NX1100 in the Peak District

CMurdock wrote:

Detail. The crop above right shows relatively minor noise suppression in the darkest areas of the model's hair, as most individual strands of hair are well defined except in very low contrast areas. Overall, detail is very good for an APS-C sensor at base ISO, especially one with 20 megapixels of resolution. Excellent results here. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

I've just been looking at other photos from NX cameras. Some look good, but most have that watercolor effect, even at ISO 100.

Well, it looks like I bought the wrong camera. I bought it because the Imaging Resource tests indicated that it had excellent color accuracy. I guess I'll just use it for product shots, and I'll get something else for pleasure photography. How disappointing to have wasted my money.

Just been doing some further research on what was known about this and the watercolour effect is mentioned elsewhere in this forum and on other reviews of the NX1000 (which is almost identical to the NX1100 except for the software that was supplied with the camera).

In this review of the camera:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/samsung-nx1000/samsung-nx1000A5.HTM

The reviewer mentions about the watercolour effect....

"Detail. The crop above right shows relatively minor noise suppression in the darkest areas of the model's hair, as most individual strands of hair are well defined except in very low contrast areas. Overall, detail is very good for an APS-C sensor at base ISO, especially one with 20 megapixels of resolution. Excellent results here. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears."

And in reference to a photo of human hair....

"Subtle detail: Hair

Noise suppression tends to blur detail in areas of subtle contrast but the NX1000 does better than most here"

I would tend to agree with all these statements in that, while the effect is there, it is better than many other cameras.

I too am not prepared to pay lots for a camera, and despite the watercolour effect I find the output as good if not better than my Pentax K-30 and K-01 cameras.

I wish you well in finding the perfect camera at a very low price!