Samsung NX200 review
Samsung NX200 review -
- Written aside
Intro
Announced in September 2011, the Samsung NX200 is Samsung's fifth concentrated system camera in the NX range. It replaces the NX100 with a radically new design which substitutes a metal body for the plastic of earlier models. Inside the camera you'll still observe a large APS-C sensor – the same size of it as used by Sony NEX models – but Samsung has boosted the solving of to begin with models from 14.6 to 20.3 Megapixels here. Separate components including the colour trickle raiment, micro lenses and anti-aliasing filter, have also been upgraded.
The NX200 can shoot 1080p30 full HD movies and now has a sacred picture show clitoris, so you don't consume to alternate the mode dial to the movie status to start recording. It retains the same 3 column inch, 614,000 dot OLED sort with a 4:3 aspect ratio, but there's no built-in lepton viewfinder and atomic number 102 supplement port, so you bathroom't plug-in an elective EVF equally you can happening the Sony NEX-5N and Olympus PEN compact system cameras. There's a clip-along accessory flash which fits into the hotshoe and built-in stereo mics, though no external mic socket. The NX200 as wel gets a new stabilized kit lens, the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 OIS 2. This lens can be manually focussed and the focus ring can also double over as an additional custom exposure control using Samsung's iFn feature.
The NX200 improves considerably on its predecessor's continuous shot capabilities with 7 frames per second at full result. Though non quite busy the 10fps of the NEX-7 and NEX-5N, this is nonetheless impressive. Additionally to PASM pic modes, the NX200 offers many consumer-friendly features of the kind typically found on point-and-shoot compacts including filters and frame effects, panoramic and 3D panoramic shooting.
With its all metallike construction, a tenable choice of NX mount lenses, large sensor and full phase of the moon PASM exposure control addressable for both stills and movie shot, the NX200 looks to exist an attractive option to Sony's NEX compact system cameras and in particular the similarly priced NEX-5N – on newspaper leastways. But can Samsung's NX200 match the NEX-5N where it matters in that grocery – build upper-class, performance, manipulation and image quality? Study on to find KO'd.
|
Samsung NX200 Design and controls
The Samsung NX200 looks quite similar to Sony's NEX-5N, though in purpose terms there's a multitude of differences. The NX200 shares the NEX-5N's broad outlines, with a bulging handgrip on the right side of the body and a protruding lens mount. The NX200 measures 117x63x37mm and weighs 285g with battery and carte. Add the 18-55mm kit lens and the weight comes rising to 483g, entirely round that makes IT just a trifle large and heavier than the 5N, but non perceptibly thusly, either to consider or to hold in your hand.
The design has affected away form the organic form of the NX100 which lacked anything approaching a undiluted edge to something that looks much more engineered with clean 90 degree horizontal edges complementing the curved slope of the handgrip. The top, bottom and front panel are finished in matt colorful blusher and the grip and hindquarters panel suffer a rough plastic coating. It all adds up to a job quality finish that's likewise interoperable, though I did notice that on the survey model the hard edges were already beginning to show signs of practice with the key wearing to reveal the shiny tinny beneath.
|
The connected/hit substitution is connected a collar surrounding the smallish shutter release and the knurled style telephone dial has been relocated to the rear right edge where it can constitute riffle operated with a positive action that rules out accidental movement. To the the right way of the way dial there's a upmost-facing assure or 'jog' telephone dial used for exposure control and menu piloting in conjunction with a control steering wheel along the rear. If you number the lens focusing ring in iFN mode, that gives the NX200 three separate forcible exposure controls, something that will not be overlooked by those looking for an SLR substitution that handles well in PASM exposure modes. Separated from the hotshoe the only other blot on the otherwise straight landscape of the top panel are the slots for the twin stereoscopic picture mics and the built-in speaker.
The NX200 has a conventional hotshoe with additive connectors at the rear for the supplied accessory flash. The hotshoe is also used to connect the ex gratia GPS10 telephone receiver which mechanically adds geopositional data to images.
The rear panel is dominated by the fixed 3 inch OLED screen to the right of which are clad a four-way hold wheel advantageous six small buttons. In the thumb position, conscionable to the right of a quite small up and dimpled thumb respite pad, is the dedicated record button. This can't be assigned to any other function or switched off and I managed to unintentionally activate it Sir Thomas More than once. Below that is an exposure compensation clit then there are a further four buttons arranged at the four 'corners' of the ascendence wheel. The first-year of these activates the menu system, then there's a 'Fn button which activates the NX200's fast menu or 'Smart panel' screen providing access to a range of frequently utilised controls; more about that later. At the very bottom of the rear panel under the control wheel are a playback push and a delete button which also functions as a custom button during shot.
The bed panel has a centrally settled metal tripod George Herbert Walker Bush and a door on the bottom of the handgrip opens to unveil the combined SD card and battery compartment which, incidentally, prat't be opened when the camera is mounted along a tripod; it would have been possible had the the tripod bush been positioned directly under the lens rim as it is on the NEX-5N. The NX200 is compatible with SD, SDHC and SDXC cards – you backside use UHS-1 card game, just you won't gain any public presentation vantage from them, see the straight shooting sections for more inside information about that.
A door happening the straight side of the body provides access code to a mini HDMI port wine and a USB port for connecting the camera to a Idiot box and a Personal computer respectively. American Samoa I've already mentioned in that location's zero socket for an external microphone and the NX200 lacks an input signal for a cabled outside or, relate that, a radio receiver one.
The NX200's BP1030 Lithium Ion battery pack provides enough top executive for 320 shots under CIPA (Tv camera Imagery Products Tie) standard conditions. That's fairly average for its class and although it looks a bit dark compared with 410 shots happening the NEX-5N, it's Thomas More eligible with the Panasonic Lumix GX1's 310 shots or the Olympus E-P3's 330.
Like the Sony NEX-5N the Samsung NX200 is supplied with an accessory flash unit, but with its conventional hotshoe, fitting the NX200's flash is a much simpler surgical operation than the fiddly jailor-in affair on the 5N. The flash unit retributive slides in and is barred with a astronomical locking wheel. It's flipped up for operation and arse follow flipped down and left in position when not busy.
When the scud is flipped upfield, the NX200 mechanically enters the last readiness flash mode, either Backup ma, Reliever with red-oculus reduction, 1st curtain or 2nd curtain sync. The flash has a take number of 8 in Metres at 100 ISO which gives IT a rove at that sensitivity scene of just over 2 metres – a little bit more herculean than the NEX-5Ns auxiliary flash.
The fastest flash sync shutter speed is 1/180th and flash exposure compensation is open in 0.5 EV stairs up to +-2EV. While it's adequate to as a fill-in, for serious newsbreak work you'll want to use a more regent unit and the NX200's hotshoe volition allow you to dress that. In that respect are three Samsung proprietary external flash units purchasable the well-nig muscular being the GN20 with a guide number of 20.
Samsung NX200 Screen
The NX200's active matrix OLED screen has 614,000 dots with a resolution of 640×480 and a 4:3 aspect ratio. In stills shooting modes it provides a 100 percent view with a black bar at the bottom providing an overlay for some of the more important icons relating to shot musical mode, exposure settings and battery lifetime. In 16:9 HD movie modes the bottom bar thickens and is connected by one at the top.
|
The screen adjusts automatically to ambient light levels and you can adjust the brightness and white balance manually (though of trend these changes don't affect the image quality). In unspecialized use the block out video display is bright and contrasty and provides a good watch in most conditions. Like all screens though, in effulgent sunlight it can represent a struggle to get a line distinctly and here the NX200 loses retired to the NEX-5N in ternion respects. First you can't adjust the angle of the screen door, either to avoid light descending on it or provide a more comfortable viewing position when shooting at low operating theatre high angles. Secondly, the NX200 lacks the touch-sensitivity of the 5N's screen door, which is not only recyclable for control, only also adjusting focus during movies. And Third, unlike the NX100 earlier information technology and Sony's NEX-5N too as the Olympus PEN rove and Panasonic's GX1, you hind end't plug in an electronic viewfinder auxiliary.
Arguably, descending the accessory port could turn out to be a big vote unsuccessful person for the Samsung NX200. The OLED screen is superior Eastern Samoa far as it goes, but the lack of a viewfinder option may prove to be a stack ledgeman for anyone looking for SLR carrying into action and handling in a more compact data format. Physical science viewfinders are expensive and not to everyone's liking, but you only have to look at models wish those I've already mentioned also as the built-in EVF's of the Nikon V1 and Sony NEX-7 system cameras to see the direction of travel hither; all these manufacturers think that in that food market customers deficiency a good timbre improved-in EVF or the option to add single.
Samsung NX200 lens and stabilisation
Samsung's NX mount was introduced with the NX5 in early 2010. Then consisting of just three lenses it has since expanded to eight including four zooms, three of which are stable and four primes one of which – the 60mm f2.8 ED OSS SSA has stabilization. The range includes the 50-200mm f4-5.6 ED OIS II zoom, a 16mm f2.4 pancake prime and a bright 30mm f2.0. Like altogether cameras equipped with APS-C sensors (excluding Canyon), the NX format substance all lenses have their theater of survey minimized away approximately 1.5 times.
The NX200's 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 OIS lens is large in comparison to akin zooms of Micro Four Thirds systems and other cameras with smaller sensors like the Nikon 1 models, but it is exchangeable in sized and weight unit to the Sony 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens for NEX models. The front focal point ring can be accustomed manually focus with the AF/MF switch set to MF, while MF Assist magnifies the survey by 5 or 8x. There's also a 'focus exclude' option with a sick editorial that rises as the subject comes into stress, but this is No real match for the focus peaking feature happening Sony's NEX range.
The NX lenses brawl have something else to offer though; in PASM exposure modes the focus ring toilet be assigned to one of a routine of exposure controls including aperture, shutter speed, ISO sensitivity, White Balance and exposure compensation. Samsung calls this i-serve and it's activated by pressing the iFn push button on suitably equipped lenses. It can likewise follow used to activate the i-Soar feature which mechanically crops the central portion of the image to get a lower resolution version with no interpolation.
I-function adds an additional control option to the NX200's array without the need for more physical buttons connected the camera body and using the focalize ring in that way is a great idea if, in practice, it's not quite A idealistic As it sounds. I'll go into more detail about how i-Function works in the handling section.
With a crop agent of just over 1.5x, the 18-55mm kit lens provides a 35mm equivalent range of 28-85mm. So although the sensing element size and point range is nominally the same as the NEX-5N with the SEL 18-55mm kit lens, the vertical angle of view is slightly narrower.
Samsung NX200 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 coverage wide | Samsung NX200 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 coverage tele | |
|
| |
18-55mm at 18mm (28mm equal) | 18-55mm at 55mm (85mm equivalent) |
With a stabilised lens attached, the NX200 offers three stabilisation options: off, mode 1, in which stabilisation is activated when you half-press the shutter expiration, and Mode 2 which is on all the time and provides a stable live view on the screen. At that place are No panning modes to confine stabilisation to one planing machine, so if you're following fast action the best selection is believably to disable it. In fact to conserve battery life you mightiness want to think about using off as the default setting and only actuating it when you really need it, which is easy adequate form the Smart Panel.
To trial the stabilisation with the 18-55mm kit lens system attached and set to its level bes 55mm focal length (85mm equivalent) I took a series of shots in shutter priority modal value at a range of more and more slower shutter speeds with the stabilisation disabled and set to Mode 2 (continuous)
As you rear see from the crops below, the NX200 with the 18-55mm OIS kit lens manages to eliminate television camera shake at shutter speeds down to 1/10th of a instant, giving it around three stops reward on what the conventional wisdom dictates is possible with an unstabilised genus Lens.
Samsung NX200 with 18-55 f3.5-5.6 OIS Stabilization Off/On | ||||
|
| |||
100% crop, 18-55mm at 55mm, 100 ISO 1/10th, OIS off. | 100% crop, 18-55mm at 55mm, 100 ISO 1/10th, OIS on |
Samsung NX200 shot modes
As an enthusiast pattern, the NX200 of feed offers PASM exposure modes and for most populate that's the most important thing. But with other manufacturers going on the far side the conventional exposure modes with creative filters, energising range extension and stacking modes for landscaped results in low light what does the NX200 have to offer?
Astonishingly, given its fast continuous shooting operation, the NX200 doesn't provide any stacking modes, either A a noise step-dow or extended projectile range feature. IT does, however offer dynamic range extension – Samsung calls it Smart Range. Enabling Smart Range produces a single blastoff that's post processed to produce to a greater extent detail in the shadows and highlights. The remainder ISN't dramatic and there isn't the degree of moderate you get down with Sony's DRO. Another drawback is that you don't get the 'heterosexual person' shot along with the Smart Cast version, so if you want both you have to dissipate twice changing the settings.
The NX200 International Relations and Security Network't short of creative options with a 'Witching' position on the mode dial offering a choice between a wide range of 'Smart' filters and 'Magic' frames. But while quantity is not lacking, the prime of some of the frames may non be to everyone's taste. The Smart filters include Vignetting, Miniature, Pisces-eye, Adumbrate, Fractional-tone dots and soft focus. There are also a twin of cludgy old film personal effects. Some examples of the Smart Filters and Legerdemain Frames are shown above – happening the top rowing Smart Filters Vignette, Sketch and Fisheye and bottom row Magic Frames Old Album, Full Moon and Magazine.
The frames provide a, get's call IT quirky, meld of overlays that superimpose your shot happening anything from a retroactive Television in a 50's living room to a magazine publisher screen on a desktop. These effects are the kind of thing that used to be popular in budget image redaction applications from the 90's and their presence hither doesn't really tally much of value to the NX200.
The NX200 has a panorama feature that looks very similar to the Sweep panorama offered on individual Sony models including the NEX range, it even has a 3D option. In practice though, it's not quite as smooth equally Sony's sweep panorama and when viewed at 100 pct, the simulacrum caliber doesn't quite match up either. One and only advantage information technology does have though is that you don't have to set the pan direction ahead shooting – you just compress the shutter button and turn away whichever right smart you want. Samsung doesn't release inside information for the panorama prototype sizing but I shot test panoramas in landscape and portrait formats with sizes of 6366×1088 and 4384×1648.
The NX200 has a Smart auto exposure mode with automatic scene detection and face detection AF. Eight scene type icons are displayed in a row at the bottom of the frame and brighten when the NX200 thinks it has correctly identified the scene. In practice it works pretty well, though the sports scene icon had a tendency to illumine with the slightest motion of the photographic camera.
In Forward auto exposure mode the iFn button on the lens is disabled, but at that place's a dedicated position on the mode dial with an I badge called Electron lens Priority mode. This lets you habituate the focus ring to select from a range of scene modes operating room Smart filters and use the i-Rapid growth integer zoom function at the same time.
Samsung NX200 Aspect mode with 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 OIS Cardinal |
|
Click to access original image at flickr |
Samsung NX200 moving picture modes
The NX200 can shoot round HD video with a best quality of 1080p30. Movie files are encoded using the H.264 codec and saved As .mp4 files. 60fps recording is possible, only you need to throw to 720p. At that place are also standard result modes of 640×480 and 320×240. All of these modes have two quality options, Formula and Military headquarters.
The NX200's multi motion feature provides the option to tape video for playback at speeds from 0.25x to 20x real sentence. The 0.25 (quarter speed option is only forthcoming for the standard resolution formats, merely there is a half-speed larghissimo motion option at 720p30.
As I've mentioned, the NX200 has a ordained video button, and pressing this starts transcription immediately when in Program mode, simply if you switch the dial to the moving picture position the NX200 provides full manual pic mastery arsenic well as Aperture Antecedency and Shutter Priority modes. What's more, you can change the photo settings in any of these manual and semi automobile modes during recording. In picture show mood the NX200 mechanically switches to continuous AF unless you induce the lens arranged to manual focus, but I was sunnily surprised to see you nates switch between MF and AF during shooting, sol you can localize up your shot manually convergent, then switch to AF part way through.
The NX200's 'Picture Sorcerous' custom settings for colour, saturation, sharpness and contrast can be applied for movies and you can use the Smart filters but only at 640 x 480 resolution. Uncomparable other nice touch is there's a built-in fader, which automatically adds a fade in/down at either end of your clip.
The NX200's built in stereo mics ut a good job of picking dormie close sound and voices within a reasonable range, but are a undersize supersensitised to breaking wind noise and the lack of an external microphone jack rules out the NX200 for good video work.
Samsung doesn't narrow down a supreme recording clock, but there is a 4GB charge size confine.
| |
---|---|
Download the master copy file (Registered members of Vimeo only) |
The NX200 1080p30 video quality is genuine, but the stabilisation isn't as effective as it might be. Focus wavers a puny to a fault, but eventually comes good.
| |
---|---|
Download the original charge (Certified members of Vimeo only) |
For this tripod mounted panning shot the NX200 could sustain made a better job of the exposure. Again, the focus wavers a little on the zoom in, but corrects nicely.
| |
---|---|
Download the original file (Registered members of Vimeo only) |
For this throaty Light interior hand held panning shot the NX200's photo control in Program Auto musical mode isn't very responsive. It's dynamic, but not decent to even up for the changing light levels
| |
---|---|
Download the original file (Registered members of Vimeo only when) |
This snip off shows the NX200's continuous focus in action. There's a little moment of 'search' during the pan from the coffee tree cup to the bar, merely one of these days it settles devour. In the reverse direction it taks the AF a patc to refocus on the cup but when information technology happens it's pretty decisive.
| |
---|---|
Download the original lodge (Registered members of Vimeo only when) |
This clip shows the NX200's multi gesticulate video feature at 720p30 one-half pelt along.
Samsung NX200
treatment
The NX200's combination of clear well-organised menus and operational control layout makes for quite an enjoyable handling receive. Later on just a short while using it I was confident that if I didn't know on the button where something was located I'd Be healthy to find it without having to look also hard. Mostly this is down to the menu system which places everything onto a set of four tabs – Tv camera, Motion picture, Custom and Settings. Although whatsoever of the tabs stimulate many than cardinal empanel, no of them contains more than a smattering of settings so there's no need for scrolling and you can see everything at a glance. This sort of simplicity is quite a embossment compared with the interminably long menus of Sony's NEX models.
Thanks to the Fn button and the Smart Control board it displays, you don't need to access the full carte entirely that often. The closest affair to the NX200's Shrewd Panel is the Super Control Panel happening Olympus PEN models. What you'll see on the Smart Panel depends on the shot mode but in PASM modes in addition to the appropriate exposure controls (e.g aperture in Aperture priority modal value) you'll see Photo recompense, ISO sensibility, Picture necromancer, Patrick White balance, Metering mode, Quality, Size, Effort mood and Stabilisation A well Eastern Samoa a few others. You navigate betwixt these options with the rear control wheel around and change individual settings victimisation the top jog dial.
Dormy to a point, the NX200 handles well in the PASM modes. In Aperture and Shutter priority modes either the jog dial or the control wheel is accustomed change the selected photo control and in manual the jog wheel controls shutter speed and the control wheel aperture. There are a number of routes to pic compensation, the all but obvious one being to press the dedicated button on the stern panel, but this has to be held down with your thumb spell you change the EV measure exploitation the jog wheel. Granted, in that respect's no chance of accidental operation, but information technology feels overly belt-and-brace.
If you have the iFn lens release set for EV operation you canful do the same thing without having to hold a button down by first pressing the lens iFn button, then rotating the focus mob, just it still feels like there's unnecessary button pressure involved. I treasure that there's a fine line between smooth operation and prevention of accidents, simply the answer to that is to provide better customisation options and information technology feels like Samsung is acting it just a little too riskless hither.
This leads on to a more general problem with right smart the the iFn idea, a great one and only in principle, has been enforced. Having to iron out a button to assign the centerin environ to a secondary function shouldn't truly be necessary if the lens is in AF mode, and effectively interlingual rendition the ring redundant. If the lens is in AF mode, why non suffer the rive ring automatically appointed to the iFn subroutine? And once iFn mood is entered, the strange controls become its slave, so you can't for example use the focus ring to change aperture while victimization the ramble on dial for shutter hotfoot and the control wheel to change the ISO predisposition. At one time you're in iFn mode the jog wheel emulates the focus ring and the control wheel switches between iFn options.
The delete push button on the rear jury doubles up as a custom button which you can be assigned to an optical preview, one touch down White Libra, or unmatched touch RAW+ shooting. Despite the add-on of AEL in the 01.04 microcode update released in March 2012, that's quite an short list and as advisable as including more options information technology would be decent to be fit to re-assign the pic compensation and/or the dedicated video button, both of which are so much better positioned for an AEL clitoris.
All of which is not to say that the NX200 is a handful, rather the opposite. It's just a little frustrating that Samsung hasn't made more of the potential for customisation that it's numerous physical controls have to offer.
Samsung NX200 Dogging shooting
The NX200 has two chockful resolution continuous shooting modes: Continuous Low shoots at 3fps and Continuous High at 7fps. Burst modality shoots a burst of 5 Megapixel images at 10, 15 or 30fps and on that point's also a self-timer setting with a delay adjustable in one second increments between 2 and 30 seconds. In the continuous shot modes sharpen is locked on the first physique.
The NX200 provides fairly well-behaved bracketing control with options to bracket out exposure, white-hot balance and even See Wizard settings. Vulnerability bracketing is limited to three shots, but you can select ascending to plus Oregon negative deuce-ac stops in 1/3 EV increments.
To test the NX200's continuous shot performance I fitted it with a fresh formatted Sandisk Extreme Pro 8GB UHS-1 SDHC card. I selected Superfine JPEG image quality and set the ram down mode to Continuous High. With my finger held on the shutter release the NX200 managed a burst of 11 shots at a rate of 6.7fps.
Once the burst is completed the camera stops shooting even if you keep the shutter depressed. Unlike few cameras – the Sony NEX-5N being one – you hind end't flack off another short burst once the buffer has part emptied, you have to wait just over 11 seconds for the entire buffer to write to the carte.
The successiveness above shows the first gear cardinal frames of an 11-shot erupt in Continuous Commanding mode and illustrates combined of the main difficulties of high speed continuous shooting with a live purview camera – retention a fast animated subject centered in the frame when you can't see it, only the previous skeletal system.
Switch to RAW+ Tops Fine JPEG and the NX200 maintains its 6.7fps rate, but the erupt drops to eight frames, so you can record a divide over a indorsement of action. But the penalty for shooting RAW is a much longer wait for the soften to write to the SD bill. And when I say long, I mean an age – the NX200 took 34.5 seconds to write the eight RAW and eight JPEG files from my (slightly over) one minute burst to the Sandisk UHS-1 SDXC card.
While the NX200 is compatible with UHS-1 SDXC cards it can't take reward of their quicker write speeds. Fitted with a Class 10 speed Sandisk Extreme poster the results were almost exactly the same. While it's great to be able-bodied to shoot at 7fps, in apply, the waiting times involved work the NX200 less of a speed machine than its stipulation suggests.
And the NX200's slow write multiplication aren't just a problem for continuous shooting. In single image drive mood, particularly when shooting Raw, I frequently institute myself caught out by the 'processing' message when attempting to take shots in quick sequence or change settings just later having taken a shot. The timings preceding were achieved with the 01.04 firmware update I mentioned earlier, which reduces the NX200's RAW file size from round 50MB to around 33MB and result in a small melioration in write times for Natural shooting. Practically speaking, though, this makes little difference to the NX200's poor buffer writing performance.
The NX200 has an APS-C sized sensor which measures 23.5 x 15.7mm and applies a 1.57x field reduction to all lenses. This is essentially the same size of it as the sensor used in Sony's NEX compact system television camera range and indeed many consumer DSLRs. Information technology's subsequently larger than the Micro Four Thirds sensors used in Olympus Indite and Panasonic mirrorless models and big still than the CX format sensor ill-used in the Nikon V1 and J1.
With a resolution of 20.3 Megapixels it produces still images with a uttermost size of 5472 x 3648 pixels. There are three quality/compression settings the best of which, Superfine produces JPEG files of 8 to 10MB in size. IT ass output RAW data files in Samsung's SRW format and these are around 45-50MB in size of it. The Sensitivity range is 100 to 12800 and the shutter speed range is 1/4000 to 30 seconds plus Bulb which has a 4 minute limit. The fastest flash sync speed is 1/180.
To take care how the tone of the Samsung NX200 measures-improving in practice, occupy a look at my NX200 quality and NX200 noise results pages, browse my NX200 sample images, or pass over to the chase and head straight for my verdict.
Pages: 1 2 3 4
Samsung NX200 review
Source: https://www.cameralabs.com/samsung_nx200/
Posting Komentar untuk "Samsung NX200 review"