Beauty and the Beast with NX1 (and panorama try)

On Sunday's late afternoon hike by the lake, I heard a familiar song coming from nearby. With only the reach of the 50-150S, I dared not get closer to this red winged blackbird so as not to scare him away. But I was able to enjoy his song and capture this portrait in Nature:

Beauty

It will be nice when there is more available long glass from Samsung (a 150-400 f4 S would be nice).

Monday afternoon I was hiking up in the hills, watching from above as the turkey vultures, black vultures and hawks flew below across the valley. A total surprise was when a black vulture landed just 5 or 6 feet away from me. It looked at me so I said hello, and then it just scanned the scenery just like me. As I lifted my camera, it turned to see what I was doing and I caught this portrait:

The Beast

After trying to lean in closer for another take, it took off, but I was happy that I already had my shot.

While I was up there on my favorite perch, I also tried the NX1 panorama feature for the first time. The good news is that it is very easy to use. On my first try I panned steadily around a 190° arc. When noticing on the picture review that the right side didn't appear, I remembered that the manual said to pan beyond the end point. By placing the end point just left of the central pan screen in the second try, the result was now correct. I was initially impressed.

But now the bad news. I have created the same panorama before in different seasons, taking seven 24mm 12 megapixel images each time and stitching them together in MS ICE. Comparing the stitched panorama to the NX1 panorama, both equalized in dimension and clarity in post, was no contest. Individual trees and features are easily visible in the stitched images while the NX1 panorama basically produced mush. Maybe there are control settings I missed (the camera settings themselves were all at highest quality), but I don't remember seeing any. Therefore, so far, the NX1 panorama setting is nice to use in a pinch when you are not able to perform proper technique. But only in a pinch.

Thanks for looking and comments are welcome.

Ed