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Samsung 20mm f/2.8 Review

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viking79

viking79

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I wrote up a review for the 20mm f/2.8. It isn't totally complete yet, need to go shoot the sample shots this week.

http://erphotoreview.com/wordpress/?p=1937

Summarizing it here: it looks like a fairly nice lens, pretty typical for the class. Sharp wide open in the center, corners suffer a bit due to the distortion correction applied automatically in the camera. I am surprised Lightroom doesn't have profiles for this lens yet, but hopefully they add them soon.

I usually test with Sony NEX, but with the delays in my 7 for testing I found a good deal on an NX11 and some lenses. I had been kicking around buying one of these for over a year. I really like the controls on the NX, but I wish the manual focus aids were a bit better. The lens roadmap looks very promising too. I think I really like this body, hopefully the make an NX20 as well to sell alongside the NX200, as I love the viewfinder and larger grip.

Eric

--
I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object
be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it
beautiful. - John Constable (quote)

See my Blog at: http://www.erphotoreview.com/ (bi-weekly)
Flickr Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/ (updated daily)
 
A tip for MF on the AMOLED NX series: Look for a 'shimmer' you can see along the focal plane. It's most visible on speckled or grainy surfaces like pavement for example, but once you get good at looking for it, MF becomes a lot easier. I no longer use the zoom or FA (the latter is more useful of the two, I find).
 
sensibill said:
A tip for MF on the AMOLED NX series: Look for a 'shimmer' you can see along the focal plane. It's most visible on speckled or grainy surfaces like pavement for example, but once you get good at looking for it, MF becomes a lot easier. I no longer use the zoom or FA (the latter is more useful of the two, I find).
Click to expand...
What is FA? Focus assist? You mean you don't zoom in at all when you use MF?

And also, as far as the "shimmer" I see you keep mentioning in numerous posts, I can't seem to find what you're referring to on my NX10. When I look closely, I do see a sort of shimmer, but it's over the entire screen, and that's probably the whole deal about the NX10 only using half the screen resolution in live view.
 
jj74e said:
sensibill said:
A tip for MF on the AMOLED NX series: Look for a 'shimmer' you can see along the focal plane. It's most visible on speckled or grainy surfaces like pavement for example, but once you get good at looking for it, MF becomes a lot easier. I no longer use the zoom or FA (the latter is more useful of the two, I find).
Click to expand...
What is FA? Focus assist? You mean you don't zoom in at all when you use MF?

And also, as far as the "shimmer" I see you keep mentioning in numerous posts, I can't seem to find what you're referring to on my NX10. When I look closely, I do see a sort of shimmer, but it's over the entire screen, and that's probably the whole deal about the NX10 only using half the screen resolution in live view.
Click to expand...
I noticed it on my charts too. It works on some subjects. On my chart it was along the high contrast edges, a nice smooth straight edge developed waves, went from "---" to "~~~" (exagerated). The frequency of the waves became greater near the critical focus point. However, the AF beat my manual focus result every time, which is rare even on contrast detect lenses.

What I find difficult is when I need to focus in the corner. I have to do it on the full screen and don't get any help from the FA either (shows peak contrast in the form of a bar) as it kept taking me back to the center point. I will try again next time I use it. I ended up just using the LCD as it was (this was for the corner shots of the LED to check for Coma and purple fringing).

Eric

--
I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object
be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it
beautiful. - John Constable (quote)

See my Blog at: http://www.erphotoreview.com/ (bi-weekly)
Flickr Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/ (updated daily)
 
tufir said:
I think you are talking about the moire-pattern you can see on the oled when a high detailed object is in focus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern
Click to expand...
This is what I figured also, basically an aliasing artifact. That's rather easy to see on just about any digital camera when one shoots for example a monitor or other pixel display. When one sees moire, the focus is very close. However, my mathematics isn't good enough to say whether the focus is then very close or accurate. I suspect it differs so little if any from accurate focusing that it makes no difference.
 
e268 said:
viking79 said:
I wrote up a review for the 20mm f/2.8. It isn't totally complete yet, need to go shoot the sample shots this week.

http://erphotoreview.com/wordpress/?p=1937
Click to expand...
Thank you for the very nice review. Looking forward to your review of other NX lenses.
Click to expand...
Thanks!

Also, I added gallery shots last night. I am hosting them on Zenfolio since I have unlimited space there :) Originals are available for download from them.

Eric
--
I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object
be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it
beautiful. - John Constable (quote)

See my Blog at: http://www.erphotoreview.com/ (bi-weekly)
Flickr Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/ (updated daily)
 
Thanks for the review. I have the lens and like it very much and from real world experience I think your review is spot one. It is good that you mention flare resistance as imho this is an advantage of the pancake lenses compared to the zoom lenses.

I wonder whether lightroom is best choice for the Samsung cameras as in some countries the cameras come bundled from Samsung with Capture One, so maybe Capture One offers better support.

Thomas

--
http://nxaustria.blogspot.com/
 
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