Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Samsung NX Mini / 9mm f3.5 pancake








If it looks like it's raining light here, it is. Lens flare occurs since there's a scratch resistant coating (aids in flare) and no hood. It showed up in a few shots with the bright sun in the frame, which is to be expected.

Samsung NX Mini / 9mm f3.5 pancake

Took the mini out today while out and about. Just a few random pics. It's a hybrid between a Samsung pad/phone and a camera. Last week I was looking for a vent for our trailer and grabbed the nearest camera and took some shots. When I got to the dealer, I handed him the camera (it was a Pentax Mx-1) the dealer attempted to zoom the picture by pinching his fingers on the screen and wanted to flip between pictures. You can do that with the Pentax but you have to use arrows and buttons. He would have been right at home with the Mini, as that's how you zoom and scroll on the Samsung screen. It's a small, fun camera which takes decent pictures. A few of these are post processed and a few aren't (save a bit of cropping).





Friday, October 16, 2015

Samsung NX Mini / 9mm pancake / 24mm / Monochrome


Samsung NX Mini / 9mm f3.5 pancake lens / SOOC

Picked up a mini, used like new for a real good price. I like it. It's a real camera, in that it shoots manual, aperture priority, shutter priority, etc. It can bracket exposures, it can shoot RAW, it shoots macro, really really close automatically, it can blur the background (1 inch sensor), it has any and all settings a real camera has. It focuses quickly and accurately and its captures are plenty good enough for almost anything you need and it shoots at 20mp. Low light performance is good. This lens isn't image stabilized but I've shot it at low ISO with little or no blurring. But here's the thing, it's also a modern electronic device with bright touchscreen which flips up. I can focus and shoot with one touch anywhere on the screen. I change settings the same way. It's also small and seems well built. The lens is wide angle (24mm @ 35mm equivalent) and can include as much or more than your eye takes in to capture an entire scene without stepping back BUT it does macro so well and so automatically that you can get within a couple inches away of anything and shoot that too. So you can be really close then move back, getting a tight shot and then step back a bit more and capture it all. Really useful. Did I mention it's quick? It is. It removes frustration from the equation. You tilt the screen to suit your angle of view, touch what you want to focus on and bang, it's captured. You can program a button to shoot RAW on demand if you are worried about exposure or white balance. I think its auto white balance is seamlessly good. I will be shooting it more in the coming week or so but I walked around and popped off some shots for fun. 







This one shot I took two jpgs and merged them in Photoshop.
Flip the screen 180 degrees and it turns on. Aim and press the shutter and it focuses and counts down 3,2,1 and shoots. No, it can't improve your looks but maybe by version 3.0.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Pentax K-01 / DA 50mm f1.8 / Flowers




The final shot is actually from the 40mm f2.8 pancake, which, while very compact is not as nice a lens as the 35mm f2.4 or 50mm f1.8 but if you understand its limitations can provide decent shots