lens ring. Wireless file transfer works better than other competitors.

Despite the excellent shooting controls, NX hardware development has remained somewhat stagnant over the years. Meanwhile, other manufacturers are already making progress. The Nikon 1 series delivers an incredible 30 fps with continuous autofocus .The Sony NEX series offers the best high ISO low noise performance.The Olympus OM-D EM1 is very close to the experience of shooting with a DSLR thanks to fast and precise autofocus and a short EVF power outage. The Fuji X series is a favorite among fine art photographers due to its film-like dynamic range. Each of the brands has a unique characteristic that appeals to a specific target segment.

So when Samsung finally announces the NX30, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I want to know how much Samsung has improved its high-end NX model.

For existing NX10/NX11/NX20 users

Here is a list of features that Samsung has improved on its flagship lineup:

Design

suitable for serious shooters. Samsung strengthens the grip, provides a larger mode dial for easier handling, a more protruding shutter, a better contoured bulge at the thumb rest. It's absolute comfort to hold. There's no need to spend extra money to buy a separate handle like what other manufacturers have done.

generous

hand shake

also means better handling of heavy lenses like the

18-200mm f/3.5-6.3

or the

85mm f/1.4

portrait lens.

NX20, NX30 and Nikon D600

The NX30

touchscreen

the experience is responsive and lag-free. With the touchscreen, it becomes so much faster to manage settings, browse through images, make on-screen selections, type on the on-screen keyboard.

Remaining battery indicator

is displayed as a percentage. Now I know exactly how much battery is left and plan my charging more efficiently.

A rather useful

notification panel

, inspired by the Android UI, displays storage and battery level, and allows you to quickly adjust the brightness. You no longer need to navigate the menu to temporarily adjust the screen.

iFn Plus

, a new custom feature for users who want to use the iFn button to invoke other menu functions other than aperture, shutter, ISO, white balance. Now I can use the iFn button to adjust quality, set video multi-motion or quickly disable touch operation.

I am able to settle

minimum shutter speed

when using Program or Aperture mode. With this the NX30 will automatically select the appropriate ISO only in the shutter speed I desire (minimum shutter speed is disabled when ISO is not Auto)

I can now disable the

Modes Help Guide

, so that I can switch modes faster. Previously, every time I turned the mode dial, the animated UI was displayed with some help text which may be helpful for beginners but slows down mode switching.

You can configure to take photos automatically at set intervals, activated in “self-timer” shooting mode. After all,

interval shooting

is a variant of timer shooting.

There is an option to disable

touch operation

, which disables touch screen operation during normal shooting. Yet the NX30 automatically re-enables touch operation when the user presses a button to enter function selection mode. It's a smart design : naturally, when you press a button, say ISO, to adjust the settings, you want to use the touch screen.

New Smart Modes

: Multi Exposure, Smart Jump Shot, add more creative options without much effort.

RAW processing

: When shooting RAW, the NX30 does not freeze for as long as previous models because it empties the buffer faster to allow for new RAW shots. However, when the buffer is used more than halfway through and you try to play back images or change shooting settings, the screen freezes with “Processing”. This behavior is no different from earlier NX models, except there are more buffer to prevent this from happening too often. I find shooting 4 frames RAW + SFine burst to be fine, but nothing more would fix the buffer issue. Using a card Faster SD can alleviate this problem.

For new Samsung NX readers

For those who have never touched a Samsung NX camera before, here is a brief list of unique features that entice you to try the NX30:

Dedicated buttons

for quick shooting controls. Aperture and shutter are easily adjusted using 2 separate wheels. Changing ISO, white balance, AF area, AF type, shutter speed 'EV, shooting drive is done via dedicated buttons and dials.

The NX series has similar buttons for easy upgrading.

iFn

.This is a button on the camera lens that lets you access common shooting controls such as aperture, shutter, ISO, EV (value exposure), white balance (white balance) and adjust using the lens ring. For intermediate users, i-Mode allows you to adjust depth and contrast without requiring any knowledge technical.

A myriad of creative shooting modes. For non-serious users, you can fall back on the

16 intelligent modes

, like landscape, fireworks, portrait, action, panorama. Some modes like portrait will automatically apply skin softening effect.

Picture Wizard

is a shooting setting that lets you capture images with custom color tone, saturation, sharpness, and contrast, or choose from presets like Vivid, Retro, Classic.

20.3MP APS-C CMOS sensor, delivering higher image detail than Micro Four-Thirds and smaller sensor formats.

Hybrid AF

, combining contrast detection and phase detection AF to achieve faster AF.

Shutter speed 1/8000 sec, 9 fps (frames per second) 20.3 MP full resolution, or 10/15/30 fps at 5 MP

Unique

tilting EVF

allows you to shoot from difficult angles. Although the tilting 3-inch Super AMOLED screen is more flexible, the EVF is better at composing shots with better stability and less distraction.

Image editing

is easy on the NX30 after taking the shot. From cropping and resizing to adjusting brightness, contrast, color tones, there is no need to download images to your PC for simple editing.

Samsung NX30 Mirrorless Camera: Review

Able to

load

the NX30 with portable battery via micro USB. You can even use the camera while charging. The NX30 battery is rated at 1410mAh and is not compatible with earlier NX models.

Wide range of lenses

.Today, there are NX lenses that cover from 10mm to 200mm.Besides the usual 18-55mm kit lens, there are 10mm rectilinear fish-eye lenses, 16mm prime wide-angle lenses, 20mm, 30mm, 12-24mm f4-5.6 ultra-wide angle zoom, 18 -200mm f3.5-6.3 all-in-one zoom.There are specialty lenses like 60mm f2.8 macro, portrait 85mm f1.4, 2D/3D 45mm. There's even the high-end professional 16-50mm f2-2.8 zoom (below).

The huge 16-50mm lens feels right at home with the NX30's large grip.

Delivered with

Adobe Lightroom 5

.Samsung offers Lightroom 5 worth over 200USD for you to easily enhance your photos.I also use Lightroom to edit most of my photos.

A little post-processing goes a long way.

Wireless Photo Sharing

Like other Samsung smart cameras with Wi-Fi, you need to install the Samsung Smart Camera app on your smart device (phone, tablet) to do wireless photo transfer to your smart device:

Mobile link:

Selectively transfer images from camera to device. NX30 now allows you to transfer to multiple devices at the same time, instead of one device at a time.

Pro Remote Viewfinder:

allows you to control the NX30 with a live view from your smart device. The NX30 now allows you to select PASM shooting mode and adjust shooting parameters (aperture, shutter, EV, WB, mode AF, etc.)

Taking this image using the remote viewfinder. Do you see my finger on the shutter on the screen?

Baby monitor:

allows the NX30 to alert you on the smart device when it detects sound.

Email and cloud sharing:

you can send images from the NX30 to email, Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, Dropbox and Flickr. The touchscreen makes it much easier to type messages before uploading them.

The NX30 offers an incredibly simple new way to transfer images to your NFC-enabled smart devices.

Auto Sharing:

essentially works like Eye-Fi or Flucard, every photo taken on the NX30 is immediately transferred to the smart device. The session remains connected even when you change shooting mode or playback mode, until you end the session manually or turn off the camera. To activate AutoShare, simply press the dedicated button next to the shutter.

Picture beam:

when reviewing photos in playback mode, whenever you find an image you want, just place the NFC-enabled smart device (with Samsung Smart Camera app in the background) on the left side of the NX30, and the wireless transfer will be initiated. There is no need to initiate a function on the NX30 - just tap on your smart device and the file goes there!

Image quality

At low ISO the NX30 exhibits excellent image tone. Since previous models I have had no issues with low ISO and when shooting RAW I get the same image control as my DSLR. It's the high ISO that I wasn't happy with in previous models, so here I'll focus on the high ISO comparison.

When studying the image in high ISO, the NX30 image processing engine tries to eliminate ISO noise by applying noise reduction which results in loss of image detail. But it's still better than the chroma noise of the NX20.

The NX30 also delivers more punchy images. But if you prefer otherwise, you can always use one of the Picture Wizard presets to fine tune.

Also, when images are well exposed, high ISO shots are very usable.

Due to the lack of other camera models on hand, I am unable to make any further comparisons. But referring to the

Nikon 1AW1

I reviewed earlier this month, the Samsung NX30 is significantly better in terms of high ISO noise and image detail.

For better and for worse

The NX30 doesn't fix all the issues that bother me over previous models.

Playback files are sorted in descending order, which means the previous photo is on the right, unlike most cameras which sort playback files in ascending order (previous photo is on the left). is not customizable. I also don't like the grouping of burst photos into folders during playback, and would prefer to have an option to disable that.

I don't find the new shutter control dial very useful. The reason for this is that for some shutter control modes I would still have to go to settings to make changes. For example, there are 3 shot settings continuous shooting, 4 bracketing options.

The EVF and the touch screen have different color tones. The EVF color looks neutral but the touch screen is more saturated.

The highest auto ISO remains at ISO 3200. I would prefer it to go higher, and hopefully I can get my wish through firmware updates.

The battery drains fairly quickly, although the percentage indicator is a grace that helps me manage my usage better. Luckily, I can continue filming while plugging in an external charging source.

The high ISO image quality is still second to none with the high-end DSLR I'm familiar with.

Professional with skill

My main favorites of the NX30 have to be the exceptional grip that balances the weight when using heavy lenses, and the Photo Beam feature that allows me to transfer images just by tapping the smart device while reviewing photos. I also find the touchscreen operation to be very responsive, smooth and well thought out. The battery percentage indicator is also highly appreciated. The NX30 has certainly made photo sharing much more convenient, which pleasantly surprises me.

Other cameras may appeal to consumers with their retro or modern design, but the Samsung NX30 will impress the serious photographer who appreciates the ability to capture and share images with speed and ease. faster user to satisfy users like me who are too accustomed to the DSLR way of doing things.

Is the NX30 too pro or bulky for you?Samsung just announced

NX-Mini

, the thinnest interchangeable lens camera. Check back to my blog soon for review.