Samsung makes everyone happy

Samsung NX300 is a fun-to-use and smart mirrorless interchangeable lens camera that comes with built-in Wi-Fi for instant sharing of good quality images.

NX300 features a large APS-C CMOS sensor with 20.3 megapixel resolution, allowing the compact camera to have quality and performance similar to a larger DSLR camera.

And it comes with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity plus utilities for sharing images directly to Facebook or video clips to YouTube, as well as mailing the photos to your friends. You can also back up the captured photos to your SkyDrive account easily.

The Wi-Fi function also lets you automatically upload your photos to your smart phone and if your smart phone has NFC (near field communication) you can easily connect the camera. You need only to install Samsung Smart Camera app on your phone and run it and when you shoot photos. They’ll be sent wirelessly to your phone simultaneously.

You can also install Remote Viewfinder app on your phone and use it as for NX300, which can be mounted on a tripod for self-portraits.

NX300 is intuitive to operate thanks to its 3.31-inch AMOLED touch-screen display. Apart from using the five-way navigation key, you can simply touch the screen to bring up relevant menus for changing the settings. The camera comes with brief explanations of all the functions, so you know what you will get.

It is very good that the camera’s display can be tiled or flipped by 90 degrees and down 45 degrees. This allows you to easily frame and capture a low-angle image without having to awkwardly contort your body or lie on the ground. You can also hold the camera over a crowd for a high-angle shot and see exactly what you’re getting.

NX300 has fast auto focus as uses a hybrid AF system that combines Phase detection AF and contrast AF. Phase detection AF nearly instantaneously determines the distance of your subject, while contrast AF fine-tunes the focus for maximum contrast.

Its good performance is credited to Samsung’s next-generation DSP imaging engine, the DRIMe IV image processor. The fast autofocus and fast image processor help NX300 achieve about seven to eight frames per second in continuous shooting mode.

If you are an experienced photographer, you’ll enjoy controlling the exposure by using Manual Exposure, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Programme Exposure modes.

But a newcomer can get started easily with its Smart Auto mode in which the camera recognises surrounding conditions and automatically adjusts factors that contribute to exposure, including shutter speed, aperture value, metering, White Balance, and exposure compensation. The camera will automatically determine scene mode and select from 20 scenes to suit the current condition.

Our test found that the camera mostly correctly selected proper scene modes, including Landscape, Landscape with backlighting, Portraits with backlighting, and Close-up photos of objects.

But if you want to determine the shooting scenes yourself, you can use the Smart mode, which allows you to manually select from 16 scene modes. They include Beauty Face, Landscape, Macro, Action Freeze, Panorama, Waterfall, Silhouette, Sunset, Night, Light Trace, and Best Face.

The test in The Nation newsroom was done with the 18-55mm III OIS i-Function kit lens with f/3.5-5.6 aperture.

The lens is designed especially for NX system cameras because it provides a function button and adjusting ring that allows you to change various shooting parameters relevant to the current shooting mode without having to let go the lens to use the navigation buttons.

During the test, we were happy with several shooting modes of the Smart mode. Female staff members were especially happy with the Beauty Face mode that brightens and smoothes the face to make you look younger, with few if any facial imperfections.

And the Best Face mode is very useful for taking group photos to make everyone happy. NX300 will capture five shots consecutively. If one of your subject blinks or does not smile, you can touch his or her face and the NX300 will display five faces of the selected subject for you to select the best face for him or her. This can ensure that everyone in the photo will be smiling. It is nice cheating indeed.

I am happy that now Samsung provides a mode for shooting night-light without a tripod. Other brands call this mode handheld night mode or handheld twilight mode, but Samsung simply calls it Night mode for NX300. 

In Night mode, NX300 capture multiple photos in low-light conditions without using a flash and combines them to create a single sharp and colourful image.

But if you carry a small tripod around, you can also enjoy the Light Trade mode. You need to secure NX300 on a tripod and use this mode to capture a scene on a road at night and produce beautiful light traces from vehicles’ headlights and taillights.

We were impressed in the overall image quality especially when the light permits as the kit lens’ brightness starts from f/3.5, not f/2.8.

Our New Media Editor, Khun Veena Thoopkrajae, tested NX300 during her recent trip to South Korea and managed to capture a lot of sharp and beautiful photos with it. See her first impression with the camera in the accompanying story.

NX300 has very good performance. It can be ready for the first shot in less than a second after it’s turned on. It suffered no shutter lag and shot-to-shot time depends on the after-shot filter processing.

Samsung NX300 smart camera, available in brown, black and white, retails for Bt24,990.

 

 

      Key specs

_ Image sensor: 20.3MP 23.5 x 15.7mm CMOS

_ Lens mount: Samsung NX

_ Display: 3.31-inch MOLED with Touch (C-type Touch Control Enabled) and Tilt (Up 90°, Down 45°) in 768k dots

_ Focusing: F Point: 105points (Phase Detection AF), 247points (Contrast AF)

_ Metering: Multi, Centre-weighted, Spot

_ Speed: 1/6,000 seconds - 30 seconds

_ ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400, 12,800, 25,600 

_ Highest video recording: 1920x1080@60fps

_ Battery: 1,130mAh rechargeable

_ Dimension: 122.0 x 63.7 x 40.7mm (excluding the projection part)

_ Weight: 284g (without battery)