NX Mini vs the latest 1" cameras

armin304 wrote:

Kinger wrote:

parakalien wrote:

For the money that's a great deal on a great camera. The poster above is the only one I've seen that had a bad experience. The nx mini is a pretty great little camera.

The being said, the newest Sony models are very nice and have great video features like 4k video and super high frame rate (1000fps), but are quite expensive. If you are after the extra video features it may be worth it to you.

If you sift through these forums there are a number of failed 9-27 lenses, touch screen complaints, and lens flair issues on the 9mm with no easy solution. I've owned many, many cameras and this one is not a very good one. In the right conditions it can produce a good image, but it is not versatile. Trust me, I wanted to like it. The one redeeming thing about the mini is the 17mm stabilized lens if you can buy one at a decent price. I would not mess with the other lenses if someone where to buy the mini.

Don't know about the 9-27, this slow zoom didn't interest me at all. I have the NX Mini with the 9mm, the 17mm and the adapter for NX lenses.

The missing lenscap and hood of the 9mm mean, that you have to clean the frontlens before use, otherwise the smears on the lens will create really interesting flares, just as with the camera in my phone.

The stabilized 17mm f/1.8 is a real gem, but it was never cheap nor good available. Really sharp wide open and definitely not flare prone. It gets me a rather fast 50mm equivalent, which I like more than a fast wideangle lens, like in my Sony QX100 or its RX100 siblings.

Obviously, a RX100 will be smaller than the NX Mini with the 17mm or the zoom lens. But with the adapter and my 30mm f/2 I get a fast short tele lens, with the stabilized 60mm f/2.8 macro and the also stabilized 50-200mm f/4-5.6 I get a good reach into the tele range. Not to speeak of my even longer manual Nikkor 400mm f/3.5, which adapts nicely to any mirrorless ILC I own. For me, the NX Mini is very versatile...

But for someone not into NX, I think a RX100 Mk 1 may be a good and not too costly entry into the 1" range. The zoom lens is faster than the 9-27 of the Mini and brings good quality if I look at the pictures of my QX100. A QX100 may even be an alternative, the 5.5" screen of my smartphone is sometimes really nice, but it's rather clumsy and slow to operate.

LX100 I believe is better than the first Sony's, it feels better made and well thought, now with the LX15 and the (still waiting the announcent) LX200 it will go more down to price.

Also, the Nikon 1 series produces some very interesting camera and lenses, they go for cheap as well. If you want to adapt NX lenses, then mini is very interesting, especially with the pancakes (10/16/20/30/45), fir the zooms, seems rather silly, but then again, you can achieve astronomical reach (quite literally!) with a lens such the 50-200!

When I was decided between mini vs 3000, the extend reach was the biggest reason going mini, but as it is not my kind of style, I went for APS-C.